Nguyen Chi Thien

Nguyen Chi Thien, a Vietnamese poet, died on October 2nd, aged 73

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I'm not so sure of that. French colonization was pretty hard on the general Vietnamese population. And the '45 to late 50's war killied many mohe than HCM.


I am impressed with this article. For decades we had thousand pages to praise Ho Chi Minh to find out that is was nothing but a mass murderer, a puppet of the International Communist, a dictator, etc. Vietnam has many heroes, real heroes, and I wish to see an article about the young song writer -Viet Khang - who is in ail now.
Dong Tran


People seems to blame all the sorrow to communist. Can anybody read the colonial history over the world? Massacre is not a unique product of communist, apparently.

But hostility to different is no doubt the root of conflict. Good luck for the one sided belief.

guest-iaeolen in reply to Yourassisbig

For the Economist not to be one-sided (it happened that Nguyen Chi Thien died so there is an orbituary on its publication), could you suggest some signicant persons whose death that the Economist did not write or you did write but it did not publish about the persons that were persecuted, suffered, killed or massacred by the West in the recent past ?.

guest-iinelww in reply to guest-iaeolen

For starter, let me just stay with the Vietnam War. While the Economist hails activists who are critical of Communisim, people like Howard Zinn, who happened to be critical of U.S. government, were passed on silently. Nguyen Chi Thien was much less renowned and much further away from the center of U.S. attention than Howard Zinn, and yet one received an obituary and the other doesn’t. And this is by no means an isolated incident.
Yes my friend. It’s easier to point to the crimes of the other side—whether it’s Communism or Imperial U.S. –while neglecting ours.

guest-iaeolen in reply to guest-iinelww

Sorry, Howard Zinn was not persecuted, not put to jail, nor his publication was prohibited. In fact the reverse was true, he was a fine academic, an anti-war activist (like Noam Chomsky), and his books were read by a lot of people in US, and Australia (where I am living. This can not be said about Nguyen Chi Thien.

In fact if his orbituary was published in the Economist (BTW his orbituary was written in a number of newspapers in the US, and if i can remember in Time magazine) then it would be a bias against the other side (communist or "anti-imperialist") as it show that eventhough how much you are against the government in the West you are entitled to your view and live peacefully without any crime committed against you or put you to jail.

Sorry, you have to name different persons that were really persecuted, put to jail, or killed because of his view in the west aka of Nguyen Chi Thien. BTW, I like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky because of their courage and principle eventhough I do not agree with them most of the time.


This article was a piece of poetry itself. Thank you for this beautiful, inspiring tribute to Nguyen Chi Thien. I must read his poetry now.


Among the best and most moving obituaries for the great poet of our time Nguyen Chi Thien.

I would hope the Economist has another piece to explain why it takes so long for the seemingly intelligent people in the West - of the left-leaning self-proclaimed champions for social justice - to wake up to the nightmare of communism. The apologists for this inhumane system are still around, those who maintain their undignified silence in the face or mass murder and terror under the communists are numerous.

How do they sleep at night?


French occupation? More like a century of colonial repression.

Majong in reply to guest-ineomla

How can you fight VC for violating human right in Vietnam? Tell me how? You should ask Obama to use the 7th fleet or nuke to talk with Vietcong about human right.

My advice to you: tuck away carefully in deep a jungle of Canada, never appear in cities and especially never come back Vietnam.

Do you dream that one beautiful day you will come back with French army to get rid of Vietcong and "liberise Vietnam"?

I wish you a success with fighting Vietcong.

Nilgun Gokgur

I read religiously almost all obituaries but this one is just extra-ordinary. Congratulations for the great job. Thank you.

Michael Watson

Wonderful, simply wonderful! - and studded with "scintillating pearls" of poetry: "He would sup wine with him from amber cups...." that compliment while seeming to vie with those of the dead poet. Quite extraordinary!
Now to find a book of Chi Thien's verses.


Excellent, remarkable writing about a genius, strong-will, intelligent dissident poet of the century. Nguyen Chi Thien dared to attack right at leader Ho Chi Minh, architect of a horrible communist Maoist regime, full of terror, still lock up many intellectuals now. People of Vietnam and many Communist nations should admire, appreciate this great poet, for his 700 poems reflecting the love of Freedom, Truth, Justice, Peace for mankind. in USA, he gave numerous great speeches, to support freedom and democracy of Vietnam.A truly great man. Thank to the Economist for excellent thoughtful writing! The best!


Hardship seems to produce some of the best literature. Soviet literature from such writers as Solzhenitsyn, Bulgakov, Dombrovsky and many others. Nineteenth century industrial revolution by the likes of Zola and Balzac in France and Dostoyevsky in Russia. There are many more, but the myriad suffering expressed in these works has always been touching to me.


How extraordinary that we are so quick to condemn the actions of the other side but failed to do that to our own. As I am writing these words people around the world are suffering from both the crimes of the United States and Communists. A search on the Economist however indicates only the latter’s. Now I will grant that 2 wrongs don't make a right: the mere fact that crimes are committed by both sides doesn’t exonerate either one. But one ought to question how much authority a news outlet has on a given subject if it only presents information in favor of one side whilst ignoring gross violation of the other. How much authority does the Economist have in lecturing about past human rights abuses—done by the Communist—while disregarding present ones—done by the United States? How am I supposed to convince myself that the Economist—by reporting the crimes of one side and not the other—is not simply being self-serving? After all, its readership is primarily Westerners, and Westerners, being human, tend not to like to read publication about their own crimes.

