Vietnam communists congress fails to engage disenchanted youth
HANOI - Vietnam's communist authorities gave blanket media coverage to the opening of their five-yearly congress Thursday but the
power struggles which have riven the political elite hold scant interest for a young population whose main worry is to find a job.
In his welcoming speech to congress delegates, the speaker of Hanoi's municipal assembly, Pham Loi, insisted all eyes in the
capital were riveted to the live coverage of the opening session carried by all three state television channels.
But outside the tight security cordon which blocked off the whole area around the conference hall, ordinary people continued
their lives as normal.
The large crowds around television sets which characterize some state funerals here were nowhere to be seen.
A group of students told AFP they had no interest in the behind-the-scenes leadership battles which have so fixated the foreign
media.
"What does it matter who is party secretary general, it's not going to help me find a job," one young student said.
She said her father, a retired diplomat, faithfully read the party daily every day, but she spent her time taking extra classes in
English and French.
Another student said he had listened to foreign media reports of the political infighting which dominated the run-up to the
congress.
But he insisted the atmosphere of fear which had gripped Vietnam's political elite during the bitter feuding was not the cause of
his disinterest.
"I don't have a say in the process so why should I be interested. You're much better off doing some extra studying or having a
beer and watching the football."
A waitress insisted that the only people who got interested in politics were those with contacts.
"If you want a job in a government ministry, you have to have a patron. Otherwise you end up serving drinks like me," she said
in perfect English.
An acute fear of unemployment hangs over all of Vietnam's mainly young population, most of whom were born after the bitter
war with the United States on which the communist authorities still base much of their legitimacy.
Even graduates are not immune in a country where 1.7 million post-war babyboomers join the 40-million strong workforce
every year.
But the scale of disenchantment among young people in a country where politics looms so large makes a mockery of the
much-vaunted popular consultation exercise launched by the authorities in the run-up to the party congress.
The draft political and economic reports which were published in all official newspapers here elicited millions of comments from
party members and the general public, congress spokesman Huu Tho told reporters.
A battery of party staff condensed them into 69 A4 pages to be presented to delegates.
"It is our policy to ensure popular participation ... throughout the process of preparing for any important policies," Tho said.
One student acknowledged his father had sent in a contribution but insisted it was only because he was a veteran of Vietnam's
wartime struggles who still held faith with the party despite his children's disenchantment.
A decade after the collapse of its Eastern bloc sponsors, the Communist Party of Vietnam does still maintain a substantial
membership.
It currently numbers more than 2.4 million in a poplation of 78 million, Tho said.
But the age range of congress delegates provides some clue why the party has failed to engage a young generation which
doesn't necessarily share their parents' Confucian respect for age.
Just 21.9 percent of the 1,168 who made it to the congress were under the age of 40, while 54.9 percent were in their 50s and
one was as old as 84.
Nearly two-thirds were veterans of the party's wartime struggles, while only 440 had joined since the Vietnam War ended in
1975.
Agence France Presse - April 19, 2001.
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