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Opening the Second Era
Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai (tiếng Anh)
Lời giới thiệu
Chúng tôi rất hân hạnh giới thiệu cùng quý độc giả và thân hữu bản dịch sang tiếng Anh của tài liệu Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai, dự án chính trị của Tập Hợp Dân Chủ Đa Nguyên.
Bản tiếng Anh này đã được thực hiện bởi chí hữu Đỗ Lê Thường. Nó đáp ứng một nhu cầu ngày càng rõ rệt là một phần đáng kể tuổi trẻ Việt Nam sinh ra hay lớn lên tại nước ngoài không còn hiểu và sử dụng dễ dàng tiếng Việt được nữa, nhất là Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai là một tài liệu chính trị trong khi ngôn ngữ chính trị và thể văn chính luận chưa thông dụng lắm trong tiếng Việt. Hơn thế nữa ngôn ngữ chính trị không chỉ bị cấm đoán trong nước mà còn liên tục bị phá hoại bởi những văn kiện của các cơ quan tuyên giáo của Đảng cộng sản Việt Nam cũng như bởi những bài viết và bài nói của các cấp lãnh đạo Đảng và Nhà nước cộng sản Việt Nam. Chúng đều dài dòng và luộm thuộm, tùy tiện cả trong từ ngữ lẫn cú pháp, với hậu quả là khiến người Việt Nam xa lánh thảo luận chính trị, một điều tối cần thiết để thăng tiến đất nước. Có lẽ ngày nay ngay cả đối với nhiều trí thức trẻ trong nước một tài liệu chính luận bằng tiếng Anh cũng dễ hiểu hơn.
Chí hữu Đỗ Lê Thường đã dành nhiều thì giờ cho bản tiếng Anh này. Như độc giả có thể nhận xét anh Thường không chỉ dịch và trình bày trung thực các ý kiến và lý luận trong Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai mà còn cố gắng để diễn tả một cách thật dễ hiểu.
Rất mong quý độc giả dành thì giờ đọc và tiếp tay phổ biến Opening the Second Era, bản tiếng Anh của Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai.
Tài liệu này cũng là một dụng cụ để thế giới biết rằng đối lập dân chủ Việt Nam không chỉ là một sự phẫn nộ đối với một chế độ bạo ngược mà còn là một tương lai đáng mong ước cho Việt Nam.
Thông Luận
(05/04/2023)
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Opening the SECOnd ERA
A political project for a pluralistic democracy in Vietnam
Table of contents
II.The Fourth Wave of Democracy and the New World Order
1. The Fourth Wave of Democracy
2. The United States, China and the Pacific region
3. Globalization threatens every nation
4. Ideological alliances replaced by development partnerships
5. Developing countries and the new world context
III. Vietnam facing a big turning point in history
IV. Basic ideas for our coming democratic era
1. The nation : a space of solidarity and a common future project
3. National reconciliation and concord
4. Accept and affirm the progress-driving values
5. Developing the country on the basis of democracy, market economy and individual initiatives
V. Major orientations of the Vietnam model
1.Making freedom a driving force to promote creativity and a rising spirit
2.Promoting voluntary patriotism
3.Honoring and promoting civil society
4.Confirming Vietnam as a country built on communities
5.Definitely choosing market economy and private enterprises
6.Moving towards an industrial and service economy
7.Strengthening the domestic market
8.Constantly alert to strengthen social solidarity
9.Adopting a ‘small country doctrine’
10.Pursuing a peaceful and cooperative foreign policy along with a good neighbor policy
11.Pursuing a civilized birth control policy
12. Building a quality national happiness right in the effort
VI. Institutions and constitution for Republic of Vietnam
1. Two false prejudices about the political regime
3. The constitution of Vietnamese Republic
VII. Struggling to establish a pluralistic democracy
1.Four necessary and sufficient conditions of the democratic revolution
2.The five stages of the campaign for democracy
3.The content of the campaign for democracy
VIII. For a successful transition to democracy
5.The sources of funding for the renaissance effort
6.The transition to democracy will succeed, the country will rise
IX. Sharing the Vietnamese Dream
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I. Historical mission
Vietnam ranks 15th in the world in term of population, on this earth for every 1,000 people there are 15 Vietnamese. The Vietnamese are recognized worldwide as intelligent and hard working. Our geography is advantageous thanks to long and beautiful sea shores, close to important maritime traffic ways, in an exceptionally dynamic region. We have the potential of a great, rich and strong country, bringing our worthy contribution to build a peaceful, wealthy and civilized world.
Instead of this, we are today one of the poorest and backward countries in the world. Our GNP per capita is far below the world average. We do not have any high technology industry and we are even more backward for culture and arts in comparison with the world ; we are at the bottom in all country rankings for human, social development and environment ; and we lack the most basic human rights. This painful and unacceptable contradiction must question each and every Vietnamese.
At birth, all human beings, whatever their race, have equal potentials. The differences in the level of development and standard of living of the nations result from cultural conditions, geography, natural resources and social organization. Among these factors, the organization of the society is by far the most important. The way the society is organized, good or bad, ingenious or clumsy, can change completely the fate of a nation. That is why some nations have arisen in spite of narrow land and rare natural resources, while other nations with advantages given by nature are writhing in poverty. Being conscious of this, the current shameful rear position forces us to question ourselves to find a way out ; on the other hand, it allows us to believe that, if the country is reorganized properly (meaning it is based on just values), we will surely escape poverty and rise strongly.
We have missed many historical opportunities.
At dawn of the new age, marked by the explosion of ideas in the 18th century and the industrial revolution in the 19th century, like other Asian countries, we were unaware that time has come to reassess all values and customs, that we must renew completely our way of thinking and organizing. During many centuries, we were satisfied with the rigid model of Confucius and Mencius, losing the creativity and standing still ; while the Westerners, through their objectivity and method, thanks to their continuous reassessments and renewals, have arisen strongly and surpassed the other parts of the world.
Because we did not know how to adapt in time like other lucky countries, we have lost sovereignty and independence. Losing sovereignty, we also lost the capacity of consulting together to find a solution for the country, then we lost the spirit of dialogue to settle disagreements.
Entering the 20th century, we had to solve in the same time two difficult problems : regaining national sovereignty and adapting to a new civilization. Because we could not agree on a new national project, we were in conflict even on the objective hoped by all Vietnamese, regaining sovereignty. We missed the opportunity to regain independence and to rise up when the colonial regime collapsed after World War II. We were split, we condemned, we reviled and we exterminated each other, pushing a divided country into civil war, with the end result of falling into one of the most toxic dictatorships after suffering the most terrible destructions. While other nations without or with only small cost have gained independence and, in some cases, successfully built democracy.
The short sightedness made us losing a big opportunity when peace was restored in 1975. Instead of reconciling the nation to heal the wounds left by the war, the winning side has imposed a totalitarianism which was thrown away one century ago in its very cradle and later was denied in its very heart and condemned by the civilized world as a disaster for humanity. The short sightedness caused us to miss another big opportunity when the communist ideology and the communist movement collapsed.
Looking back, we must recognize that the reason of all disasters that our country had to suffer is our lack of political thought and our lack of intellectual investments to analyze and identify the big challenges and to find adequate solutions. At each period of time, we were lacking a political project suitable to the new age and the country situation. At the end, we exterminated each other for borrowed ideologies that we only received at an elementary level but we nevertheless defended with more ardor than the nations which initiated them.
We urgently need a leap in political thought to quickly reach an agreement on the new founding values to organize a society. This cultural leap must be coupled with perseverance and tolerance. The tragical experiences in history and the humiliation for being inferior force us to draw a definitive lesson : abandon the psychology of impatience, renounce the monopoly of being right, control the passion in order to dialogue and compromise in a spirit of mutual respect. It cannot be different, because all Vietnamese are bound together in a common destiny : if our country is rich, strong and advanced, our lives will be glorious and we will all be respected ; on the contrary, if our country is poor, miserable and backward, we will all be looked down upon, regardless of our affiliation, our tendency or our ideology. In today’s tragic situation, the best for all is also the best for each one.
Today, the vast majority of our people are destitute, depressed and resentful, our country is lagging behind and deadlocked. The economic, social, environmental, ethical, educational, overpopulation… issues are accumulating and are not addressed, and they are becoming more and more acute and they have reached the level of emergency, soon unsolvable if this decaying momentum is not quickly reversed. Our country could then be removed from the list of nations having the right to dream of a worthy place in the world. We must assert that there will be no way out for our country under this communist regime. Throughout the course of its existence and rule, it has shown that its unique concern is to maintain its dominance on the nation at all cost, including devastating the country, sacrificing national interests and being a foreign vassal. It is also an extremely corrupted regime, and history of all nations has proved that a corrupted government can only be replaced, not reformed. The historical mission of our time is to quickly liberate our nation from totalitarianism and save the country from the danger of permanent inferiority.
The risk of perpetual inferiority is also the risk of losing the country, because in this age, when the concept of state-nation is attacked from all sides and is being revised, the nations which cannot bring happiness, pride and hope of rise will be dissolved sooner or later.
Our way to get out of dead end and to rise up is pluralistic democracy and human rights, on the basis of patriotism conceived as love and attachment between the Vietnamese.
Democracy to address the problems in a right way and to choose correctly the solutions and the rulers. Pluralism to respect all differences and to carry out national reconciliation after the bloody conflicts. Human rights to honor every Vietnamese and to promote the vitality and the initiative of everyone. The experience of every nation has shown that human rights have never prevented anyone from building their lives and democracy has never banned a nation from advancing. Democracy goes ahead and paves the way for development, development strengthens and promotes democracy. Democracy is also a wise choice that allows a not yet strong country to take advantage of the sympathy and support of the world to protect its interests and its territory.
Democratizing our country is our obvious goal but it is also full of obstacles. The Communist Party has shown that it can do everything to maintain its political monopoly while too many Vietnamese no longer care about the country, the long-lasting disappointment with a corrupt and tyrannical government has turned into disillusion with the country itself. Therefore, those who fight for democracy must, in the same time, fight the stubbornness of the Communist Party and the psychology of resignation of the masses. The campaign for democracy must also be an effort to restore the patriotic feeling which is seriously injured. It will require a lot of determination, courage and perseverance. But it is a mandatory struggle.
Human history is ultimately a journey to freedom, and since democracy is the most appropriate social organizing formula to ensure freedom, human history is also the journey of nations to democracy. We have been very late in this journey. So far, despite our long history, we have had only slave regimes ; periods of autonomy only meant replacing foreign slavery by indigenous slavery. The campaign for democracy is the struggle to bring the nation from the darkness of slavery into the light of freedom, opening the era of democracy, the second historical era of our country. Depending on the choices and attitudes of the men and women of today, they will be assessed by future generations as having contributed to the greatest revolution in the history of our country or scared and shirked responsibility when the country is in peril.
This political project has the ambition to contribute to a new political consciousness for Vietnam and rally those who still have the will and faith to pursue a common ideal : a worthy Vietnam to struggle for and build by the men and women of today, and for future generations to continue proudly. This rally is necessary and mandatory because political struggle is never an individual struggle, it can only be an organized struggle.
A new democratic wave is surging in the world. We have no right to miss this opportunity.
II. The Fourth Wave of Democracy and the New World Order
We are living in a favorable world context, full of hope. The possibility to end the dictatorship and to enter the democratic era has never been so great. A new wave of democracy, the fourth wave of democracy in the history of the world, has begun and continues to rise while the dictatorships are exhausted, in terms of trustworthiness, intellect, faith and will.
1. The Fourth Wave of Democracy
Human history can be seen as the journey of man to freedom, to liberate himself from ignorance, disease, famine, misery, hardship, and especially from the yoke of tyranny ; and since democracy has proved to be the most rational way of organizing society to exercise freedom, the world history is also the journey of the nations to democracy.
In that difficult journey, democracy has met stubborn resistance of the dictatorial powers. In addition to blatant violence, the dominant forces have also used ideological weapons. From pessimistic philosophies that consider life as unworthy to live and therefore not worth fighting for to the illusions of a future paradise that requires sacrifices today, through theocratic regimes where the rulers proclaim themselves to be the representatives of a supreme being and are only responsible towards this supreme being, extreme nationalisms, pragmatic doctrines which consider satisfying material needs as the only or the highest priority, collectivist doctrines which consider people only as part of a group on top and above all – the fatherland, the church, the party, etc. The most vicious and persistent attack on democracy is the assimilation of individualism, the foundation of democracy, with egoism, with the consequence that democracy leads to incoherence and chaos.
Due to these attacks, democracy did not progress steadily but in steps, that we can call waves of democracy. Each wave of democracy aims to refute a totalitarian doctrine and then overthrowing some dictatorships which are based on that doctrine. This is followed by a period in which democracy stalls, perhaps even recedes, due to counter-attacks of anti-democratic forces taking advantage of the inevitable mistakes and embarrassments of newly established democracies in the difficult early days.
This up and down has its reason. First, it is because democracy is both difficult to reach and difficult to maintain due to its complexity. The proof is that democracy emerged in Greece only thousands of years after men know how to live in organized communities, then faded away and took more than two thousand years to reappear timidly in some places in Europe. Only recently has it developed strongly. Another important reason is that democratic activity is based on political parties, while dictatorships, after the course of banning and extermination of opposition parties, only leave a political vacuum when they collapse at the end. But democracy is a natural way of life of a civilized society, therefore a regression, if it happens, cannot eliminate the products of the previous democratic wave ; democracy continues to mature with the evolution of society, and at some point, it is strong enough to create a new democratic wave. The trend of democratization cannot be reversed as reality has shown. In the beginning of the 20th century, more than a century after the first wave of democracy, there were only a dozen of democratic countries : the United States and a few Western and Northern European countries. Moreover, except for the United States, these countries were not really democratic because they were colonial countries which violate human rights in the colonies. Despite the ups and downs, entering the 21st century, two-thirds of nearly two hundred countries in the world are democratic. Currently, in 2015, this rate is more than three-quarters and among the countries considered as dictatorships, only a few countries dare to publicly assert a one-party regime. The world’s journey towards democracy is accelerating, a new world order is being completed.
