Give us Facebook or Give us Death

Hey, remember Vietnam? That precocious little country in southeast Asia that embarrassed our military efforts forty years ago? It'd be understandable if you'd forgotten. As a nation, we have a very selective memory about our history, so naturally we'd want to block out the trauma of our mistakes. But when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a visit to the country last week, one may have been compelled to explore what her intentions could be. Did Hillary Clinton awake with a start in the middle of the night, suddenly remembering Vietnam as if it were an oven or a iron left on? Was she overwhelmed with the urge to repair a relationship that has only ostensibly been mended in recent years with passive politics? Perhaps she was overcome with a rush of guilt from the long list of atrocities committed there by American hands. Perhaps she was electrified with the conviction to fully alleviate the effects of Agent Orange, the detrimental defoliant employed by the US that caused physical mutation and birth defects in thousands of Vietnamese citizens. Perhaps she sensed the stirring souls of the twenty political dissidents that have been jailed in the country since October of 2009. Perhaps she felt inspired towards outlining an economic plan that might assist Vietnam in blooming as the middle-class company it has strived to become (prior to the past couple years, the entire nation's per capita income was a mere $726). After all it was her husband, Bill Clinton, who in 1994 made the first friendly gesture in decades by lifting the American trade embargo, who in 1995 established diplomatic relations, and in 2000 visited the country to discuss economic aid commitments and pierce the long-standing silence that had prevailed since the war. Perhaps Hillary felt the need to revive the mission of her husband's efforts with a new visit, one that might establish an international friendship and conjure up benefits for the destitute country.

But no. While the Secretary of State may have made a few wistful remarks about the detrimental defoliant Agent Orange, tossed a few words towards the three democracy activists that were imprisoned there in January, and mentioned the violent religious climate, these were all petty issues compared to her true reason for visiting.

And that reason? Human rights. Or, um, what are now considered human rights. You know, in the modern world.

Two weeks ago, nineteen members of congress wrote to Clinton about the dire abomination towards human rights that was being perpetrated in Vietnam. And exactly what intolerable injustice could have amplified such an awareness within congress? Vietnam's banning of the online social network site, Facebook. I know, I know. It's enough to send shivers down the spine of every living, breathing human being with half a heart.

One can imagine the scene that unfolded as the Secretary of State first stepped foot on Vietnamese soil, surely to a roar of cheers from the native villagers who were finally now being graced with a beam of light in their dark, facebook-less lives. No longer would these people be oppressed with the absence of status updates, of wall comments, of poking, friending, and profile picture cropping. One might wonder how these people managed to survive until this point in time. Without facebook, how could they have kept in touch with their friends from grammar school? How could their relationships have held any reality without the security of facebook's relationship confirmation option and its accompanying little pink heart? As Clinton entered Hanoi, her soul was surely filled with a profound surge of righteousness at the sight of every Vietnamese preteen face that has been scarred with the malnourishment of social networking. Scattered about the streets of Hanoi are desperate young men and women, doomed to despondence as they hunch over their Macbook Pros and wonder when the world might save them from the oppressive grip of their overreaching government.

Well, let's not get too proud of our Secretary of State and her crusade for the liberation of every laptop-toting Vietnamese villager. After all, even with the nation's per capita income having climbed to $1,052 in 2009, for the average citizen to collect the money necessary to buy a computer would necessitate a year's worth of starvation. Sure, in Ho Chi Minh City, one of the country's major cities, you can find a broadband connection that would send you surfing through the internet just as fast as you would back in the states. You can find touch-screen savvy students, gadget-filled electronic stores, and the latest in the computer world's technological advancements. But when the nation's entire per capita income was $726 in 2008, the per capita income of Ho Chi Minh City was more than double that amount, $1800. The disparity between the quality of life in its major cities and in its countryside is staggering. If Hillary Clinton is visiting Vietnam in the name of human rights, why then would her mission serve only to benefit the wealthy? I don't necessarily care if our government wants to get riled up over Vietnam's facebook ban, but it truly disturbs me that our secretary of state believes she is acting in the name of human rights. The purpose of Clinton's visit is to grant the rich their "rights", not their people at large. The fact that the word "facebook" and the term "human rights" could ever have appeared within the same newspaper article is a testament to the ever-more amazing heights of American ignorance and self-illusion.

