Candidly Speaking - 01/03/22

I stand with Ukraine

To the surprise of everyone and no one, Vladimir Putin invaded the sovereign nation of Ukraine. The same man invaded Georgia in 2008, and annexed Crimea in 2014, has engaged in a war that some call reckless, but others predictable. I am no foreign policy expert, but I have a keen interest in the matter.

I grew up in Hanoi, Vietnam, where our news diet is basically fulfilled by the State-run media, VTV. I remember watching a bulletin on the evening news showing the people of Crimea cheering for the annexation process. There are many bookstores in Hanoi selling hagiographies of Putin and his one-time Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev. I read a story in The Economist about how Vietnam was buying Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V in bulk, and how my country abstained from the UN vote to condemn Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

So it is one authoritarian regime’s fondness for another. But what seems to be the appeal of authoritarians to citizens and talking heads of the free world? Tucker Carlson of Fox News is smitten with Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn goes out of his way to defend Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and the world’s least charming action hero Steven Seagal has taken up the position of “Putin’s finest ass-kisser”. They are no more brilliant than that fine American muckraker, Lincoln Steffens, who upon returning to America from the Soviet Union, proclaimed: “I’ve seen the future, and it works.” The 21st-century equivalent must be Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times columnist who in 2009 wrote with gushing admiration of Communist China:

“One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.”

Anne Applebaum’s book “Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism” should serve as a good explanation. But for me, someone who's developed a bitter hatred for authoritarian rule, having lived under one, I think it is our human weakness to be taken in by charismatic leaders who promise to “get things done.” Carlson, Penn and Friedman are just prominent examples of useful idiots, or just plain idiots, who longs for someone of fewer moral scruples to execute their vision of a “just society.”

Similarly, one understands why Vietnamese, and Vietnamese Americans, would admire Putin and support Donald Trump. Vietnam as a country was founded by Marxist revolutionaries, and to this day is ruled by the Communist Party. Many Vietnamese view democracy as a process of endless debating and political campaigning, where nothing gets done and everyone seems unhappy. But many Vietnamese are afraid to publicly criticize their ruling party, opting instead to complain at the dinner table about “government corruption” while the State-run News program plays in the background. I spent my childhood and teenage years observing this familiar scene, and I just thought: “What is to be done about it?” The answer, as my father would repeatedly, and with a touch of solemnness, explain to me, is: “Not much.”

Authoritarians are, by nature, collectivists. They fashion themselves as individual übermenschen, but they always appeal to the people. You may ask yourself: “Who, exactly, are the people?”. The answer is: you hope that it includes you, and exclude those you dislike. The most charismatic autocrats are those who can make that distinction clear. Whether it is “the immigrants”, “the elites”, “the 1%”, “the mainstream media”, power-hungry demagogues fulfill their ambitions by identify groups to dislike, then assure us that you are not one of them. You are the people, and it is an act of treason to go against the people. Putin’s certainly not the first to use this, and he certainly won’t be the last.

Please excuse me for getting all political on this one - these are the thoughts circling my mind as Eastern Europe collapses once again into war. My heart goes out to the brave Ukranians defending their national sovereignty, and I am glad the free world is unanimously condemning Putin’s naked aggression. I hope that my fellow countrymen would see Vladimir Putin for the ruthless autocrat that he truly is, and I hope he is successfully deterred, even for only a few years.