Until the first year of the 21st century, the world witnessed three waves of democracy.
The first wave of democracy began with the American Revolution in 1776 and the French Revolution in 1789 and aimed to overthrow the absolute monarchies based on theocracy, whether Christian, Muslim or Confucian. It forced the European monarchies to renounce their real power to become constitutional monarchies, knocking down the Ottoman Empire and the monarchies in Russia and China.
The second wave of democracy began with World War II and aimed at overthrowing national chauvinism. This doctrine, which emerged and developed after the fall of the monarchies, considered conflict between nations to be natural because every nation must protect and expand its vital space. The second wave of democracy rejected this extremist nationalism and affirmed the equality between people of all races and the right of self-determination for all nations. As a result, the German Nazi, the Italian Fascist and the Japanese military regimes were annihilated ; all three Germany, Italy and Japan became democracies, Japan became the first true democratic country in Asia ; most of the British colonies also became democracies. However, this democratic wave quickly stopped and gave way to the cold war between the two blocks, capitalist and communist, viewed at that time as two democratizing formulas competing with each other. It should be emphasized that the communist movement was born as a democracy movement, it has been a wrong way to build democracy before being exploited to be a crime.
The third wave of democracy aimed at refuting communism and eliminating the dictatorships which were products of the Cold War. It started in 1974 with a revolution that brought down the Salazar dictatorship in Portugal, at the time when the debate between the two formulas claiming to be democratic, capitalist and communist, was over, and the concept of democracy already had a strong enough content. The failure of the communist formula has been quite clear, progresses in transport and communication have exposed the mental and material inferiority of the communist countries compared to the capitalist countries. Communism has lost all its charm. Democracies no longer feared a triumph of communism and were confident enough to abandon anti-communist dictatorships even if the price to pay is that they will temporarily give way to communist regimes. This wave of democracy has taken place in two phases. In the first phase, it crushed the right-wing dictatorships in Portugal, Spain, Greece, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, South Vietnam and many other countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Some countries became democracies, but others fell into the communist orbit, such as South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, Ethiopia, Yemen, Nicaragua. But soon it spilled out to bring down most of the communist regimes, including Soviet Union, the holy land of Marxism-Leninism.
This third wave of democracy has stopped since the mid-1990s. The cause of this downturn was, first of all, optimism after the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the cold war. One thought that democracy has now won and that the remaining dictatorships will be wise enough to evolve themselves to democracy. This mentality was the cause of caught off guard. Later, pragmatism was promoted by the Clinton administration in the US and the Chirac government in France. In terms of international relations, this doctrine puts the interests, especially the economic interests, above all ; and whenever there is a contradiction between interests and morality, interests must get priority. Promoting democracy and human rights was no longer a top concern and all governments, even dictatorships abusing human rights, could still be partners of the United States, Europe and the developed democracies in general. At the beginning of the 21st century, the world was absorbed in the fight against terrorism ; the optimistic psychology was gone but the pragmatic foreign policy continued and was promoted in the first term of Obama. In addition, the economic face of pragmatism is the policy of stimulating economic growth by encouraging consumption, even at the price of a heavily deficient trade balance, in parallel with real estate speculation and securities. This policy has, for a long time, supported tyrannical dictatorships in China, Vietnam and many other countries. These regimes were able to implement an open-door economic policy to exploit the poverty that they were the cause : exploiting workers as much as possible to maximize exports at really low prices, attracting tourists thanks to cheap travel services. The pragmatic doctrine has allowed the remaining dictatorships, including remnants of communism such as China and Vietnam, to continue to exist, even to get economically stronger.
Ultimately, pragmatism has led to a crisis and forced the world to thoroughly rethink both foreign policy and economic paradigm, meaning : on one hand caring and guarding the democratic values and human rights in international relations, on the other hand, give priority to the production economy instead of speculation, and prudently keep balance both the national budget and the trade balance. Violations of human rights by dictatorships are no longer tolerated, the dictatorships can no longer survive on exports as before. It is this revision that has led to the fourth wave of democracy that we are witnessing. Pragmatism has been a parenthesis in human history. This parenthesis is closing, the grace period of dictatorships has ended.
The fourth wave of democracy, starting in 2010, targets economically open dictatorships. These regimes cannot last longer ; they are not based on any political thought, even if sometimes boring slogans, like “building socialism”, are repeated awkwardly. They are purely plundering regimes on behalf of no ideal or political project. They do not have even an illusion. They completely rely on repression to survive. All are crippled governments. Out of the two necessary pillars of political power, legitimacy and violence, they only have violence and therefore they must take full advantage of violence. And for easy repression, the ruling group must be strong and, on the contrary, the masses must be weak. Exploitation and injustice must increase because they are in the existential logic of the regime. But this is a suicidal logic, because it makes the regime more and more hated, while, voluntarily or not, the opening of the economy and the spectacular advances of the media and transport have also completely changed people, society and balance of forces. People are no longer completely dependent on the government for their daily material needs, in the same time they are informed enough to know the mediocrity and the insincerity of those in power. They also have modern means to communicate, motivate and coordinate with each other. These absurd regimes have survived thanks to the feeble passivity of the intellectuals, but nowadays understanding has been popularized, a new contingent of intellectuals has engaged. The change must come, and has come. The fourth wave of democracy is rising.
In East Asia, it has transformed formal democracies in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines into substantive democracies, creating a sudden shift in Myanmar.
In Latin America, it has strengthened young democracies, provided a worthy place and voice for indigenous peoples and gradually forced Cuba to open. In North Africa and Middle East, it has brought down three long-standing dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and is forcing the remaining dictatorships to choose between democratization or collapse. Here, it also addresses an issue of world importance, which is bringing Islam out of politics, to return to the right position of a religion.
In the United States and other developed democracies, it requires a healthier degree of democracy, more solidarity, giving priority to productive activities that create jobs rather than speculation, respect of the environment, individuals and personal choices. A clean environment, clean water and fresh air are considered to be a fundamental component of human rights.
This new democratic wave is also harassing the false democracy in Russia and two remaining communist regimes in Vietnam and China, where the two communist parties have turned into two exploitative classes, living separated from the angry masses. In addition, the Chinese and Vietnamese governments will be in great trouble because the export-based economic policy is no longer adapted to the post-crisis economic order.
The most prominent feature of the present world is that the balance of forces has changed, the remaining dictatorships are no longer a threat to the democratic countries. They are all backward in terms of science and technology, completely naked in political ideology, they do not have even an illusion to cheat, they are inferior to democratic countries in terms of military strength and their economic weight is lower than 15% of the world economy. The democratic world does not need, nor fear dictatorships anymore. An important change in the world context is the metamorphosis of the United Nations. The main mission of the United Nations since its founding was to ease tensions so that the cold war would not become a real war. That mission is now accomplished, the United Nations must find a new mission to continue to have a reason to exist. After a period of fumbling, it is increasingly asserted that the new mission is to promote universal values whose core is human rights and to impose a democratic order. The era of pragmatic doctrine in foreign affairs - meaning a forced cohabitation and economic cooperation with tyrannical regimes to save peace – has ended. Moreover, with a few unimportant exceptions, the remaining dictatorships are heavily dependent on foreign trade and dare not challenge the democratic world. They are living the last difficult days.
The fourth democratic wave will continue to get stronger and it will only be completed after putting an end to the last one-party regimes and leading to the separation between religion and politics in the Islamic countries.
We are standing in front of a very favorable opportunity to democratize the country.
This fourth democratic wave will impose democracy on every nation. Then each nation will have to address two issues : on one hand, identify its own roadmap to understand its own challenges and hopes in a globalized world ; on the other hand, continually evaluating its own democracy to improve it ; because the characteristic of democracy, understood as a mode of social organization, is the capacity and the need to continually improve.
Along with this democratic wave, the world is completing a major transformation to enter a new era. This is an era based on the values that created the strength of the advanced countries : peace, freedom, democracy, human rights, equality, the rule of law, dialogue, cooperation, profit, environment and solidarity. The cultural, artistic, scientific, technical and economic achievements determine the position and honor (or shame) of the nations, provided they have stable and healthy democratic institutions to continue to exist. Education and training will be the new world war and the existential fight for all nations.
For the time being, world leadership still predominantly belongs to the United States and Western Europe, but the multipolar trend will become stronger. Japan has succeeded in its difficult transition, from a traditional Japan using modern technology to a truly modern Japan in every respect ; it has begun a new era of healthy growth and it will play a more and more important role. Many countries, such as Russia, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, will have an increasingly important voice and weight in the world’s major problems. In the near future, an important part of the leadership role will shift to the Pacific region in which China and Russia, if they successfully transform into democracies, will also rise to play an important and leading role. The rankings may change, the alliances will also change, but the rules of the game will not change because the base values will not change. In this game, the deciding weapon is creativity to have outstanding achievements. But creativity only arises and develops with free people, in democratic societies. The upcoming race between the nations will be the competition to organize national spaces having, at the same time, the highest level of knowledge, skills, freedom, solidarity, discipline, dynamism and creativity. The nations that do not understand the rules of this game, or are hesitant to quickly adapt to the new values, must expect a very dark future.
2. The United States, China and the Pacific region
The outstanding characteristic of the world today is still the overwhelming role of the Unites States.
Although its relative weight has decreased and will continue to naturally decline in a world where more and more nations are rising up or see the way to rise up, the United States are still a superior power in every aspect, especially for their military power ; they are also the most creative power with the most potential to move forward, so their supremacy will last well into this century. Within decades, it will be difficult to solve any important international problem without the agreement of the United States. The United States are therefore a world problem, and each nation, voluntarily or not, has its own American problem. The good news is that, together with their unrivaled power, the United States have also proved to be a great power which actively brings democratic and human rights issues into their foreign policy. Worryingly, Americans are less interested in understanding the world and they often choose their leaders and the major orientations on nearly pure internal criteria, sometimes on short-term economic interests. However, with their power being more and more challenged in a globalized world, the Americans are gradually realizing that they can only be safe in a democratic world. Therefore, their active protection of the democratic values and human rights can only increase from now on.
But, if the world has its American problem, the Southeast Asian countries also have their Chinese problem. Thanks to the exchanges with the developed democratic countries, China has strengthened economically, and thanks to it, has significantly increased its military power. The worrying problem is that, though China has strengthened, up to now, China is a totalitarian regime that blatantly denies democratic values and human rights ; moreover, it appears willing to use its military power for a regional hegemonic policy. Asia is today the region in the world with the most war threats in a large scale. The fact that China has both increased its military power and revealed some hegemonic ambitions has made the world, especially countries in the Asia-Pacific region, worried. Concern for China has been the cause of an expensive and dangerous arms race in the region, exacerbating the situation.
In that situation, Vietnam, the country having the most litigations with China, is also a country with no financial capacity to renovate weapons and enhance combat capability of air force and naval force, the two core forces in this era. Therefore, a wise and obligatory defense policy for our country is a commitment to democratization to fully integrate into the democratic world and to be protected by democratic countries in accordance with international law, and in the same time, to gain back the sympathy and solidarity of two neighboring countries, Cambodia and Laos, which are bribed by China in its strategy of encircling and controlling Vietnam. It is also a condition for us to live in peace and friendship with China.
However, the prospect of the future is not entirely dark. The fact that, although China is not yet a rich country – output per capita is still below the world average -, it has unusually increased its military expenses and its provocative actions, is creating a global concern towards China, with the risk to become an anti-China movement ; this forces China to reconsider itself if it does not want to be isolated. There are already some indications that the Chinese people and some leaders began to be aware of the danger of a regional hegemony policy that China should not and is not able to follow. We have reasons to hope that China will shift its direction toward a policy that is more beneficial to the world and to itself. Another reason is that Japan, which is stronger than China in all aspects, is strengthening and affirming its capacity and its will to contribute to the protection of the democratic order and international law in the region.
But the world’s (and our) biggest concern is what is about to happen in China. The Chinese communist regime has chosen a wild growth model, regardless of people and environment ; it has accumulated enough contradictions for a major crisis. In recent years, while the whole world has been in crisis, China has hidden its difficulties by increasing credit and public expenses to maintain an artificial growth. This adventurous policy may temporarily postpone the crisis, but it will make it more serious when it can no longer be delayed. The signs of China’s crisis are becoming evident and this crisis can be very tragic and last a long time, possibly even breaking up China in violence. On the other hand, the aspirations for democracy have gradually matured among the Chinese people and there is no guarantee that China will survive with its current territory and population after the mandatory (and not delayable) transition to democracy, because China’s unity has only been maintained by violence so far. The world may not need to worry that China will raise war to resolve internal conflicts in troubled circumstances. Because of its structure, as shown by history, China has only shown aggression when it has power, not when it is in trouble. However, due to its population, every tragedy of China is also a tragedy for the world. Vietnam is more vulnerable because we are close to China and we depend on China in many aspects. Moreover, we are facing the risk of a major crisis.
If China is a source of concern, on the contrary, Japan is increasingly becoming a guarantee. Japan has completed a difficult but compulsory transformation from a traditional Japanese society to a truly advanced Japanese society, in tune with the lifestyle and values of advanced Western countries. This transformation has puzzled Japan for nearly three decades because it had to revisit the whole social model, from production structure to worker-company relations, to replace an economy based on effort, production and export by an innovative and quality economy, from applying modern technologies to inventing new technologies. But Japan has succeeded and today it is a true democracy, stable and confident, out of crisis and a world leader in culture, science and technology. Japan has become increasingly assertive and bold in foreign policy to assume the role of an equal US ally in the Pacific region, bringing a decisive contribution to ensure democracy, peace and cooperation in the region.