On the painfully ironic side, when Clinton visited China as the secretary of state, she made no mention of the actual human rights issues that have been boiling up within and around the country for some time. Appropriately enough, while Clinton was championing for the freedom of facebook, an organization called the Human Rights Watch released a disturbingly detailed report on China's violent suppression of the Tibetan protests of 2008. Apparently the paramilitary branch of the Chinese government that oversees domestic security, the People's Armed Police, answered the monks' peaceful protests with a bloodthirsty rampage across the Tibetan plateau in western China. Aside from three separate instances in which the police were said to have open fire indiscriminately on the crowds, they were reported to have also used batons and clubs to bludgeon the unarmed Tibetans to death. Aside from monks and holymen, the crowds were comprised of women, teenagers, and nuns, but none received mercy from the Chinese policemen's brutality. The ruthless retaliation of the People's Armed Police represents the truly horrific nature of what a government --what humans-- are capable of. And yet, when Clinton visited China, she managed to tip-toe around the subject with all the grace and poise of a Russian ballerina.

But what was one of her reasons for visiting Vietnam? Besides facebook? Speaking out for religious freedom.

In 2007, when China pressured foreign oil companies to abandon their ambitions in the Vietnamese territory of the South China Sea, ExxonMobil, a US-based firm, buckled and withdrew from an agreement that would have given Vietnam unprecedented economic gain. ExxonMobil terminated its exploration plans with PetroVietnam after China warned the company that any business with Vietnam would cost them any future business with China.

A mere year ago, China arrested and detained two dozen Vietnamese fisherman for several weeks in an effort to enforce the unilateral fishing ban they hoped to impose upon the South China Sea.

But hey, who cares about a couple of hard-working Vietnamese fishermen looking to provide food and shelter for their families in a hostile economic climate? The people don't have facebook! Sure, China has exploited its position as Vietnam's largest trading partner and held the country in an economic stranglehold for the past thirty years. But hey, China's not the issue here. Facebook is. And China's been friends with us on facebook for years.

And so we come to the heart of the matter.

You see, the US sent a friend request to Vietnam that has been left pending for waaay too long. We even poked them a couple times! The Vietnamese just don't understand. Here in America, the first thing you do when you meet someone is friend them on facebook. Then the friendship really begins. Sure, you could seem them around at a party or two, but it's not official if it's not on facebook. Vietnam, how are we supposed to know when you're being economically oppressed by China if you're not writing about it in status updates? And if you won't be friends with us on facebook, how can we tell you even want to be friends at all? Letting our friend request pend for so long sure doesn't send the right message. But I suppose it's a matter of cultural etiquette. In the US, facebook is the springboard for friendship. Listen Vietnam, friend us on facebook, and we'll go from there. Who knows, maybe after that, we'll invite you to become a permanent member of this cool facebook group we've got going with everyone called the UN.

Is the Vietnamese government's internet censorship a problem? Yes, but it's a matter of freedom of speech, not facebook. Two Vietnamese journalists in the past 18 months have been arrested and convicted for their investigative work on the corrupt practices of the Vietnamese government. Editors and writers at Vietnam's top newspapers have been fired for sticking their noses in high places. And yes, several internet bloggers have recently been imprisoned for posting about hierarchal evils and even for simply protesting China's actions on the waters.

But try as you may, oh 19 members of congress, you cannot reasonably portray facebook as being a medium for free speech. Sure, the ban on facebook is a deliberate message of disrespect to the people. And yes, it does reflect the government's attitude at large, which imperatively needs to be addressed. But beyond your desire for advertising opportunities, and your dream of seeing American influence further extended, I don't believe you give a shit about these people, Mr. Congressman.

But then again, why should we? We're not even friends with them on facebook.

In related news, Indonesia is currently attempting to block all internet porn sites within the country for the Muslim holy month, Ramadan.

Get out your pens, congressmen.

-Little Brother, Big Mouth-