Ho Chi Minh Trail

Ho Chi Minh Trail

•  The Ho Chi Minh trail was an immense network of footpaths and roads. It was used to transport men and materials from the north to the south.
•  The trail had support bases and hospitals along the way. In some parts, supplies were transported in trucks, but mostly they were carried by porters.
•  Most of the trail was outside Vietnam, in neighbouring Laos and Cambodia, with branch lines extending into South Vietnam.
•  The US regularly bombed this trail trying to disrupt supplies, but efforts to destroy this important supply line by intensive bombing failed because they were rebuilt very quickly.

AN EVALUATION OF THE VIETNAMESE WAR AGAINST THE US FROM THE POINT OF A PORTER ON THE HO CHI MINH TRAIL AND A WOMAN SOLDIER:

•  A Porter: It was commonly perceived that the US had imposed an unjustified war on Vietnam. The highly patriotic and emotionally nationalist Vietnamese were determined to defect the US forces which had come to the support of imperialism.

(a) Working on Ho Chi Minh trail involved tons of sacrifices on the part of workers. They were engaged in highly strenuous, physically exhausting and dangerous work. For example, porters carried about 25 kilos on their backs, or about 70 kilos on their bicycles.

(b) As could be expected, a porter on the Ho Chi Minh trail would have nothing to say but to curse the US for the hardship he was undergoing. But he willingly underwent all this in pursuit of his single goal–defect of the US army.

•  A Woman Soldier: As the war with US emerged, Vietnamese women assumed a new role. Women responded to the call of duty. They joined the resistance movement in large numbers. They helped in nursing the wounded, constructing underground rooms and tunnels, and fighting the army.

Photographs in magazines and journals showed women as brave fighters. Apparently, women liked the new role. But this new role was forced upon them by the US war. It involved huge doses of sacrifice, patience and tolerance.

If the women were happy in this role, it was only because they were driven by a sense of patriotism and nationalism.

Stories about women showed them eager to join the army. A common description was : ‘A rosy-cheeked woman, here I am fighting side by side with you men. Then prison is my school, the sword is my child, the gun is my husband.’

THE NATION AND ITS HEROES:

Another way of looking at social movements is to see how they affect different groups in society. Let us see how the roles of women were specified in the anti­ imperialist movement in Vietnam, and what that tells us about nationalist ideology.

WOMEN AS REBELS:

Women in Vietnam traditionally enjoyed greater equality than in China, particularly among the lower classes, but they had only limited freedom to determine their future and played no role in public life. As the nationalist movement grew, the status of women came to be questioned and a new image of womanhood emerged. Writers and political thinkers began idealising women who rebelled against social norms. In the 1930s, a famous novel by Nhat Linh caused a scandal because it showed a woman leaving a forced marriage and marrying someone of her choice, someone who was involved in nationalist politics. This rebellion against social conventions marked the arrival of the new woman in Vietnamese society.

HEROES OF PAST TIMES:

To highlight the contribution of women in the Vietnam's history, the nationalist Phan Boi Chau wrote a play based on the lives of the Trung sisters who had fought against Chinese domination in 39-43 CE. In this play, he depicted these sisters as patriots fighting to save the Vietnamese nation from the Chinese Mter Phan’s play the Trung sisters came to be idealized and glorified. They were depicted in paintings, plays and novels as representing the indomitable will and the intense patriotism of the Vietnamese

It was shown through the play how the sisters gathered a force of over 30,000, resisted the Chinese for two years and when ultimately defeated, they committed suicide, instead of surrendering to the enemy.

WOMEN AS WARRIORS:

In the 1960s, photographs in magazines and journals showed women as brave fighters. There were pictures of women militia shooting down planes. They were portrayed as young, brave and dedicated. Stories were written to show how happy they felt when they joined the army and could carry a rifle. Some stories spoke of their incredible bravery in single­ handedly killing the enemy – Nguyen Thi Xuan, for instance, was reputed to have shot down a jet with just twenty bullets. Women were represented not only as warriors but also as workers: they were shown with a rifle in one hand and a hammer in the other. Whether young or old, women began to be depicted as selflessly working and fighting to save the country. As casualties in the war increased in the 1960s, women were urged to join the struggle in larger numbers. Many women responded and joined the resistance movement.

They helped in nursing the wounded, constructing underground rooms and tunnels and fighting the enemy.

Along the Ho Chi Minh trail young volunteers kept open 2,195 km of strategic roads and guarded 2,500 key points. They built six airstrips, neutralised tens of thousands of bombs, transported tens of thousands of kilograms of cargo, weapons and food and shot down fifteen planes. Between 1965 and 1975, of the 17,000 youth who worked on the trail, 70 to 80 per cent were women. One military historian argues that there were 1.5 million women in the regular army, the militia, the local forces and professional teams.

WOMEN IN TIMES OF PEACE:

By the 1970s, as peace talks began to get under way and the end of the war seemed near, women were no longer represented as warriors. Now, she was being represented as a worker. She was shown working in agricultural cooperatives, factories and production units, rather than as fighters.

NHAT LINH:

•  Nhat Linh is the name of a novel that was published in the 1930s.
•  It caused a scandal because it showed a woman leaving a forced marriage and marrying someone of her choice, someone who was involved in nationalist politics.

PHAN BOI CHAU:

Phan Boi Chau wrote a play in 1913 based on the lives of the Trung sisters. The Trung sisters had fought against Chinese domination in 39–43 CE. They wanted to save the Vietnamese nation from the Chinese.

TRIEU AU:

•  Trieu Au was one of the women rebels who were part of the popular nationalist stories.
•  Trie Au lived in the third century CE. She was orphaned in childhood; she lived with her brother. On growing up, she left home, went into the jungles, organised a large army and resisted the Chinese rule.
•  When her army was defeated, she committed suicide.
•  Trie Au became a sacred figure. The nationalists popularised her image to inspire people to action.

NGUYEN THI XUAN

She joined the Vietnamese army. She single-handedly shot down a jet with just twenty bullets.