The new Japanese strength underpins an increasingly strong tendency that the Asia-Pacific region is progressing steadily toward democracy. South Korea and Taiwan, two pioneering democracies in the region, have become advanced countries. With the diversion of democratic Myanmar becoming a consensus of ASEAN, the Vietnamese communist regime is becoming the only anti-democracy country in the bloc and it will quickly be isolated if it does not adapt in time.
In addition, one must mention the strong rise of India, the most populous democracy today and soon the most populous country in the world. India is increasing its presence throughout the world and in the region. This presence stimulates a democratic tendency and can only benefit peace and cooperation.
3. Globalization threatens every nation
The phenomenon that we should be aware properly is the global degradation of the concept of nation. Many countries are broken without being invaded, broken in chaos, like in many African countries, or broken into small ones, like Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Ethiopia. The integrity of many democratic and prosperous countries, such as Canada, Britain and Belgium, is more or less threatened.
The concept of nation is attacked from all sides. From the outside due to regional associations that promise a larger operating space than the national space, from the inside by ethnic communities claiming autonomy, and from both inside and outside by multinational companies and unceasing trade at increasing speed. Modern means of transportation and communication have also made the earth smaller and brought people closer.
The current dominant trend is globalization. Capital no longer has a fatherland. Big companies seek investment opportunities around the world and make plans of production, marketing and distribution on a global scale. In an effort to find larger weight and area of activity, companies increasingly merge to create corporations of mighty stature. Many corporations have assets larger than the sum of GNPs of many countries. In a peaceful world, economic power is already by itself the most important power, but it can also encroach on political power. The emergence of giant multinationals is an increasing challenge for the nations and for the idea of nation itself. Trade rules are quickly agreed upon and applied to the world. Human rights are increasingly recognized as universal, considered as the first step of international law and placed above the laws of the nations. Communication networks, especially the Internet, allow people who are far away to communicate and work directly with each other. A person can work for an agency at the other end of the earth. The distance is disappearing. Virtual presence is becoming real and equally effective as physical presence. A citizen may permanently reside abroad and still serve his country on a permanent and regular basis as a person in the home country. A whole “virtual world” has formed with an increasing importance. Right now, the cultural, scientific, technical, financial and commercial exchanges in this virtual world, over the Internet, are already very important. In a near future, this virtual world will overwhelm the real world, turning the real world into one of its manifestations.
This great transformation – delightful in nature – increasingly makes each one a person of the world before being a citizen of a country. The idea of nation is relativized. The nation is no longer a sacred goal but it must be a condition to build happiness for the people and for each individual. In the context of the present and upcoming world, a nation which is not conceived as a sentiment, a consensus, a common project and a space of solidarity, will not last long. A country that does not guarantee security and dignity, does not bring welfare and pride to the people, will surely disintegrate ; it will disintegrate more quickly and tragically if the national border is considered as a wall to discourage progressive values and provide a safe operating zone for tyrannical juntas. In this new era, we must be conscious that the ruling juntas, lacking culture and vision, are disasters for the survival of the nations. The tyrannical dictatorships kill the nations, the worse and the crueler they are, the quicker they will kill the nations.
4. Ideological alliances replaced by development partnerships
The collapse of communism has ended the ideological debate. Democracy and human rights have been recognized as universal values that even the remaining dictatorships only argue awkwardly to delay rather than deny. Therefore, the ideological alliances have no longer a reason to exist. Instead, more and more cooperative alliances have emerged, most notably regional associations. The world is gradually divided into a number of large geographic blocs in which countries compete with each other, and in the same time, rely on each other in competition with the rest of the world. Within these blocs national borders and customs barriers are increasingly blurred, the movement of people, goods and ideas is increasingly easy. The distinction between diplomacy and foreign trade is more and more difficult to define. Countries look for opportunities, based on geographical, religious, linguistic, production-like reasons, to tie up relations, to create cooperative relationships and to form alliances. In today’s world, isolation means death. Countries that do not want, or cannot join or cannot activate these cooperative relationships are considered desperate, because they are marginalized from the activities of an interdependent world. The common rule of the game of these assemblies increasingly includes respect for democratic values, such as rightful and respected laws, independent labor unions, the state’s non-interference in corporate governance, freedom of information, freedom of movement, transparency, fair competition between companies. Automatically, these associations impose a democratic order. With the bankruptcy of pragmatist doctrine, the capacity to participate and activate these cooperative alliances will increasingly depend on the respect and expression of universal values of humanity. The remaining tyrannical regimes will be increasingly isolated.
5. Developing countries and the new world context
Rise or fall is the fate of backward nations. The backward countries that do not understand this will surely disappear. Rising is vital but it is also a path full of thorns and traps.
We can foresee that, before going to competition in all aspects, the world will undergo a fairly long transition period in which, in general, the newly developed countries will produce most of goods, widgets and semi-finished products while the high level developed countries will provide the majority of capital, services, high quality goods and manufacturing equipment. Therefore, for the less developed countries, within a few decades, the toughest competition will be a competition with each other. This competition will be very difficult for the least developed, or the countries which do not adapt very quickly to the situation.
The first threat is the fierce competition for investments that can turn poor countries into hostages and victims of large multinational companies. There will always be countries that accept easier conditions to attract investment capital : low wages, hard and insecure labor conditions, lax environmental standards, etc.
The situation is more difficult because the cascading and important progress in automation, microelectronics and informatics is leading to an increasing trend of automation, hence cheap labor is no longer a single factor convincing enough to attract investment ; the less developed countries are losing a strategic weapon. Moreover, after the recent crisis which began in 2008 and has not yet ended, the rich and strong countries have also made efforts to, on one hand, keep investments in their home countries and, on the other hand, limit imports and maintain trade balance. Stable politics, a not corrupted government, honest people, a peaceful society, a guaranteed order, simple laws, low taxes, favorable geographical conditions, a large consumer market, skilled and efficient human resources are the strategic weapons required to attract international investment. These are usually factors that underdeveloped countries have difficulty to possess. In such difficult conditions, sacrifices must be shared in the most equitable manner, the nation must be perceived by the people as a sentiment, a solidarity space and a shared future project in order to be accepted. Otherwise, the elite which has required the most expensive investments in education and training will seek to move to developed countries. Therefore, the prerequisite is to have leaders who are truly patriotic, talented, ethical, with large knowledge and foresight, deep national sentiments and capable of persuading people to accept the necessary efforts, meaning better than leaders of the advanced countries.
In contrast, the new world context also has advantages that the less developed countries can benefit.
First, the dictatorial regimes, whether public or disguised, will no longer be tolerated because of ideological alliances and will be overthrown. The peoples will be untied, energies will be released, the nations will be managed more appropriately, even after a period of fumbling. From now on, they will have the main weapon that helped many nations surpass the rest of the world : democracy. The elimination of dictatorial regimes is a huge chance for the less developed countries. Experience has shown that all dictatorships are toxic. Under the guise of giving priority to economic development, maintaining discipline and order, dictatorial regimes are merely hideout of corruption and abuse of power, allowing gangs of degenerate thugs to maintain grip on people, preventing all progress and cracking down the countries. Eliminating tyrannical regimes is much easier than before, but it is something that the less advanced nations must achieve quickly in this vital struggle.
Secondly, economy becomes the top priority of every nation. The fierce competition between the rich and powerful countries, in a world where the ranking changes constantly, encourages the big companies and the developed countries to constantly search for new markets and new investment opportunities. The less developed countries, if they can create a stable social context, favorable economic conditions, if they are not condemned and isolated, will be able to find very profitable sources of cooperation.
Third, due to advances in communications and transportation, a growing population, the world has become smaller and nations are from now on interdependent. A new consciousness is born, whereby the earth is the common homeland of all humanity. Every nation feels the need to live in a world without threat. The richer and more developed nations are, the more they feel the need to guarantee their achievements by contributing to a peaceful and stable world. Therefore, whether they want it or not, the rich and strong countries cannot let other countries live in poverty. This is not only a humanitarian obligation ; it is also due to an intimate interdependency. A concrete example is the environmental issue. Chernobyl was not a disaster for Ukraine only. The chimneys in China do not pollute only China’s space, therefore it is not only a problem for China, but a problem for the whole world. The destruction of Amazon forests is not a Brazilian problem alone. The pollution of a country’s waters is a problem for many countries. Another example is the migration movement from poor countries to rich countries, which poses a range of difficult problems for rich countries. This interdependence forces the developed countries to create the conditions to help the less advanced countries to get opportunities for development. This assistance, even though it comes first from the aspirations of the developed countries to live in a world with less dangers, is also a chance for less advanced countries to rise up.
Fourth, the demands for happiness and comfort of the developed nations increase quickly, somewhat faster than their economic development. The number of working hours is decreasing, wages are increasing, the proportion of elderly and retired people is increasing ; public spending on society, culture, arts, health and comfort will increase, leading to tax increase. Of course, new inventions will constantly appear to lower down prices and improve quality, but in today’s media world, if these inventions appear in developed countries, they will soon be popularized in other countries. As a result, cost prices, profit margins and reinvested portions of GDP are generally less favorable in countries with high living standards than in developing ones. In this situation, the people in less developed countries, because of less demand for comfort and consumption, will be able to accept more sacrifices and efforts ; therefore, they may compete effectively with the developed countries, provided that these sacrifices and efforts are equally divided to avoid conflict.
III. Vietnam facing a big turning point in history
Our nation is facing one of the greatest challenges since its founding, but at the same time, the prospect of getting rid of the yoke of dictatorship and opening up the era of democracy is unprecedented.
1. The challenges
In a favorable international context, our situation is tragic and the future of Vietnam is very uncertain.
We have missed the takeoff phase. When a slow-moving country starts to rise thanks to its integration into the world economy, the success or failure depends on its capacity to create a true class of entrepreneurs who are honest, knowledgeable and daring. The undeniable fact is that the so called ‘renewal’ policy, i.e., economically open but still politically closed, has only created, in the overwhelming majority, businessmen with faked wealth through power corruption and illicit business. We are also losing the advantage of young population ; the number of working age population has stopped and began to decline.
We are moving into isolation. Although in principle our country has normal relations with all countries and has been a member of ASEAN and many regional associations, the stubborn maintenance of a totalitarian dictatorship in the name of a doctrine condemned as a crime, flagrant violations of human rights and civil rights, bureaucracy and corruption, rejection of necessary reforms, coarse manners in international affairs, blatant and excessive dependency to China, are placing Vietnam in danger of great isolation if it does not change direction in time. Vietnam is absent from almost all major cooperation programs and has only a negligible presence in important international markets.
Although Vietnam’s foreign trade is not significant in terms of objective stature, it has an overwhelming role in the national economy, weighting nearly twice our GDP, making us heavily dependent on the world context. Investment flourished strongly after Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), creating confidence in an honest integration into the world, but soon after that, it has dropped continuously – as a result of increased repression and corruption that disappoint investors – while other countries are constantly taking every initiative to attract international capital, based on their existing advantages. We have lost a great opportunity and are on the verge of a serious crisis.
The industry that has been clumsily managed is also subject to the illicit competition of tax-fraud imported goods, mainly from China. Most of the production equipment is obsolete, including the equipment recently purchased by corrupted officials. State-owned enterprises, which are considered to be the main drivers of the economic activity and are given the majority of the investments, are also diseased ones ; most of them are controlled by leaders who are both incompetent and dishonest, nominated on criteria of party, corruption and share.
We are lagging behind dramatically in both quantity and quality. Our average annual output per capita today, in 2015, is just about 1500 USD, which is 15%, or one seventh of the world average.
Moreover, national wealth is distributed in an extremely unfair way, most of our people live in extreme poverty. The low national income and the irresponsibility have led the authorities to abandon education, infrastructure, production equipment and even minimal hygiene and health concerns for the people. Education and training, too depressed, are completely incapable of preparing youth for the competition with the world. The situation of the vast majority of Vietnamese hospitals is a shame and a crime.
We must look to the truth and acknowledge a painful reality : we are a lost and deadlocked country. Although we are the 15th most populous country in the world, we do not have any scientific or technical achievement, no invention, no international stature company, no literary or artistic work, even no sports accomplishment known to the world. We are now an insignificant country. Vietnamese people are not only poor, we have no reason to be proud. And we are also one of the last nations in the world still suffering from totalitarian yoke and denial of basic human rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to vote and stand for election, even freedom to own land. Millions of people are unjustly robbed of their land and are resentfully languishing.
Our social fabric has been torn apart by the prolonged and catastrophic civil wars, the intolerance and hatred that these wars have produced, the discriminatory policies of the communist party during a long period, the evident gap between the rich and the poor and the general suspicion of the people for the basic values of any society ; it is even more tattered due to the powerless resentment in front of a brutal government ruling as an occupation force.
At the same time, the nation’s most valuable resource, its people, is also dramatically degraded. People’s health is depressed due to lack of nutrition, medicine and care. Dangerous infectious diseases spread alarmingly without preventive measures. Teenagers quit school massively. National intellect is seriously reduced with the dramatic degradation of the education system. Drug addiction, prostitution, robbery are on the rise. The difficult life in a depraved society keeps people increasingly away from the essential values of every country : morality, honesty, truthfulness, hard work, discipline, etc. Lies and scams become the foundation of social relations.
In such a dire situation, three particularly serious and urgent dangers are standing out.
