Question

Explain how school in Vietnam became an important place for political and cultural battels

Answer 1

The French had sought to consolidate their hold over Vietnam through the control of education and dissemination of their politically motivated propaganda. They sought to control the values, norms and perceptions of the Vietnamese people, to make them accept the supposed superiority of French civilisation and the inferiority of their own. The emerging class of educated Vietnamese, however, realised that giving in to such a skewed view of history and culture would do incalculable harm to the collective psyche and self image of their countrymen. As a result, they fought against such a view. The teachers and students in the schools opened by the French refused to accept the official rhetoric blindly. Sometimes they opposed openly, like in the case of the Saigon Native Girls School, and sometimes there was silent resistance. The Vietnamese teachers refused to toe the official line. They quietly modified the curriculum and criticised what was stated. This encouraged students to rise up in protest despite opposition from the colonial government and the traditional elite. They formed political parties like the young Annan and published nationalist journals such as the ‘Annanese Student’. As a result, schools gradually became the epicenter of political and cultural struggles in Vietnam