Unlike Japan, there is not such a thing as separation of Religion and Politics
in Vietnam, guaranteed by the Constitution or by law. The absolute power
of the Communist Party and the State is strongly exerted even for tasks
substantially religious, like the ordination of priests and the nominations
of bishops, just to name a concrete example from Catholicism, one of the
flourishing religions in Vietnam.
The Vietnamese political system is organized at three levels, the Communist
Party, the State Administration and the National Legislature. The Communist
Party is at the top with its political Bureau and its General Secretariate.
The Central Committee is its main organization, under which all local committees
constituted by Party members are located. Both, the Bureau and the General
Secretariate, with the Central Committee control and guide the National
Parliament (Legislature) and the Cabinet (the Administration). Down to
the village levels there are people's committees and popular assemblies,
all closely linked to the Party members' committees. Occasional elections
taking place are all to be understood within such a political structure.
The Communist Party Congresses, held once every 5 years, give the orientation
to the national political programs and to foreign diplomatic policies.
One of the characteristics of the Vietnamese Communist Party is to rule
by consensus, but the opposite stands of the liberals and the conservatives
surfaced again at the last 8th Congress. this year. The strong conservative
faction is composed of the Party theoreticians, the military and the security
police. The liberals are the economic reformists and the intellectuals.
The “doi moi” economic reforms accepted 10 years ago at the 6th
Party Congress, and consolidated at the following Congress 5 years later,
were also basically taken at the last Congress in 1996. Nevertheless the
confrontation between the reformists and the conservatives has strongly
come into the open this year, and the wide influence of the conservatives
is strongly felt in Vietnam these days. Analysts believe that it will take
about two years before a balance of both views consolidates again. In the
mean time, arrests and harassment of “influential” people will
continue.
Catholic Religious leaders and establishments are these days the targets
of such harassment. Of course, the reason is that they are considered not
to be following the directives of the Communist Party. Recent visitors
to Vietnam, myself included, can notice how flourishing the religious activities
of Catholics all over Vietnam are. especially in the Southern regions.
The vitality of Christians is shown in their mass attendance at Church.
Saturdays and Sundays the churches are overflowing with people who actively
participate in the religious ceremonies. Even daily masses very early in
the morning are often full of people. Church people told me that there
was an average of 100 baptisms per church in HCM city last year. Ho Chi
Minh city has about 170 churches. This is in spite of a great lack of priests.
Many lay persons have been trained as catechists. Christians are increasingly
becoming active also in providing social services to the sick, to street
children, to the illiterate and to many children unable to receive proper
education. There is no doubt that nowadays in Vietnam, churches are the
places which constantly gather large groups of people. This fact makes
them more vulnerable to the government's control.
(Ando)