First of all is corruption. Both the people and the authorities agree that corruption is a national calamity and an internal invader devastating the country, but perhaps we are not fully conscious of its toxicity and the society has the tendency to accept living with it as a destiny. It is becoming a rule of the game and an institution. But corruption must not be tolerated. It spoils everything. It places unworthy people in important positions, handing over large projects to fraudulent interest groups. It breaks the rules of the market, it transforms people into thugs and it turns social relations into a cheating competition. It eliminates knowledge, research and creativity. It makes all public, private projects and plans senseless and useless. It damages both the environment and the infrastructure by hiding pollution and allowing insidious construction and maintenance works. An example is the Central Highlands bauxite project and the decision to massively build nuclear power stations ; both projects are uneconomical and moreover, they threaten the life of the country but they are still imposed because of great benefit to corrupted leaders. Another example is the rapid deterioration of the road and bridge system, though recently built. It even threatens national security because, if money can buy everything, it is not surprising if many senior officials in the state apparatus are in fact foreign insiders. At its current level, corruption breaks down the country, and in the same time, it threatens security and sovereignty, and it makes the concept of nation senseless. If it is not stopped, it will quickly destroy the country.
The second serious threat is the environment. Over the past few decades, we have witnessed an extremely serious tragedy in our history : the rapid destruction of the very foundations of the country. Trees are cut down, beaches, rivers and waterways are heavily polluted, the land becomes sterile, floods are followed by drought. Water is no longer potable, air is unbreathable. Not to mention the piles of stinking garbage, clogged sewers. City people have to wear masks in the street and become strangers to each other. Pollution has reached the level of health devastation causing tragedy for everyone, especially the poor, that is, the majority of the people. It also has a great health cost, it reduces labor productivity and it can keep tourists away, and make the world boycotting our food. This is a terrible disaster to stop immediately. With a population density of one thousand people per square kilometer of habitable land, we have no choice but to make a clean environment a national priority. The country is first of all land and water ; if the country is sterile and so polluted that we can no longer live, then there is nothing to say to each other.
The country has not only been destroyed but it has been sold, many lands of strategic economic value are in the hands of foreigners, many watershed forests have been long-term leased and in fact are controlled by a foreign country.
The third serious threat, at the same time a national shame, is an excessive dependence on China. Presently, we no longer have sovereignty. The Vietnam-China joint statement on June 21, 2013 shows that the communist government has signed many veiled agreements that put Vietnam under Chinese control, such as accepting joint exploration of oil and gas (in fact, letting China explore oil and gas in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone), letting China train Vietnamese military and police officers. Even more serious is the commitment to consult China – that is, to receive instructions from China – in foreign relations. Vietnam is no longer sovereign ; this is unacceptable for the Vietnamese people.
This dependence is not only shameful, but also dangerous. The Chinese since ancient times always viewed the neighboring nations, including Vietnam, with the eyes of the superior ; they considered Vietnam as a vassal. With the culture of peasants longing for land, their traditional policy towards neighboring countries is that of annexation, by violence or by emigration. Accepting dependence on China means accepting annexation, that our ancestors fought against for thousands of years and poured so much blood to preserve the country.
Escaping China is also a mandatory condition for our country to rise. We need to get rid of Confucian culture, a culture of slavery and intellectual alienation that we have shared for thousands of years with Chinese people and that the Chinese government is trying to rehabilitate. We have a lot to learn from the world, but we can only learn all that properly, thoroughly and quickly with other nations. China is like us, but more developed than us ; they have everything that we can produce, but more and cheaper. That is why Vietnam is now on many aspects becoming an export port of Chinese goods bearing the label ‘Made in Vietnam’, making trade deficit with China worse and worse.
Finally, China is becoming increasingly isolated. Dependence on China means risking to be isolated with China. The world is increasingly recognizing China as a threat that needs to be stopped. This containment policy will likely cause China to decline because the Chinese economy is heavily dependent on foreign trade. On the other hand, economic growth is the only justification of the Beijing regime, economic slowdown also means that the regime will falter. Like it or not, it will no longer be possible to count on China.
In general, the country is in great danger ; but the communist government, instead of putting all efforts to save the country, has the only purpose of retaining power at all costs, in the name of a doctrine that has been condemned by the world as a crime and is considered by the Vietnamese people to be the cause of the current tragedy. The communist state has failed in every way and in all aspects, but it continues to rule as a provocation to the people ; moreover, it affirms its determination to keep political monopoly indefinitely. The insolence has culminated with the 2013 constitution, which specifies that the armed forces must be absolutely loyal to the Vietnamese communist party, even before the Vietnamese state. The communist regime is thus a daily provocation to the people and a disaster. The disaster lasted so long that the people, powerless and disgusted, not only hated the government but also gradually lost faith in the nation. Each person wriggles to find personal answers to personal problems. The dream of many Vietnamese today is to leave Vietnam and become a citizen of another country. The state gradually lost its monopoly on violence for the benefit of gangster gangs and outlaw societies, and it increasingly lost its monopoly on tax collection due to smuggling and corruption. We are progressing towards national dissolution. We have to scream the alarm. If this momentum continues, the idea of nation will lose its content, separatist and autonomy intentions will appear and grow, foreign forces will increasingly be more inclined to overthrow us, in a world in which the concept of nation is being questioned. The survival of the country itself is increasingly uncertain.
The danger of loss of the country has never been so big. It can be due to the loss of sovereignty, loss of national identity and especially slow adaptation to a world of rapid change. The scenario of loss is the inferiority, lack of both sovereignty and human rights, that make the idea of Vietnam losing gradually its content and becoming boring ; the will and pride to be Vietnamese gradually disappear, the country dissolves in the hearts before its real dissolution.
2. Prospects
Our country is in danger but not in despair. Democracy is near and we still have good fundamentals that we can and should use in the revival effort once the country is democratic.
We have a homogenous language that is easy to learn and quite complete to transport all cultural, scientific and technical knowledge. And we are not caught up in an overwhelming religion.
We have a fairly large population, nearly 100 million, 15th in the world. This large population is a great obstacle for the effort to improve living standards, but it is also a strength thanks to the important location of our country and because the Vietnamese are naturally industrious above average. In the past, we have demonstrated the ability to quickly acquire the latest sciences and technologies ; numerous Vietnamese students have been successful in many difficult contests in every country ; Vietnamese workers are quick learners and are appreciated. The emigrated Vietnamese have also shown an excellent ability to adapt to completely new living conditions. We can say we are a fairly intelligent people. Such a capital, even if it is eroded – and indeed it has declined – cannot go away within a generation or two. If a logical social organization is found, Vietnamese people can recover. And once Vietnamese have recovered, we will have a powerful human resource. In the effort to rise, once the country has democracy to be logically organized, we can also exploit the great potential of millions of young people who graduated from universities and colleges but have not yet had opportunity to contribute. Although young population is no longer an advantage of Vietnam, young and trained human resources are still abundant.
Throughout its difficult history, the Vietnamese have expressed the earnest desire to defend the country, to live together and to share a common future. The patriotism of the Vietnamese, despite its decline due to disappointment and frustration, can still be restored. The Vietnamese have shown an extraordinary vitality and have won many tough challenges. We still have enough strength to overcome today’s challenges and to rise if we recompose in time.
We have a favorable geography. Although our land is narrow, it is fertile ; our agriculture, if properly operated, will not only be able to produce enough food for the people, but also to export. Our coast is long and beautiful, our country is close to many important traffic axes, in the middle of a strong developing region with all prospects to become a major strategic economic center of the world. We have the potential of a great country for tourism, industry and commerce. The wave of democracy rising across the world, including Southeast Asian countries, is also a new positive element, creating an increasingly healthy and civilized context, an urging factor for the Vietnamese.
We are living a change of mindset full of hope. The fierce wars, destructive for the country, have made the Vietnamese aware of the harmful effect of violence. We have reached a consensus that peace is the most valuable of all values, and that civil war is the greatest disaster. The experience of successive insincere dictatorships also has given us deep faith in freedom and democracy. We have also ended our debates on economic model to assess that only a market economy based on competition and individual initiative can succeed. Our joint indignation in front of a greedy government have made us forget the past conflicts and understand the necessity of reconciliation and unity to get rid of tyranny, to solve common problems and to build a shared future. We have also understood in our brain, our heart, our skin and flesh, the tragic consequences of hatred and division. On many basic points, Vietnamese intelligence has been liberated.
The most important reason for us to be strongly confident is that almost all problems, including the most serious ones, are ones that should not exist. They are all due to the communist regime and so will have a quick solution once the communist regime has ended.
So, our core problem is the end of this regime. But even the parameters of this thorny problem have changed.
The communist party is divided. It has no longer a common ideal to unite party members. In addition, corruption, incompetence and immorality also cause jealousy and contempt for each other throughout the party, even at the highest level. The Politburo no longer has supreme leadership because of conflicts with the central committee, a non-permanent institution that has ultimate authority in appointing and disciplining leaders at all levels. The communist party is only a fiction. The regime is like a ship without crew and is transforming from party dictatorship to individual dictatorship. This transformation is taking place in very adverse conditions : the party is polarized, the people hate it while it has no charismatic figure. This situation can only lead to collapse. In Asian history, there are often two main reasons leading to the collapse of regimes. First, until it is in contact with the West, because the ruling class plundered too much, especially stealing the land of the people ; second, after interacting with the West, the regime stubbornly pursued an outdated ideology. The Vietnamese communist regime has both of these elements. It cannot survive.
This regime has lasted so far for two reasons :
The first reason is the pragmatic doctrine that the powers, especially the United States, pursued for nearly twenty years since the mid-1990s ; it nurtured the remaining dictatorships, especially China and Vietnam. But the pragmatic doctrine has gone bankrupt and is dismissed, democratic values and human rights have gained a deserved priority.
The second reason, also the main reason, is that Vietnamese intellectuals did not undertake their functions and responsibilities to guide the masses. Due to the cultural and historical heritage, they lacked a heart to suffer, the intellect to know, the courage to fight, or they have taken too seriously the given situations and benefits. But the old intellectual class is gone, a new intellectual class has joined, including a category of intellectuals which did not exist in Vietnamese history : political intellectuals. These young people are more knowledgeable than the older generations and they have no illusion about the communist doctrine and the communist regime. They no longer twist to reform the regime ; they have understood that it must end. They dare to do, decide to do and know how to do ; they are discovering that they must work together in a team ; they have understood that political struggle is never an individual struggle, but always an organized struggle. The country is about to change because it has changed skin.
So far, a common characteristic of tyrannical dictatorships is that they often appear to be very solid until a sudden collapse. The reason is because their stubbornness and brutality require a break point, where the quantity changes have accumulated enough to create a qualitative change. This breakpoint is approaching, thanks to the new democratic wave, the increasing number of the new political intellectuals and the ever-clearer awareness, especially within the police and the army, that the regime cannot last longer ; one should contribute instead of obstructing the democratic process, to be the actor instead of the victim of a necessary, mandatory and imminent transformation. The time of democracy may be very close. Especially if the democrats know how to gain trust and participation of the people, with a pure and generous sentiment, rational methods of fighting and a right project to rebuild and promote the country.
IV. Basic ideas for our coming democratic era
The time of systems of thoughts and ideology has ended. From now on, there is no truth that cannot be questioned. Nevertheless, at each stage, a political rally still needs to agree on some fundamental affirmations.
Amidst the dramatic changes that require diverse and complex policies and measures to adapt to the situation, everyone needs to master the fundamental choices that do not change and explain the reason of measures and policies. It is the condition for the country not to lose direction and for the people to understand and contribute consciously to national efforts. We have a large population and we have to face many serious, thorny and urgent problems ; our work is certainly very complicated. It is this complexity that requires political organizations to make directional choices, understood in a sense that is neither a doctrine nor an ideology ; they are not very complex theories, they are simple ideas which are considered to be correct and which are the foundations for the policies and measures over a fairly long period.
The basic consensus of the Rally for Democracy and Pluralism consists of the following five points : the country must be conceived as a sentiment, a space of solidarity and a shared future ; the political institution for Vietnam is pluralistic democracy ; the guiding spirit in the effort to rebuild the country is national reconciliation ; the organization of the Vietnamese society must really express the progressive values ; economic development must be based on market economy and individual initiatives.
1. The nation : a space of solidarity and a common future project
Vietnam has been formed for thousands of years and has more than two thousand years of history. However, like all other countries, we have only known recently the concept of nation, understood in the sense of an entity owned by everyone. The reason is because the concept of nation is a very new concept, born with democracy.
Until the concept of democracy was born, kingdoms belonged only to kings. The territory as well as the people belonged to the king and were placed under the exclusive and absolute decision of the king. Land and the people can arbitrarily change owners depending on the transfer between kings. In that context, there cannot be any true nations. The natural attachment to the land of ancestors and acquaintances is not yet national spirit or patriotism. The people do not have any right in the country and therefore do not have any responsibility toward the country. The idea of democracy has turned kingdoms into nations and has been the foundation for a state, or government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Different from the kingdoms that gradually formed over time, the nation is an entity consisting of a territory, a government, a historical cultural heritage and equal-rights people attached to that territory, accepting that government, sharing that historical and cultural heritage, and most importantly, accepting to build and share a common future. The nation is above everyone and common to everyone.
Along with the concept of nation as an entity belonging to everyone and to each one, a sense of community has arisen that each person alone cannot completely solve his or her problems ; on the contrary, the success or failure of each person also depends on a country that, from now, he/she has the duty, the benefit and the authority to contribute to protect and promote. This community consciousness in turn creates patriotism, a love for those close to us who accompany us strive alongside us. This patriotism cannot be confused with the xenophobic spirit of narrow nationalism.
