From Nora Fakim…

I visited Vietnam last year and was amazed how some parts of the country still had a French ‘touche’ to it even though the French language was dying out amongst the Vietnamese people.

My biggest surprise was when I came across the Notre Dame Cathedral in Hoi Chi Min City. It looked completely different to the original one in Paris but it still had the French architectural design to it. Another French influence in this busy city was the Hotel de Ville which I yet again visited in Paris.

It seemed that the French definitely made their mark when entering the country in the 19th century. According to English Teacher Lucy Spars who teaches at a private English school in Hoi Chi Min, ‘the French had a great influence in Vietnam in different aspects including; culture, religion, ethics, economy, politics and government and nationalistic aspirations of the Vietnamese.’

Edward Terry writer for the genocides website believes that the greatest influence in Vietnam was that of religion which was initiated by the French.

For example up until the year 1841, the Société des Missions Étrangeres reported that 450000 Vietnamese had had their religion converted to Christianity. This figure according to some sources is not one-hundred percent reliable and in the process, they might have killed twice as many.

Later in the French occupation the Nguyen government set out to eradicate French missionaries from the country. During the 25 years following the commencement of this government’s rule, 95 missionaries were executed. Notwithstanding all this, Vietnamese society had been permanently changed. This influence is so great that today, Catholicism is the second most practiced religion.

Vietnamese script does not, however, use only 26 letters without accents (as in English), but a whole variety of accents. Almost no Vietnamese words were actually influenced by French. To the untrained ear, Vietnamese would sound exactly like Chinese. Language influence is also exemplified in the fact that many educated Vietnamese can speak French.

In the textbook Contested Spaces by Thomas Cantwell, French colonialism had a negative influence on Vietnamese society but others believe that Vietnam and other former French colonial countries has its modern aspects due to the French.

It seems that colonialism has two sides to it. People have different views on it in the sense whether or not it was beneficial to the colonized people but according to some intellectuals such as the late Aime Cesaire who was the author of Colonial Discourse in The French Caribbean, he wrote,  ‘ The colonized people learnt a new language but their rights as their own people was ruled by somebody else.’

The French left Vietnam in 1954 and the ideas of the people slowly were changing such as the notion of the French language and the re-establishment of the Vietnamese identity.

However one aspect which I have noticed since the decolonisation period and my visit to Vietnam is that the country is slowly rebuilding itself and positive things have come out of this exotic place since independence.

For instance when I was over there the breakfasts had a fusion of French and Vietnamese ingredients which gave the food a unique taste and texture. Also the sites mentioned earlier which had this French influence but the people are still Vietnamese and have their Vietnamese culture which was not expressed during colonialism.

Therefore a mix of two cultures can work together but it goes wrong when one side chooses to have a greater domination over the other like in some businesses where the relationships between partners is determined between the genuine ones and the crooks.

‘At the end of the day nobody wants to be colonised but negative experiences can help rebuild somebody in many ways,’ says Morad Yelles, lecturer in African idenity.