The Nationalist Movement in Indo-China
Social Science Ten
Everyday Resistance
Hygiene, Disease and Everyday Resistance
Apart from education, many other aspects became the causes of resistance by Vietnamese with French.
Plague Strikes Hanoi
French rebuilt Hanoi as modern city with latest ideas of architecture and engineering skill. The city was built as a beautiful and clean city with wide avenues and a well led out sewer system, while the native quarter was not provided with any modern facilities.
In 1903 the modern part of Hanoi where French lived, struck by bubonic plague. Similar to other colonies, in Vietnam also measures to control the spread of plague created serious conflict.
The refuse from the old city drains out into the river. During rainy season and flood situation drains overflowed into the streets in old city. Broad drains in modern part of the city of Hanoi were proved as the ideal and protected ground of breeding for rats. Sewers served as a great transport system and rats were allowed to move around the city through them without any hindrance. Rats easily could enter to the modern houses made for French through sewage pipes.
The Rat Hunt
To stop plague it was necessary to kill rats so French started a rat hunt in 1902. Vietnamese workers were hired to catch rats. They were paid per rat they caught. Workers have only to produce tail of rats as proof, for which they were paid.
Rat hunt seemed to provide an early lesson in the success of bargaining to Vietnamese. Those who did dirty work to enter into sewers found that if they came together they could bargain higher bounty for rat hunts. They started catching rats and let them free after clipping tails only so that the process could be repeated. Some started raising rats to earn bounty.
French found that instead of killing of thousands of rats plague was not prevented. Finally, after defeated by resistance of the weak; French forced to stop the bounty program for rat hunt.
The rat menace marks the limits of French power and the contradictions in their civilizing mission. And the actions of the rat catchers tell about the numerous small ways in which colonialism was fought in everyday of life.
Religion and Anti colonialism
Vietnamese belief was of variety of syncretic traditions that combined Budhhism, Chinese, Confucianism and local beliefs. Along with these there were many popular religions in Vietnam that were spread by people who claimed to have seen a vision of God.
Colonialism was trying to dominate in all aspects of private and public life. Where French occupied Vietnam by military power; on the other hand they sought to reshape the social and cultural life also. While religion was one of the weapons in strengthening colonial control, on the other hand it provided ways of resistance for Vietnamese. From eighteenth century, many religious movements were hostile to the Western presence.
Catholic missionaries had been active in winning converts since the early seventeenth century and by the middle of eighteenth century had converted some 300,000.
Scholars Revolt
In 1868 a revolt against the spread of Christianity and French control took place. This revolt was led by officials at the imperial court angered by the spread of Catholicism and French power. This revolt is known as Scholars Revolt.
In the provinces of Ngu An and Ha Tien over a thousand Catholic were killed in this Scholar Revolt. The French crushed the movement but this uprising served as inspiration to other patriots to rise up against them.
Hoa Hao Movement
Huynh Phu was the founder of Hoa Hao. Hoa Hao movement started in 1939 and gained great popularity in the fertile Mekong delta areas. This movement drew on religious ideas popular in anti French uprisings of the nineteenth century.
Huynh Phu criticized against useless expenditure had a wide appeal. He helped the poor and opposed the sale of child brides, gambling and the use of alcohol and opium.
The French declared Huyun Phu mad to suppress the movement and called him Mad Bonze and put him in a metal asylum. But, the doctor who had to prove Huyun Phu mad and insane became his follower and finally in 1941, and even the French doctor also declared as sane. The French authority exiled him to Laos and sent many of his followers to concentration camps.
Such movements always had a contradictory relationship with mainstream nationalism as political parties neither support nor completely denied them.
Yet such religious and other movements were continued in arousing anti imperialism sentiments.
The Vision of Modernization
French colonialism was facing confrontation and resistance at different levels in various forms. Vietnamese had also many questions regarding modernisation and nationalism. There were different types of arguments prevalent regarding those things. Some thought that they had to resist colonialism by keeping their culture intact while some thought that they had to resist colonialism with learning from West.
In the late nineteenth century, resistance to French domination was very often led by Confucian Scholar activists, who saw their world crumbling.
Duy Tan Hoi: A Revolutionary Society
Phan Boi Chau was one of nationalist and became a major figure in the anti colonial resistance. He was educated in Confucian tradition. He formed the Revolutionary society called Duy Tan Hoi in 1903 with Prince Cuong De as the head.
Phan Boi met the Chinese reformer Liang Qichao in Yokohama in 1905. Under the influence and advice of Liang Qichao, Phan Boi wrote an influential book, 'The History of the Loss of Vietnam'. This book read widely and became bestseller in Vietnam and China. This book became so famous that it was made into play. The main theme of the book was the loss of sovereignty and the severing of ties with China. Ties that bound the elites of two countries within shared culture.
Phan Chu Trinh (1871 - 1926)
Phan Chu Trinh was other nationalist who intensely hostile to the monarchy and opposed to the idea of resisting the French with the help of the court. Phan Chu had completely different view with Phan Boi Chau.
He sought to establish a democratic republic and did not want to reject the Western civilization completely. He accepted the French revolutionary ideal of liberty but charged the French for not abiding by the ideal. He demanded setting up of legal and educational institutions, and developing agriculture industries by French.
Other Ways of Becoming Modern: Japan and China
Japan had modernized itself and resisted colonization by West. In 1904 Japan proved its military capabilities by victory over Russia.
In 1911 the long established monarchy in China was overthrown by a popular movement under Yat-sen and Republic was set up.
These development inspired revolutionist and Japan and China became the symbol of model for those looking for change especially in Vietnamese at that time.
Go East Movement
To go to east, (east was Japan) was called Go East Movement. In 1907 to 1908 about 300 Vietnamese students went to Japan to acquire modern education. To drive out the French from Vietnam and to overthrow the puppet emperor and re establish the Nguyen dynasty that had been deposed by French was the main objective of many of the students went to Japan.
Vietnamese students established a branch of the Restoration Society in Tokyo. But after 1908, many including Phan Boi Chau, were deported and forced to seek exile in China and Thailand by Japanese Government.
Now the Nature of the anti French independence movement changed. The objective now became to set up a democratic republic rather than a constitutional monarchy. And soon the anti-imperialist movement in Vietnam came under a new type of leadership.
The Communist Movement and Vietnamese Nationalism
The Great Depression
The impact of The Great Depression in 1930 has a profound impact on Vietnam. At that time the prices of rubber and rice fell resulting in rising rural debts, unemployment and rural uprising. The provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh were badly affected at that time which were among the poorest and had an old radical traditions. These provinces were called the 'Electrical Fuses of Vietnam' as they first to blow when the system was under pressure.
The French put these uprising down with great severity, even using planes to bomb demonstrators.
Ho Chi Minh brought competing nationalist groups together and established the Vietnamese Communist (Vietnam Cong San Dang) Party. The name of this party became Indo-Chinese Communist Party later. Ho Chi Minh was inspired by the militant demonstrations of European Communist parties.