The democratic state, based on the idea of nation, has been the greatest progress of mankind in the 17th and 18th centuries. These state-nations, because they were organized to encourage and accept free and voluntary contribution of all people, have unleashed the vitality, ideas and initiatives of the entire people, has promoted all scientific, technological, philosophical, cultural and artistic progress and made the Western countries go far beyond the rest of the world. The main reason why Western countries have suddenly risen to power is the discovery of the concept of nation.
Luckier than many other people, Vietnamese people have a long and stable tradition of living together due to special geographical conditions. Our long-standing land, the north of Vietnam, is surrounded and protected by thick cliffs to the north and the west, leaning against the sea to the east. Thanks to that isolation, our borders and human structure have not changed much over the centuries. Consequently, the sense of community and the attachment to the ancestral homeland were very strong ; they were the foundations for a strong national consciousness. But due to the lack of political thought, we only lately knew the idea of nation as an entity belonging to all people. We only knew the idea of nation at the time of being dominated by foreigners. From then on, we have continuously endured wars – mostly civil wars – and dictatorial regimes. We have never had democracy, the fundamental element of the nation, therefore we have not yet built a true nation and not mobilized the true power of the people.
If nation-states have been the cause of the power and prosperity of the European and American countries, their absence explains the weakness and the sufferings of many countries, including us.
Nation-states are strong and provide great benefits because they have been conceived correctly. The nation belongs to everyone and is above all. The state, or the government, has only the mission to serve the nation, so it must be within and below it. The state is not the final goal, it is only a tool ; therefore, it only needs to be built and maintained at the required level. Only the nation is the end, and the nation is first and foremost a community of free and equal citizens.
The state does not have its own interests, but only the interests of the nation, while the interests of the nation are determined by the entire people after a proper conclusion of personal opinions expressed freely. Basically, the nation-state is the instrument to materialize the consensus on building a shared future of free people. That is why that state must on the one hand encourages everyone’s contribution and on the other hand ensures that people maximize their capabilities and contribution to the common good.
We, like many other unfortunate nations, have been so far weak and outdone because we do not have such states. In contrast, so far, we only have a state belonging to a ruling junta instead of belonging to everyone. Those states have their own interests and only know their own interests, so their only concern is keeping power at all costs, even if they cause great losses to the people. These states dominate instead of serving the nation, they treat people as objects to be controlled and used instead of persons to protect and serve.
We are currently facing a particularly serious situation because we have not yet built a true nation while the concept of nation is being revised and overcome. Thus, we must at the same time, quickly build a true nation, and be on time with the future, that is, building the Vietnamese nation in the sense that it will have.
Due to the explosion of means of transport and communication, together with the intensive exchanges and the expansion of new ideas, the relative weights of the traditional structural elements of the national spirit have changed.
The sense of safety in the intimacy, the fear of the strange and the strangers, the blood ties, the ties to traditional history and culture, the attachment to a familiar land, the comfort in the contact with people sharing the same habits and lifestyle, etc. all this become increasingly unimportant in a world that allows direct and immediate exchange, including working together, between people at the ends of the globe, in which people move and interact regularly, and receive daily various information, images and opinions. The earth is now the small homeland of all mankind and personal happiness has become the highest value. The traditional sentiments that contributed to the national spirit are increasingly revealing their conservatism and narrowness.
On the other hand, the role and position of the nation are also attacked from all sides. From the outside, with the regional associations creating a larger operating space ; from the inside, due to the demands of individuals and ethnic communities ; and from both inside and outside due to the rapid expansion of multinational companies whose role and weight are increasing.
In this context, the reasons that bind people to the country must, of course, change and in fact have changed. People are only bound to the country for at least one of three reasons : because the country guarantees special protection and benefit, because it gives a source of pride, or simply because the country is theirs.
In the elements that make up a nation, the territory has no longer an absolute value ; one can love his/her country and contribute wherever he/she lives. Historical, cultural and linguistic heritage have also diminished in importance. The government is also not important. The idea of a sacred fatherland that everyone must submit to, honor and serve unconditionally is even more obsolete. The remaining elements, the people and a common project for the future, are of increasing importance.
Thus, a nation can only exist if it is perceived, not as a race or a past, but as a space of solidarity between people who understand each other, value each other and cooperate to build and share a common future. Such a nation is primarily a civil society with its memory, its problems to solve and its future plans. The state is within and below the nation with the mission of serving the nation, so it plays the role of serving, not controlling, civil society.
Such a country still has the ability to bind the Vietnamese people to each other and is still essential for everyone ; it is also a favorable environment for cooperation. That country will benefit everyone because it will be a natural development environment for each person. That country will be a source of support for all of us to build our lives, and in the same time, to build together a shared pride and increase common welfare. That country will also be a sentimental support for each person to be fully happy. It must belong to everyone and not to any particular force or party.
That is the view of the Rally for Democracy and Pluralism on Vietnam. The Rally for Democracy and Pluralism believes that only such a concept of nation can give Vietnamese people the reason to love their country and build it together, that is, allow Vietnam to exist and rise.
2. Pluralistic democracy
In order to escape the current stalemate and integrate into the modern world, to effectively encourage all national energies to strive for a worthy place in the international community, Vietnam has no other political option than a democratic and pluralistic institution.
Pluralistic democracy is not only an obvious choice for Vietnam but also an inevitable direction of progressive mankind.
The toughest debate in the twentieth century has been the debate on democracy. Tens of millions of people around the world have died in the conflicts caused by this controversy. The core issue is how to let the people decide the fate of the country, and many models have been conceived and experimented.
This debate has now ended. Marxism-Leninism and the ‘socialist democracy’ model it proposed have completely collapsed. The remaining communist regimes are merely pure tyrannical regimes. The democratic model based on personal freedom has won theoretically and also won in practice. The number of democratic countries is overwhelming and is growing rapidly.
Many say that Western-style democracy, which most nations in the world have accepted as true, has naturally pluralism. This is partly true, but the term ‘pluralistic democracy’ has its own important meaning, especially for the Vietnamese people in the current period. It speaks of a spirit, an attitude and an ideal. It is a spirit of generosity and tolerance, respect for everyone and every opinion. That attitude frankly refutes all forms of totalitarian dictatorship, including, and above all, the bluffed ‘democracy’ known as ‘centralized democracy’ or ‘socialist democracy’ which reserve a unique position to a doctrine and a ruling group. That ideal is to build a country - Vietnam - with a worthy and equal place for everyone.
Multi-party is not yet pluralism if all tendencies are not recognized an equal place. In its most authoritarian and dogmatic days, the Vietnamese communist regime had at times three or four parties, but it was not pluralistic because of that. Multi-party is only a necessary element, but not sufficient, of pluralism. Pluralism is a spirit, while multi-party is just a number.
In the relentless battle with the communist movement, Western countries have taken an extremely bold decision : instead of falling back in a sclerotic self-defense discipline, they maximized the development of their democracy, whose most remarkable characteristic is the respect for all differences in society, and they gradually moved towards pluralistic democracy. Yet many Western capitalist regimes are not yet true pluralistic democracies. Western countries are on different levels of pluralism.
Pluralistic democracy is the integration and application of pluralistic philosophy in political life. The basis of the pluralistic philosophy is the spirit of tolerance, the recognition and respect of all differences in society. Of course, pluralism exists in every society ; a fallacious reasoning is that all societies are pluralistic, but the unique thing is that pluralistic philosophy, instead of treating the existence of differences as a reality to recognize and overcome, considered them as natural, an enrichment to encourage and exploit. It is a style of political life. Pluralistic democracy is democracy but not all democracies are pluralistic democracies.
Pluralistic democracy is a new political system with its obligatory characteristics. We can emphasize five characteristics :
First : pluralistic democracy recognizes and respects the equal standing and voice for all people of all social backgrounds, all races, all faiths and all political trends. Pluralistic democracy condemns all discriminations, it strongly opposes the one-party regime. Practically, the constitution of a pluralistic democracy cannot contain any reference to a political party, a doctrine or a religion.
Second : in addition to the principle of separation of powers that must exist in every democracy worthy of its name, pluralistic democracy demands decentralization to respect the differences between localities. A government, even coming from free elections, is not a pluralistic democracy if most of the power is concentrated in the hands of the central government. In a pluralistic democracy, local governments, elected by the local people, must have broad statutory rights to organize life in accordance with the context of each region. Each region must have adequate size and population in order to be entities of sufficient stature for self-governance and development. Thus, some causes of conflict will naturally be resolved. Ethnic minorities will gain significant voices in the localities where they are concentrated. Political parties that do not have a majority in national elections can still hold government in the localities where they are trusted. Pluralistic democracy eases the tensions between the government and the opposition, at the central as well as the local levels, and eliminates the source of conflict described in a Vietnamese proverb : ‘the winner is king, the loser is rebel’. Decentralization has the consequence that the central government does not rule directly ; it only undertakes the missions of national defense, diplomacy, monetary policy and coordination of localities. Another role of the central government is to carry out infrastructure works on a national scale and to support local programs which deserve to be encouraged.
Third : pluralistic democracy is based on civil society. In addition to the political parties, the ethnic, local and religious communities, the civic associations organized by industry, interests, preferences, life views, wishes, concerns, etc. are free to operate independently of the government and are recognized as having an important role ; they have a voice and an influence in daily life and in the evolution of the society. The state considers itself to have the mission to serve civil society, not to control it, not to determine daily life for civil society. Economically, this means that the national economy must be based on private enterprises, the state sector must be limited to a minimum, and even better : no state sector. A strong and diverse civil society is the best guarantee for a permanent, natural and continuous transformation of the society, avoiding the sudden and destructive disorders of the revolutions.
Fourth : pluralistic democracy respects the minorities and is always seeking compromise. In a pluralistic democracy, the ‘minority submits to majority’ principle is not used automatically and mechanically, but only after all efforts are made to find consensus. Pluralistic democracy is against all forms of tyranny, including the tyranny of the majority. Normally, in a democratic regime, the legitimacy of a government is based on the results of the last election, but in pluralistic democracy, the legitimacy of a government also lies in the sincerity of seeking consensus in every important decision.
Fifth : pluralistic democracy naturally respects all categories of people ; it does not accept to sacrifice any category and it cannot allow a category to exploit and trample another category. So, pluralistic democracy attaches great importance to social solidarity and it cannot go hand in hand with what is often called ‘jungle capitalism’. Social solidarity is also a necessary condition to nurture and strengthen the national spirit because, among people with too different living standards, lifestyles, concerns and social statuses, the sentiment of fellow countrymen is only theoretical.
Absolute social justice, in the sense of eliminating all disparities, flat raking, dividing in equal parts, is something impossible and not desirable. What can and must exist is a social solidarity policy that guarantees everyone equality before the law and the equal ability to succeed, while supporting those who are weak or unlucky.
In a pluralistic democracy, the state is no longer the absolute leader. The role of the state is to undertake three functions : arbitration in the relationships between the elements of society, punishing the violations and reconciling the conflicting demands of different groups of people. The state of reconciliation rather than the state of control is a characteristic of pluralistic democracy. It definitely distinguishes pluralistic democracy from the autocratic regimes, but it also makes pluralistic democracy different from many democracies in which the government still has the ambition to decide for civil society.
Pluralistic society is an extremely complex combination of countless interwoven relationships, respecting all differences, with the fundamental role of civil society including countless communities, civic associations and enterprises, with decentralized political organizations. Such a complex society can only exist with clear, transparent and thoroughly applied laws. The state in a pluralistic democracy can only be ruled by law. Every civilized state must be a ruled by law state, but a pluralistic democratic state must be a complete rule by law state. In order for the law to be absolutely respected, it must be right, that is, made by real representatives elected by the people, solely for the common good ; its goal is to specify the expression of individual free rights in social activities.
Looking at the situation in Vietnam, if there is one thing we can assert, it is that with the accumulated hatred, the crisis of faith and the lack of common viewpoint, it is impossible to impose any force or any direction without strong opposition. The future Vietnamese institution must be an institution that respects all differences, giving equal standing and voice to everyone and to each person. This institution must therefore be a pluralistic democracy.
It is impossible to take as pretext the fact that our people do not have enough experience of democracy, that discipline is not high, that hearts are scattered, etc. to say that democracy is a luxury product for Vietnam. So, do we have to temporarily accept a certain amount of dictatorship ? To answer this question, we only need to compare the achievements of democratic countries with the poor achievements of the communist regimes, looking at what the right-wing dictatorships once brought to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
In the opposite way, the nature of democracy should not be misunderstood. Democracy does not solve immediately and completely the problem of development. The success of every regime requires the right choices and right persons. Democracy does not mean free meal. Democracy is no substitute for choices and people. But democracy is a lifestyle that allows to address the problems in a proper way and choose correctly the responsible persons. Democracy, and especially pluralistic democracy, is also a social organizing method that allows a full promotion of ideas and initiatives, the most basic motor for progress. So, the level of democracy determines an upper limit for development. The higher the democracy, the higher the possibility of development.
On the contrary, authoritarian regimes prohibit opinions and initiatives, prevent the peaceful and continuous evolution of society, tolerate corruption, injustice and abuse of power, and thus prevent development. We must be vigilant : there is no smart dictatorship, because the basis of every dictatorship is the sick arrogance of a person or a group of persons who think they are smart enough to think for a whole nation. They are too ignorant to either see the complexity of problems or see their own ignorance. The dictator is first and foremost an anesthetic. Besides, if we look carefully, we can see that most dictatorial groups lack culture.
Of course, pluralistic democracy cannot bring all its benefits in the poor intellectual, social and economic conditions ; but even in this case, pluralistic democracy is much better than dictatorship.
We assert : true pluralistic democracy now.
