Women in Resistance

Speaking of Vietnam (see previous entry), i’ve just finished reading Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram. Dr. Thuy grew up and went to medical school in Hanoi, North Vietnam in the 1960s. She was intensely committed to supporting the revolution in the South, eventual reunification of her country, and standing tall against the american devils. The diaries chronicles her experiences working in hidden clinics, trekking through mine fields to treat resistance fighters in the middle of the night, etc. - all acts of incredibly bravery; she also chronicles her struggle to obtain party membership and show her leadership worth and self-learning as she was given more and more responsibilities by the party. The majority of entries are about her personal relationships, particularly psychic withdrawal from the great love that was not meant to be. After giving it her all for nearly 4 years, she was killed by an american soldier in 1970. The contents in her pack were sent to US military intelligence, eventually the diaries surfaced and were published in Vietnam in 2005.

One of the striking things was her unwaivering belief in a future Vietnam that would be nothing less than utopian. She had such a clear vision of where it all was going, and used that as a source of power to not crack when things got really hairy. Her constant self-chidings about having bourgeois emotional responses to a variety of events is absolutely charming, and because the diaries are so personal, they provide an incredible lens into how/why she felt her own development was an integral part of the development of her country. No hubris here, she simply believed that the decades-long struggle, all the blood it had shed, the political vision it harboured, demanded nothing less from all of them. As the bombing intensified in her area and the clinic had to keep relocating, what she writes conveys a sense that there was a very blurred line between civilians and resistance; everyone living there was effected by the US invasion and understood that survival meant resistance… an almost biologically logical response.

Here’s her entry on 16 January 1969, following a quick evacuation of the clinic. Thuy had stayed with patients who could not be moved.

The whole house is empty. The Clinic is silent and oddly somber. There are only a few wounded soldiers and some staff left. I can hear the murmurs of the stream outside.

I am already twenty-six years old, no longer a naïve girl. Why do I let this gloomy scene color my feelings? In fact, it’s the other way around. Ngyuen Du says, ‘When one is sad, the scenery can never be cheery.’ What joy is there when the American bandits are trampling on our nation and killing our countrymen? What joy is there when our country is still divided, when family members are still scattered in all directions? But, Thuy, does your heart recognize only yearnings and sorrow? Our struggle demands that the people have great joy and a strong will and belief in our cause. Nurture these positive sentiments and wipe away the cloud of sadness from your eyes.