Yourassisbig in reply to guest-iinelww

I see the world only through my eye and senses. You see the world only through yours. Through our feeling and information, we get experience. Through experience, we understand the reality around us.
Since we all situated differently, we all limited by our positional reality. Our mind are designed to justify our own positional reality, that's because we as human need to protect our self or self-interest.
Most of our action are driven by self-interest. All we need to ask is "what benefit me"??? All else is just finding of excuses...

guest-iinelww in reply to Yourassisbig

My friend I will take the audacity to point out a problem in your reply: most of us don't consider, or perhaps don't want to think of, ourselves as being driven primarily by self-interest. We value objectivity and that, to some extent, we think it can be achieved by transcending—not ignoring—our experience. We tend to give greater weight to arguments that address both sides; we frown at those that present only one. To conclude that because all statements are colored by the speakers’ experience they are therefore equally limited is to invalidate all of humanity’s attempts at objectivity.
Now in trying to be objective, we find that certain principles, if obeyed, tend to give us a better shot at the truth. One of such principles is to scrutinizing argument from both sides. Flat-earth-theory would have still dominated our discourse had we refused to apply this principle. Realizing its effectiveness, we have embedded variations of this code into our collective experience, our judiciary, our educational system, etc.
Drawing ideas of the preceding paragraphs, I reiterate my skepticism at the authority of the Economist when it publishes one-sidedly, but I don’t think that it’s impossible to do so. And certainly I would have taken this matter more seriously had the publication tried to aspire to this principle.
~Forgive my lengthy remarks~

Yourassisbig in reply to guest-iinelww

Absolutely, the tyranny of authority is propaganda. I agree with your discourse principle is the best way so far in human history to establish truth. However, today's media such as Economist is so one sided.

In fact, i don't see any difference in USA to other country that try to paint their own propaganda.

The point is, as human being, we all have our agenda. The problem with the flat-earth, Galileo Galilei prosecution, is the authority try to impose their "Justice" to the whole world to achieve their agenda.

One of the most important enlightenment is the individual sovereignty as a person. But today, we still have this problem on imposing our own justice on others. When we start to be the Judge and Police, we are doing the job of "God".

Human condition did not change, but our ideas evolved.
However, i still think human condition plays a much bigger force in human history. Ideals and Ideas are elusive.

We need to be very cautious about one sided media.

Yourassisbig in reply to guest-iinelww

Also, i do think some of the fundamental difference will always be our roots of human conflicts. No body can harmonize those difference. (such as values, beliefs, principles...)

More we see the difference, more we focus on conflicts.

There are only two ways to deal with the situation:
1. conquer the difference through physical force. (Root of War through out history)
2. focus on the similarity and undermine the difference (No.2=that's how we govern today, with so many ethnic groups.)

The fact that the we emphasis difference can only turn the world more hostile.

(of Course, inequality is part of the cause for difference.)

guest-iaeolen in reply to Yourassisbig

Your approach to the world is on the wrong path and this path was shown in history to cause untold miseries and suffering. Your approach encourages dictatorship, tyranship.
No, you should not try to eliminate difference, "conquer the difference". We should encourage different viewpoints, celebrate differences as we do now in many democratic countries NOT as you said "focus on the similarity" and "undermine the difference" which are the way and approach of communism and fascism.
Sorry, you are too naive at best and an idealogue at worst and has not much experiences in the real world.

Yourassisbig in reply to guest-iaeolen

I think you need to go to high school and learn how to read.
You cited two phrase of my opinion. However, if you read my whole opinion, then you won't come up with a simple conclusion of a dictatorship approach. I had not take side with any political system.

First, i said "undermine the fundamental difference", not undermine all difference.

So what is fundamental difference?
For example: In this article, Communism vs Democratic
Accept it or not, that's been the root of conflict between nations.

Secondly, i am not advocating communism nor democracy in my opinion. I simply point out that we don't have to take position in this world, and bash other's value and beliefs. This article is one sided, and stimulate conflict by using common value in the west.

Thirdly, you already took the position against communism. See "approach of communism". You are just as ignorance as any communist. You took position in conflict because your are self-righteous.
In America, everybody has the right to decide how to govern themselves as individual. Gay, lesbian..

The last thing we want is to discriminate individual because what they believe or valued, and being different.

guest-iaeolen in reply to Yourassisbig

You are self contradictory. You said in the end that we should respect the difference of viewpoints and belief (political, religious...) but you stand aside when others (communism, fascism..) deny or suppress this universal value or principle. I take the position of standing against those who deny these rights of people. You come in and pontificate of what people should do. There are always some universal values that applied to humankind, and yes people who believe in this is right. You call these people self-rightous and aren't you ?


An incredibly poignant obituary, so finely written that it does justice to a poet even as great as Nguyen Chi Then


That was an amazing piece of writing. Wow! Thank you. I will be sure and read Mr Nguyen's works. This obit must have been written by a fan - is is inspired.



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