In order to have true pluralistic democracy, what we have to do first is to eliminate the grudges left behind by a bloody past, and nourished by a discriminatory policy over time. National reconciliation is mandatory due to historical circumstances. On this condition only, we can accept each other, admit fault with each other and forgive each other, to live together and shake hands to build a common future. Otherwise, pluralism only means temporarily tolerate each other due to a temporary balance of forces. Pluralism without national reconciliation is only a sick pluralism, in preparation of a settling of scores. In contrast, pluralistic democracy is also a necessary condition for real national reconciliation. Reconciliation without political pluralism is just a tricky reconciliation, the submission of the dominated to the dominant, that is, an impossible reconciliation.
Our country has not only the hatred left by the war. We also have a multitude of divisive causes that we have not been able to resolve because we were not aware of the importance of the problems, or because the war situation did not allow us to solve them. The distinctions due to religion, locality, ethnicity, rich and poor, human viewpoint, political opinion, etc. are numerous, and because they are not addressed, they become more and more serious. Pluralistic democracy, due to its tolerant spirit and its decentralized model, is a solution allowing all categories of people to have a place and a voice, and thus, they can accept each other, come closer, reconcile to build a common future.
No one can deny that pluralism is a beautiful ideal, so beautiful that the dictatorial regimes, though afflicted by it, dare not deny it definitively.
Pluralistic democracy is becoming the basic consensus of our people on the journey to the future. That is also the inevitable direction of mankind. Those who fight for pluralistic democracy have the right to be proud because they are pursuing a beautiful ideal and also have the right to be optimistic because they are fighting for a viewpoint that will win.
3. National reconciliation and concord
For more than four centuries, since the Mạc dynasty usurped the throne of the Lê dynasty at the beginning of the 16th century, our country has continuously moved from one war to another. The country has been divided many times during two centuries, it has been colonized and placed under various administrative regimes for nearly a hundred years. Wars, rebellions, revenges, vengeances, persecutions have been permanent elements of our recent history. The last war of 1945-1975 was the fiercest, when we fought each other ideologically for the first time, then the victorious camp implemented a policy of imprisonment and humiliation, along with countless measures of discrimination.
Due to historical circumstances, our social fabric has been badly damaged. The destructions require a very long period of healing, so the basic spirit of every policy for generations to come must be national reconciliation and concord. National reconciliation to eliminate the hatred of the past, to move towards national concord in the effort to build a common future.
In a such rapidly changing world, every country is subjected to incessant disturbances. One activity moves forward while the other is in recession, one sector is expanding while another is stagnant. Social disparities continuously emerge and policies, no matter how complete, cannot satisfy everyone. So, every country, every nation must constantly reconcile with each other because conflicts of interest and tensions always occur. National reconciliation has become the philosophy of national administration.
Reconciliation is compulsory for all nations, regardless of their level and history. But the people of Vietnam are among those who most need reconciliation.
We need to reconcile the national community in general with the ethnic minorities that have been in this country since the beginning and have always been trampled and rejected throughout history.
We need to reconcile the religions, especially Buddhism and Catholicism, which have been persecuted, repressed, discriminated and opposed each other by Vietnamese and foreign authorities. In addition, the rancor, the consequence of a historical situation in which both religions are victims, instead of being cleared, is sometimes exaggerated and exploited for illicit ambitions.
We need reconciliation and concord between the South and the North which have been frequently divided and placed in an opposition position and, since 1975, divided by a policy not different from an occupation by the Communist Party.
We need to reconcile the country with the overseas Vietnamese community who had to abandon their relatives, possessions, ancestral land only because they could not accept a harsh government, and thus had to endure great suffering and loss due to pirates, storms and police.
We also need to reconcile Vietnamese people with Vietnam. We have to admit that, being a Vietnamese to date has been a misfortune. Fatherland only means sacrifice. Moreover, the successive ruling gangs have committed very serious crimes in the name of the country. Of course, the country does not identify with those in power, but it is materialized by the rulers. Therefore, when for a too long time, there are only fraudulent or/and tyrannical rulers, the image of the country is compromised and patriotism vanishes. Reconciling the Vietnamese with the country is mandatory to restore patriotism, an indispensable factor if we still want a future for Vietnam. For that, the state, the representative of the country, must be humble, gentle and absolutely honest. The Vietnamese fatherland must be felt like a love and a common future project.
But the closest and most painful breakdown was that we have slaughtered each other in a thirty-year conflict. This war was a civil war because the overwhelming majority of the proponents, those who wielded weapons to kill each other and the victims were Vietnamese. It was a shameful civil war because both warring camps accepted orders and equipment from abroad. The fact that the communist party did not recognize this as a civil war only made it fiercer, because they did not recognize those in front of them as compatriots. One should be aware that a civil war is far more devastating than a war with a foreign country because, in addition to the loss of lives and material, it also destroys the national spirit and the will to live together, which is the foundation of a nation. To date, no nation has returned to normal after a civil war within one or two generations, even with dedicated conciliation efforts and even though the civil war only lasted a few years. Our civil war was much longer and fiercer. The wounds that were still bleeding, instead of being healed, were subsequently exacerbated by a brutal discrimination policy.
In the last conflict, we had no good choice. We had only distressing choices, between the bad and, subjectively, the worse. We have endured but not mastered the events. Very few Vietnamese have really fought for what they liked. In the overwhelming majority, the Vietnamese, the nationalists as well as the communists, were only against the camp which they saw as worse than their own camp. Those who could not stand the corruption of nationalist governments stood in the communist ranks, despite knowing their brutal nature ; those who found that letting the country fall in the hands of the communists is a disaster, stood in the nationalist ranks, although also disgusted by their badness. Siblings, close friends, because of a different evaluation, or just being pushed, even forced by the circumstances, had to turn their back, revile and kill each other. So, apart from the material and life losses, there is a major break in the heart and mind of each Vietnamese.
At the end, some lost the war, were imprisoned and humiliated ; others realized that all their sacrifices only contributed to a project to destroy the country. No one had any reason to catch anyone’s fault, we all failed shamefully. We were all victims. We must shake hands and redo history together.
The challenge before us is a ruling clique which has caused serious destruction to the country, has failed in all respects, is still insolently giving itself the exclusive right to rule the country indefinitely and is cruelly repressing all opposition voices, even peaceful voices. This clique uses all means to prevent national reconciliation, it knows that it can only maintain its control if the Vietnamese people are powerless because of hatred and division. Not only did it not soften the wounds of the war, it also expands its hostility to many groups and to the new generation by means of political repression, categorizing the people and discrimination.
Today, the aspiration of the overwhelming majority of Vietnamese is democracy. Recognizing brothers and sisters again and smiling at friends again must be the guiding spirit of a new national rally, in which there are no right and wrong people, but only equal brothers and sisters who feel sorry for the country and unite for a democratic campaign. National reconciliation and concord are the core conditions to isolate and defeat the stubborn dictatorship.
Transcending momentary excitement, national reconciliation and concord are also a necessary historical stop to break the vicious circle of hatred and division that has imprisoned us for centuries, especially since half a century. This is a very difficult break in history because the concept of national reconciliation is completely absent in the Vietnamese political usages. For nearly eight centuries, since the Trần dynasty, weeding the roots, eliminating the three bloodlines, eradicating the whole, were the methods used by the rulers instead of reconciliation. Gradually, this violent behavior has taken root in collective psychology and made the concept of reconciliation become alien to Vietnamese people. That is why many people have said that Vietnamese people have no need for reconciliation when we are actually one of the people most in need of reconciliation. In fact, we are imprisoned in hatred due to a lack of reconciliation spirit. That vicious circle has prevented us from mobilizing all the vitality of the country to rise up and it explains why we are writhing in poverty and inferiority.
National reconciliation and concord are the necessary conditions for the success of the current democratic struggle and also for the success of our future effort to revive the country.
The implementation of national reconciliation is not merely a sentiment, it also requires concrete measures. The future Vietnamese state will put the free person as the highest object of service. The future Vietnamese state will consider pluralism as an absolute value. Pluralism in all aspects of spirituality, culture, politics, economy, society. The future Vietnamese state will severely punish all offensive languages and attitudes to all races, communities, beliefs and views. On the contrary, the state will encourage and wholeheartedly support all initiatives and efforts to bring Vietnamese people closer, from all regions, all races, all religions, all viewpoints, all political opinions, in the spirit of respect for all differences. The future Vietnamese state will have to restore the honor of those who have been humiliated, compensate the victims for damage, even though in an incomplete way, without creating new victims. Removing hatred means that there will be no political trial ; on the contrary, there will be a law prohibiting the state from prosecuting anyone for the position he/she has held, unless he/she has seriously violated the laws in effect while he/she was in office. Every citizen has the right to denounce the intimidation that he/she has been a victim ; the state will treat those disputes as those between citizens who are equal before the law, in the spirit of national reconciliation.
These measures, applied with sincerity to heal the wounds left by history, will help us gradually reaching national concord in our effort to build and share a common Vietnam future. We will close a sad page of history and open a new page written in national sentiment. National reconciliation and concord must be our determined policy for many generations.
4. Accept and affirm the progress-driving values
An advanced society must be built on the foundation of progress-driving values.
Western countries have developed strongly and surpassed the rest of the world because their societies are based on true fundamentals. Those values are peace, freedom, democracy, equality, human rights, the rule of law, dialogue, cooperation, profit, environment and solidarity. These values are not exclusive to Western people but are inherent in every society and in every civilization. The merit of Western countries is that they knew how to promote and fully develop most of these values to serve as a foundation for society. Thus, they have gained strength and prosperity. In contact with the West the other countries recognized their inferiority and seek to compromise with Western civilization. However, natural inertia has led most countries to accept only some elements of Western societies in order to integrate them into their traditions, such as learning Western technology, while maintaining the old social structure. But a civilization is a whole made up of intertwined values, so it is very difficult to take an element of one civilization to graft on another civilization. It is not possible to accept Western technologies while still rejecting the fundamental values that gave birth to them and promoted their advancement. The experience of the nations has shown that this half-hearted attitude brought only limited success, before leading to crisis. Although Russia began to innovate since the end of the 17th century, it had failed to catch up with Western Europe and fell into disorder and eventually to communism with the disastrous consequences that the world had seen ; Japan accumulated contradictions that led to a self-destruction war. Today, Japan has realized that mistake and has embraced all the values of the progressive world since World War II and has just completed a three-decade restructuring to adapt its society to these values. Russia also will have no other choice ; the half-democratic half-mafia regime now begins to vacillate. China with the policy of ‘socialist-oriented market economy’ and restoring Confucianism has also come very close to crisis.
Accepting honestly and firmly the political, cultural and social values of the modern world is a prerequisite. Japan because of such choice has become a leading power in the world. Some Asian countries, such as South Korea and Taiwan, have been rising strongly since the last four decades following the Japanese model. Accepting all progressive values is the choice we must make decisively. In the midst of the hesitation of other countries in the region, this choice is an opportunity that allows us to rise, catch up and overcome them.
Among these values, the one we most need is peace. The tradition of fighting against foreign aggression has gradually made us see violence as a natural way to resolve conflicts. We are accustomed to glorify heroes who had famous victories and we minimize the peaceful building efforts, the foundation of all progress. From now on, we must curse violence and raise peace to an absolute value.
We should not be afraid that accepting new values will make us lose our national spirit. These values are already present in every society, including our society ; it is unfortunate that we have not fully promoted them, this is the cause of our present humiliation and inferiority. Accepting them is not denying ourselves, it only means promoting the positive things within us. Besides, moving forward and catching up with the world are the condition for us to exist as a nation and preserve our culture and national identity.
On the common values, Western countries have built many different lifestyles depending on the unique characteristics of each country. British society is different from French society, German culture is different from Italian culture, the United States are different from Sweden. On the basis of new values, Japan and many other Asian countries have retained their traditions. On the basis of new values, Vietnam will still be Vietnam, but it will be a more glorious Vietnam.
We need a great cultural campaign. Our education, our laws, our cultural, social and economic activities must emphasize and honor progressive values. The school, apart from its core mission of transferring knowledge, must be an environment accustoming youth to tolerance, sense of responsibility, free and objective thinking, love for the country, the compatriots, humanity and nature. A special effort will also be devoted to physical education and sports to promote the objective mind, the spirit of friendly competition, the spirit of respect of law. This thought campaign is the most important effort of all, because this is an effort to build the foundation of a new society. We will not only accept but we must have the ambition to contribute to complement and perfect universal values. This thought campaign will also help us to strengthen and promote an essential category of people for the nation, that we are only starting to have : political intellectuals, those who invest time and effort to understand the problems of the country, who dare to have their opinions and are willing to pay the price to engage in fighting for what they think is right for the country. They are the guides for the masses and the intellect of the nation. It is this absence of political intellectuals throughout history that has made our country inferior, drifting from one mistake to another tragedy.
5. Developing the country on the basis of democracy, market economy and individual initiatives
The most painful thing for us is our backwardness and poverty. The focus of all national efforts must therefore be development, and a thorough insight into development is critical.
Half of humanity is still living in poverty, nearly a quarter is living in extreme poverty. Two centuries ago, even in the most developed countries, more than half of the population died before puberty. Therefore, development is a very new phenomenon in some countries thanks to some special conditions that we need to identify to catch.
First of all, how do we understand development ?
Development is a continuous and lasting change over time, allowing more and more efficient use of resources and manpower, giving the nation a greater and greater income and giving people a better life, materially and intellectually.
Development is a relative concept. A country is considered to be developed when it achieves high results compared to the rest of the world in terms of per capita income, education, health care, housing and infrastructure, when economic activity is strong and modern, environment is clean and beautiful, means of transport, information, education and entertainment are abundant.
