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21. Jun 2023
How Just is the Just Energy Transition Partnership in Vietnam?
energy, environment, InFocus, Vietnam
In the middle of May, a sigh of relief went through the Vietnamese environmental civil society community. Nguy Thi Khanh announced on her Facebook page that she was home with family. Khanh, one of the best-known advocates for renewable energy in Vietnam, had been arrested in the beginning of 2022 for tax evasion. Before that, she was the director of the local NGO GreenID, the first Vietnamese to win the Goldman Environmental prize and her input on the energy transition was valued inside and outside Vietnam. Her arrest was a surprise to civil society actors.
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13. Sep 2022
Bernard Fall: A Soldier of War in Europe, A Scholar of War in Asia
InFocus, Vietnam
Over the last fifty years, a lack of analysis on Bernard B. Fall (1926-1967) and his scholarship has been a significant gap in the historiography on the First Indochina War (1946-1954) and the Second Indochina War (1955-1975). Since the Vietnam War ended, the failure to recognize how military force cannot compensate for the lack of a politically attainable goal remains prevalent. As Fall once remarked, “A U.S. Marine can fly a helicopter better than anyone else, but he cannot give a Vietnamese farmer an ideology to believe in.” In much the same way, a Russian pilot will not be able to convince Ukrainians that political reconciliation is possible. Rather, Russia’s unprovoked invasion has made its political legitimacy impossible to maintain – even through far-reaching propaganda – with every passing day that Russia continues to destroy the Ukrainian people and their country.
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