Vietnam: the Unheard Voices - Refugee Educators' Network

1 9 Viet Nan-The U-nhemd Voices
Bitterly frustrated, those of us working in the provinces would
search for scapegrmis, and it was usually the burcaucrm in the
SQigon ministries whom wc blamed. Grtainly we kncw that all
bureaucracies are cumbersome, slow, and full of red tapc, and that
of the American Mission in Saigon was no exception. Yet the one
the French bequeathed to thc Viernamesc was especially slow-
When corruption and the reluctance of petty administrators to
make decisions wcre added to this, it was perhaps no wonder that
nothig happened. It'c were even more frusuatcd, in fact, when we
c~casinnally mct somc of our smpegoats in Sgon and found that
thev were nice people. Politely and patiently, they would look up
from their piles of ppers and dossiers to assist us. Yet it seldom did
any good to appeal to thm. Either they knew nothing of the problem,
or c h they indicated that the province or district had not sent
in the necessary papem. Sometima they sugprd that the crucial
file must have been delayed somewhere eIsc along the line, perhaps
in onc of the piles on one of tht desks of one of the other friendlv
and patienr bureaucrats. Thcir job was not a particularly pleasant
one., though many of them had given Iarge bribes for the privilege
of working in Saigon. \%'hen told that rural xvorkcrs had not been
paid for months, their response \\-as invariably, "I'm sorry, but we
don't havc the necessar). papcrs hcrc." It aften seemed as though
every slight transaction required ten carbon copies, each of which
had to be stamped at 1-t once and oftcn twice or three times, and
then Iaboriody signed and countersigned in somc unreadable signa-
Nra
If the bureaucrats did not xcm as concerned about the problems
in the field as kt-e thought they shr~uld have hcen, they al~tta~s said it
was not rheir fault. After all, they too had problems, many of
which, in the final analysis, concerned the largcr political context.
And so it mas that wTc were led into a vicious circle where nobod\.
\\.as at fadt more than anvane clse. The wholc nasty situation, it
seemed, was to blame. And that was the problem of Viet Nam.