Development, even with the above definition, is not everything. The success of a nation, besides development, is also the fact that all people voluntarily stick together in the effort to build a common future, each person feels in control of his/her life and lives according to his/her will, everyone feels to be respected in a non-threatening society, enjoying the benefits of his or her efforts, is assured of equal advancement opportunities and believes that tomorrow will be better than today, and the life of his/her children will be better than his/her life. That is the goal we want to achieve.
Development is not just an increase in gross national output. Therefore, a 5% growth of gross national output with good education and health systems, a protected and improved natural environment, a fairly equitable income sharing, must be considered much better than a 15% growth in which all cultural, social and environmental issues are abandoned. A specific example is the case of China. The growth rate is quite high, but the damage to the environment, if converted into expenses for recovery, is even higher. The disparity between rich and poor is excessive, the disparity between regions is increasingly alarming ; in addition, a significant portion of the population becomes nomads wandering in the streets or in fortuitous gathering places in the suburbs. We cannot tolerate such a growth. We seek a harmonious and balanced development, because only that development can be sustainable and deserves to be considered a national goal.
Although development is not only economic, economic development is the most important factor and also the key for a balanced development of the whole. We are one of the poorest and less developed nations, therefore economic development is the most urgent goal for us.
We need to dispel immediately a catastrophic confusion.
The greatest deception that still persists is the allegation that a society wanting to progress quickly needs an enlightened dictatorship, a delay in building democracy and sacrificing some basic freedoms. This deception has been the cause of terrible mourning. It has created and nurtured fascist and militarist regimes in Italy, in Germany and in Japan. It has helped the communist movement to arise, develop and survive. It has helped to maintain dictatorships in Latin America and Asia in the past. And it is still being used as the theoretical support of many other authoritarian regimes, including Vietnam.
These regimes have only brought bad results. The dictatorships in Italy, Germany and Japan have accumulated conflicts, stagnated and have to plunge into self-destruction wars. The communist regime in the Soviet Union destroyed the resources and the environment, deported the people and collapsed. All other dictatorships have the same effect : poverty, backwardness and oppression.
In fact, development is a consequence of freedom and democracy. But because development also encourages and promotes freedom and democracy, it is easy to mix up the consequence and the cause, leading to the erroneous patience : temporarily accept dictatorship to develop, then development will bring democracy. This misperception has been exploited by the authoritarian cliques.
The experience of the nations proves that democracy and development go hand in hand.
The phenomenon of development on a national scale began to appear in Europe and the United States after societies based on democracy were established. The cause of development is that the weight of the state in everyday life is reduced, a democratic and stable constitution is respected, the law replaces arbitrary decisions of the rulers, people are respected and protected, the economy operates in accordance with the rules of the market, business is honored, trade and exchange are promoted, ideas and initiatives are encouraged and rewarded, profit is promoted as a value.
The only Asian country that has caught up with Western countries at the beginning of the 20th century is Japan that has developed by quickly accepting Western economic life. Under the dominance of an arrogant knight class separated from the masses, a democratic society has quietly formed among the majority of Japanese and has made Japan rise since the 18th century, then strongly from the second half of the 19th century.
The fact that the fascist regime in Italy and the Nazi regime in Germany made some initial progress, and the Japanese military regime maintained development for several decades, helps us identify another element of development, inherent in previous developments : national consensus. All three nations at that time were upset with their inferiority and all had charismatic leaders to unite them in a common effort.
The experience of recently developed countries in Asia needs to be looked at precisely because, contrary to the superficial view of some people and the tricky explanation of dictatorships, these countries have developed because they were more democratic and freer than other slow-moving countries, though they may not have achieved full and proper democracy.
Latin America countries with rich resources were writhing for more a century and a half in backwardness under dictatorships and have only risen since the 1980s thanks to democracy.
In Europe, three countries, Spain, Portugal and Greece, because of entanglement in dictatorial regimes, have dramatically lagged behind ; they have only risen since the 1970s by dropping the tyranny.
Even the recent economic advances in China and Vietnam are no exception : they were made possible by the market economy and a greater degree of freedom.
Experience of all nations has proved that democracy, private property right, market economy, light state apparatus are the factors that give rise to economic development.
But experience also shows that the same factors have created economic developments different in speed and intensity in different countries, and many countries with unfavorable natural conditions have developed stronger than others also democratic and with more natural resources. That is because psychological and cultural factors have played a decisive role.
After observing the history of nations, we can also approach the phenomenon of development by economic reasoning.
Economic development requires three factors that are needed and sufficient : people have a desire for business, they can do business and they have the means to do business.
To want doing business, people need a favorable psychological context : business activity is respected by society, ideas and initiatives are promoted, risk acceptance is honored ; they also need reason to be optimistic that the business will be profitable and that the profits will be theirs. In other words, to do business, along with an optimistic economic context, businessmen need a social psychology favorable to business and a sure guarantee of private property. This startup element of development explains why the communist countries have collapsed because they do not respect private property. But more importantly, it explains why the phenomenon of development appears only in some countries thanks to a favorable social psychology.
To be able to do business, businessmen need an orderly and secure society, they need to be guaranteed by law and be free to act ; they cannot be bound by too many regulations, not confined in a rigid national plan, not be overtaxed, not harassed by a corrupt apparatus of government. We see here the need for a rule of law democracy, a market economy rather than a planned economy, a light state apparatus. But we also see once again the psychological factors : morality and honesty. Corruption is also a consequence of the decline of social morality.
Of course, businessmen also need the means, that is, the necessary human resources with the required capabilities, a good infrastructure, investment capital, a strong banking credit system to mobilize working capital. Investment capital is only one of the factors and not the most important one. Few capital means few investment and profit will generate capital. Moreover, capital has its own wisdom and logic, especially in the context of globalization today ; capital will go where business is profitable. The most important factor is still people, the people who are frank, honest, skilled and responsible. Once again, the core factors are psychological and cultural.
In general, development needs a context of freedom and democracy and is mainly a cultural and psychological problem. That is why some countries, despite their scarce resources, despite terrible destruction, have risen strongly. Germany and Japan, two defeated and devastated countries, only needed a few decades to become the most developed countries. The Dutch people, pressed in a small land with few natural resources, have built one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Because development is primarily a cultural and psychological issue, it has so far been limited to a number of countries.
One must distinguish psychology and culture from intellect and knowledge. Congenitally, human beings have the same or nearly equal intellectual ability ; therefore, thanks to education, they can reach an equal level of understanding. The difference is the psychology and culture, the values that are esteemed and expressed in society, the progressive mind, the acceptance of risk in business, the sense of responsibility, the behavior in the collective life.
We need to change society and people to develop.
We need a democratic society, which values people, places trust in them, allows them to freely decide to build their lives. We need a rule-of-law state, with comprehensive laws and not too many regulations, we need a market mechanism instead of an imposed plan.
We need people who are free, responsible, honest, attached to the community, progressive and competitive, not jealous and destructive. We need people who are eager to do business, to be rich honestly.
We need an economic system that operates without coercion. Businessmen must be allowed to freely act according to the objective rules of business and the market. Social solidarity is a permanent concern of a righteous government, but social solidarity must be exercised in the phase of distribution of national income, through taxes, and cannot interfere with the governance of business activities.
We also need a stable legal context, the constitution and the laws, so that people can rest assured to build their lives and make plans for the future without fear of a change in rules, suddenly ruining their business projects.
But stable constitution and laws do not mean a stable government. The constant change of the rulers in a stable legal context does not prohibit the police from continuing to protect order and security, it does not prohibit judges from continuing to pronounce judgments, it does not prohibit a factory from functioning. What could be detrimental to economic activity are revolutions that upset everything, sudden changes in national laws and orientation.
Pushing the argument further, we can say that democratic governments without overwhelming majority to arbitrarily change laws and policies, can also be a guarantee of the stability of the legal context, which is beneficial for development. An overwhelming government with many powers is only needed to decide quickly changes and impose a national development plan. But national plan is something we should avoid. National plan is an unrealistic product, a remnant of the time when the world was not lucid and not experimented enough to recognize that it is necessary to let society decide what to do, how much to do, how to do, through objective market rules. Economic planning is an obstacle to development that we must eliminate ; what we need is a national orientation and projects for each problem, especially infrastructure projects. Of course, in a difficult context with many obstacles for development, we need a government capable of deciding the necessary options to remove the bottlenecks left behind by the past. A democratic and light government is still able to do this, through persuasion to create public consensus and support on a number of mandatory fundamental options.
In short, to develop the country, first economically, we need a democratic institution, a rule-of-law state, a market economy, an absolute respect for personal ideas and initiatives, a strong belief in people. That institution will give rise to creativity, a progressive spirit, a sense of responsibility. But we also need an important cultural effort to uphold the values of progress and bring those values into everyone’s soul and reflexes. Those values are peace, freedom, democracy, human rights, equality, the rule of law, cooperation, profit, solidarity and the environment.
Building a pluralistic democratic society, promoting progressive values, we will have development, especially economic development. That is our doctrine of development. We assert that in such a society, with such values, even if we do not want to develop, we will develop. In contrast, in a society without democracy, or without progressive values, no matter how you want and try, there will be no development or only a low level of development. Natural resources and investment capital are secondary factors.
In such a development doctrine, the role of the state is mainly to preserve peace, security and order, to ensure national defense and justice, to create good relations with the world community, to reconcile and arbitrate civil society disputes. The role of the state in economy will be limited to three areas : taxes, public spending and monetary volume adjustment. Taxes allow the state to have the budget to do its duty and ensure social security and solidarity. Public spending is used to build, maintain and improve infrastructure, promote and stimulate a number of industries. The adjustment of the amount of circulating currency, mainly through fixing a base interest rate, issuing or withdrawing bonds, has a direct effect on prices, investment and growth. In all three areas, the state also needs to act with caution to avoid disrupting economic activities. Stability is the core element of business. For monetary management, we must avoid the case of the government acting on short-term political requirements, by entrusting to a central bank institution stemming from the government, but not subject to arbitrary directives of the government.
Once again, the need for development forces us to have a state of reconciliation and arbitration so that civil society can take care of development instead of a state that commands and decides for civil society. The role of conciliation and arbitration in economic activities forces the state to abandon all business functions. State-owned companies should not exist, or if so, they should be regarded as indispensable only for a limited period of time. In our development doctrine, the state does not interfere with civil society, but it focuses all efforts to fulfill the true function of a state.
V. Major orientations of the Vietnam model
To rebuild the country after the devastation caused by the communist regime, we will have to completely change the political, economic and social system, the relationship between the state and the people, the relationship between our country and the world ; we will also have to reconsider the role of civil society, to choose long-term solutions to issues of social solidarity and population limitation.
On the basis of the thoughts just explained, we will rebuild the country on the following major orientations.
1. Making freedom a driving force to promote creativity and a rising spirit
Our nation has a glorious tradition of defending the country, but in return we have also spent too much time and energy in the effort to fight foreign invaders. In those hard struggles, we must always uphold discipline and consensus, and we must always put aside discussions to deal with urgent problems. On the one hand, this difficult history made us highly able to adapt to living conditions, but on the other hand, we have gradually lost long-term vision, initiative, inventiveness and the spirit of adventure.
We have a long coast and a gentle ocean, but the sea has almost no call to us. We have lacked the determination to conquer and make use of the ocean. We do not have shipbuilding and seafaring technology, no merchant fleet, no great navigators. Until recently, we only lived with the land as a continental people. We have been satisfied with the Confucian model from generation to generation, without being aware that Confucian culture is a slavery culture that blinds the intellect and alienates people, especially the intellectuals. That authoritarian and draconian mold, after allowing us to get some initial accomplishments, has forced us to stand still for centuries to come.
Criticism and creativity, the spirit of adventure and advancement are things we must learn and get used to. To do so, we must encourage and honor the freedom to think and speak. We need to raise to the level of an absolute rule that in the future Vietnam, there will be neither banned discussion nor banned idea. No Vietnamese can be punished for his way of life or for what he says, except in case of direct call for violence.
2. Promoting voluntary patriotism
Throughout most of our history, we have lived under absolute monarchies that considered the nation as a private property of a dynasty, when we were not subject to foreign dependence. Our patriotism therefore had no condition to develop. When the idea of a nation belonging to everyone and requiring the contribution of everyone appeared, it was quickly absolutized, as a legacy of the time when the king was God and the people were slaves. The fatherland becomes sacred and supreme, it has no responsibility and it accepts no demand. That fatherland was used as a guise for so many crimes. War, mourning, despair, the long-lasting sufferance of a dictatorial regime that is both mediocre and tyrannical, the inferiority complex towards other nations have seriously harmed our patriotism. Because our patriotism was not strong, we let the communist party - whose ideal is to serve an international movement instead of the nation and which worshiped a doctrine advocating the abolition of the nation – attract a large number of compatriots and control the political scene. Because our will and our patriotism are eroded, we have not reacted fiercely today to a one-party dictatorial regime that considers the country to be its own like the kings of the old days, while all humanity is moving toward democracy and we also know that the country really needs democracy.
But we are Vietnamese, and our future is tied to the future of Vietnam. We have no other choice than to build a common Vietnam future. And to build that common future, patriotism is still a common denominator. We need a new impulse of patriotism. We need to recover and reinvent patriotism.
We need to affirm patriotism as a voluntary sentiment of free people, closely bound together to build a shared future for themselves, their children and grandchildren. We need to let each one to be patriot in his own way, we cannot allow patriotism to be assimilated with the endorsement of a doctrine. We need to reconcile the Vietnamese people with the country. We need a peaceful fatherland instead of a ferocious one, a fatherland with a heart instead of claws, a lovable fatherland instead of a scary and detestable one, a fatherland which encourages instead of forbidding, a fatherland which is responsible and close to everyone instead of being so sacred that it becomes abstract and distant, a fatherland of human rights and civil rights.
In order to do so, the government who represents and acts in the name of the fatherland must be an honest, humble, thrifty and devoted government, cherishing each citizen and letting each person see that he is respected. That government will neutralize all hatred, will on behalf of the national continuity apologize, restore honor and compensate all victims of injustice. That government will be constantly alert so that no group of population feels left out. That government will not force anyone to be patriotic, on the contrary, it will put all its efforts to create the conditions for people to be patriotic.
Along with democracy, freedom, ideas, initiatives and, above all, patriotism will be a key weapon to help us accept the legacy of the communist party and join hands to conquer the future.
3. Honoring and promoting civil society
Every civilized nation must lay its foundation on civil society. One of the main reasons why we are lagging behind other countries is the absence of a true civil society. Civil society is the totality of churches, associations, clubs, charities, workers unions, cooperatives, companies, businesses. In general, these are all the associations of people, established outside the government to pursue common goals with no ambition for political power.
The concept of civil society appeared at the same time with civilized societies. These are the intertwined ropes that attach people to each other and bind people to society. Those interconnected links create a nation’s enrichment and strength. The citizen unions that form civil society are also the cradles for ideas, initiatives and progress. A strong civil society ensures that new ideas arise quickly, conflicts are discovered and resolved in a timely manner, society constantly evolves in peace and order. More importantly, a healthy civil society also provides what we might call the miracle of union. It has a superior effect, meaning that a union can give rise to entirely new characteristics and capabilities not found in its elements. For example, the combination of elementary particles under different special conditions produces atoms ; in turn, the atoms combine to create molecules, and then molecules combine to give birth to life. Similarly, the coordinated movement of neurons creates emotion and opinion. Dictatorships, especially communist dictatorships, while stifling civil society, have deprived the nations of this remarkable ability. Perhaps, this is the reason why democratic societies are superior to dictatorships.
In our social model, civil society will be valued and encouraged ; moreover, it will be entrusted with the important role of exercising solidarity, helping and defending the weak and unlucky people.
Every association creates strength. The power of civil society is the synergy, yet never unified, of civic unions that are sometimes in the same direction, sometimes isolated, sometimes opposing each other. The power of civil society sometimes integrates with the state, sometimes opposes the state, but it always influences the state ; it never has the ambition to compete with the state because it does not and cannot have political ambition.
Civil society ensures dynamism of the society and at the same time it guarantees freedom, democracy, human rights, and it prevents all authoritarian intentions. Every tyrannical dictatorship first wants to destroy civil society. The nature of dictatorial regimes is to lean on a minority to control a divided society. The dictatorships do not need trust and love from people, they only need people not sticking together so that there is no strong resistance. Nothing satisfies tyrannical cliques more than the indifference and emotionlessness of powerless masses because of division.
The philosophy of a democracy is, on the contrary, considering civil society as an overwhelming and fundamental element of the nation ; therefore, the role of the state is to increase the number of civic unions, make them progressing and strengthening to contribute positively to the prosperity of society. The pluralistic democratic state considers itself an instrument of civil society with the mission of ensuring the healthy functioning of civil society, so that civil society can create happiness for the citizens. It is not a resignation but a new political philosophy of a government confident enough to put its trust in the citizens. In its relation to civil society, the pluralistic democratic state considers itself to be the arbitrator, coordinating and expressing the aspirations of civil society. The state serves but does not control civil society.
There will be no obstacle to the establishment and development of citizen unions. In particular, non-profit associations will only need to declare their establishment, not the operating license. Associations with cultural and social purposes also have the right to ask the state for help.
4. Confirming Vietnam as a country built on communities
Although our country has a long history, it is a new country. The Central has only been integrated since the 17th century, the South since the 18th century. Our country has received many new contributions on land and race. Yet our organization is not adapted to these changes and the country is incorrectly considered as the country of a single community : the Kinh community. Our history is the history of the Kinh. Our culture is the culture of the Kinh. The concepts of morality, society and law are based on the Kinh and mainly serve the Kinh people. Perhaps, our difficult process of opening and defending the country did not give us the time and the means to think seriously about a community policy, but to be honest we are very flawed on this point. Throughout history, with a few exceptions, the Kinh have hardly recognized any responsibility toward ethnic minorities ; they have only imposed their model, if needed by violence. This situation, if not clearly identified in order to timely have appropriate policies, can lead to very disastrous consequences, especially in the context of the present and upcoming world. Many countries are facing or will face a very difficult situation because of violent uprisings of ethnic minorities claiming their identity. If we are not vigilant and let this occur, two large areas of the country, the northern mountains and the central highlands, may become unstable and impossible to develop.
The communities must be equally respected in a country defined as a country of communities. The Vietnamese community of Khmer origin has lived in the South for a long time, the Vietnamese community of Chinese origin has contributed greatly to the opening of the South ; they must be considered fully Vietnamese before the law and in the national sentiments.
The Vietnamese nation must completely abandon the idea of homogenization in order to seek common progress in differences. We must assert that Vietnam is not defined by a race but by the agreement to build and share a common future.
Today the Kinh have the majority throughout the territory, the solution of establishing autonomous regions for ethnic groups is no longer feasible, but decentralization will allow ethnic groups to have a significant say in the local governments. The cultures, the languages of ethnic minorities must be considered as a part of Vietnamese culture, which the State has the duty to preserve. Vietnamese history must also be revisited and regarded as the history of ethnicities, united to form the country of Vietnam.
The spirit of respect for communities must also be extended to religious communities, ideological communities, professional communities and informal communities due to particular lifestyles of each locality. These communities must be guaranteed a foothold and a voice in national activities.
Since April 30, 1975 we have another important new community : the overseas Vietnamese community. These Vietnamese had to leave the country because they could not bear measures of humiliation, repression and discrimination. The country of Vietnam must open its arms and heart to them. Their citizen rights must be recognized immediately and fully, for them as well as for their children born abroad.
The formation of the overseas Vietnamese community is a very new element and a great chance for the country. Thanks to this community, the Vietnamese have become familiar with all walks of life and civilizations, have tried all social organizational models, and crept into all scientific and technical subjects. This community, once normal relations are restored with the country, will be a guarantee that Vietnam will be an open country, which will get rid of stubbornness and prejudice and will definitely get out of stubborn dead end. This community, although it is not yet large and it still needs to be strengthened, has the potential to contribute greatly to the country. The overseas Vietnamese will be very valuable scientific, technical, cultural and commercial bridgeheads that the Vietnamese state has no means to create. Experience has shown that the countries that have developed rapidly recently have benefited from the contribution of a strong overseas community. Any wise Vietnamese state must encourage communication between people inside and outside the country, recognize an overseas Vietnamese entity and seek every initiative to make the Vietnamese overseas community larger and stronger.
5. Definitely choosing market economy and private enterprises
Experience of the world over the past decades has shown that collective and state economic policies have all led to failure. Experience has also shown that the free market is the most accurate guide to production and the surest guarantee for an efficient distribution. The economic choice that must be made for Vietnam is a market economy, taking private enterprises as foundation, taking business mindset and initiative as strength, taking ambition and enrichment as engine, taking benefits as reward and stimulant.
That choice means that the state will not do what private business can do. The main economic role of the state is to ensure the stability of money, prevent illicit competition, invest in promising industries that the private sector does not yet dare or cannot yet afford to invest in, undertake a number of necessary research and prevention programs. The state also has a function of alerting harmful business trends and encouraging beneficial economic activities, but it does so primarily with information and support, not by command and banning. The state will concentrate its effort to protect territorial integrity, protect order and security, protect justice, protect the environment, promote beneficial international relations, build and strengthen national consensus, that is, doing the right functions of a state.
To fulfill that function and ensure a healthy market economy, the state must continuously strive to build a proper legal system in an empirical spirit, starting from the right basis and continuously supplemented by case law.
6. Moving towards an industrial and service economy
With a small but fertile farming land, Vietnam has considerable agricultural potential. Agriculture in the short term is a lever for revival and the starting point of economic development. Therefore, agriculture is our immediate economic focus and will also be our economic focus for some time.
However, because of its limited land and large population, Vietnam cannot continue to be an agricultural country. On the contrary, our position is advantageous, our human resources are abundant and high-standard. Our natural function is that of an industrial, commercial, service and maritime country. We have to prepare now for that future, especially because in addition that transformation will allow us to turn many mountainous regions that cannot be used for agriculture into activity surfaces, meaning that the country will be practically enlarged.
Our economic goal for the next twenty years is to transform from an agricultural economy to an industrial, commercial and service economy. This means that the weight of agriculture in total national output as well as in manpower allocation will decrease. The first step of this transformation effort is to develop industries associated with agriculture such as food industry, fertilizer manufacturing, pesticides, agricultural machinery, etc. in parallel with trying to find export markets for agricultural products. Our national goal in this transition period is that Vietnamese food be known to the world as of super high quality, Vietnamese farm implements and tools as unrivaled in quality/price ratio.
In addition to our efforts on industries with clear perspectives such as fisheries and tourism, we will pay special attention to two new perspectives : port services and information technology. Both of these industries require a full, frank open policy to the outside world.
Due to our advantageous location and coastline, Vietnam can have very large trading ports. We will be ready to sign long-term contracts for construction and operation of a number of commercial ports with foreign corporations. But the important thing to attract international trade services is that the security and order situation must be stable, the political institution must be open, the government must be honest and the telecommunications system must be complete.
Vietnamese people are quite good in information technology. This is an industry with a lot of potential for development and it still needs a lot of experts with high prices. Informatics, if used properly, is also an objective management tool that can eliminate many causes of corruption. Our country currently has a lot of computerization needs of the public sector hoping to be funded by international institutions. We can use the implementation of these projects as a springboard to train a team of good and up-to-date IT specialists. The outlook is even higher because advancements in communications are increasingly enabling performing IT contracts without going abroad.
The state must aim to connect every family to the Internet to make the most of this network as a means of communication, learning, exchange and trading.
We will not establish economic zones with special regulations like ‘manufacturing and export zones’, but we will give all incentives and ease to economic activities across the country, with a common business law for the whole territory.
Our country is fortunate to be a coastal country, densely populated areas are not far from the coast and not far from good ports. Based on that advantage, we will establish industrial zones spread across the territory. This policy requires an important investment in transport and communication systems, but in return, it will save even more important costs on migration, and it avoids the problem of overpopulation in big cities that all developing countries encounter. It should be emphasized that any future policy is absolutely not coercive. The redistribution of the population and the labor force is a permanent and natural phenomenon in all countries, especially in developing countries ; but the best way is to give people full choice of career and place to live after being fully informed about the opportunities. It is a way for individual intellect and national strategy to complement and regulate each other.
The condition for the success of this important transformation is to have good relations with all countries, especially developed countries, and be fully accepted in large cooperation blocks.
7. Strengthening the domestic market
We will use the domestic market as a springboard to move forward. With nearly 100 million people, our country is a huge market and the exchange between Vietnamese people is itself an extremely important economic engine. In any economy, even in the era of globalization, except for the very special case of oil exporting countries, the domestic market is always more important than import and export activities. The domestic market is both important in terms of volume and as a testing ground for exports, it is also a necessary buffer to cope with changes in the international market. Export activities can only develop healthily if the domestic market is strong. The domestic market will be stimulated by releasing all business coercions and promoting important public programs. Agriculture, fishery, food industry, textile, cloth industry, manufacturing of household goods, construction materials, equipment and furnishing will be the first stepping stones for our domestic market.
Domestic market development must go hand in hand with domestic business development. We do not have great capitalists, so we need to actively promote, support and encourage individual enterprises and small-scale companies, helping them thrive and increase in stature, gradually becoming big capitalists.
An urgent imperative of the domestic market development policy is repairing and strengthening the road and communication systems, the means of transportation and transmission of information.
8. Constantly alert to strengthen social solidarity
Among the missions of the pluralistic democratic state, the most important mission is to ensure social solidarity. In its philosophical basis, pluralism respects every part of society, so it does not tolerate one group to exploit and trample another. We honor profit as a value and seek profit primarily to have the means for social solidarity. Besides, a nation without solidarity is no longer a nation. We cannot abandon the weak, fall behind, just as a civilized society cannot refuse a crutch for the disabled. We recognize the equality of the rights and dignity of every human being in society and we need to dedicate the means to honor that equality.
Social solidarity is a mandatory condition to preserve the stability of the social foundation, ensuring the active and enthusiastic participation of all people in the future of the country, avoiding conflicts that can break the momentum of the nation toward the future and lead to riots.
In fact, economic development often spawns and worsens social disparities. The central mission of the state is to prevent and minimize the causes of tension that development will certainly bring, because it cannot be completely balanced.
Social solidarity requires a sustained and careful effort in distributing national income to defend the weak categories.
Social solidarity requires a social protection system that ensures minimum food and health needs for all.
Social solidarity requires a general and continuing education and training system that ensures equal promotion opportunities for all citizens.
In the short term, social solidarity can be a burden to the nation and an obstacle to economic development, but looking lucidly at the long term, it is mandatory so that the economic development momentum can continue. Solidarity is also an essential condition to ensure national sentiment and national attachment.
Of course, the state undertakes the task of implementing social solidarity. But the state will also particularly encourage civil society, through charitable organizations, to make a positive contribution to that important mission. A part of the social budget will be used through civil society. The charitable organizations will be funded in proportion – depending on the budget capacity – to the resources they have mobilized from the masses for the social missions.
The active participation of civil society in the effort to realize social solidarity has the effect of mobilizing the contribution – emotional as well as material – of the masses, and has a special moral effect. In a state welfare office, the person in need of help may only meet a civil servant, but in a charity agency, that person will meet a volunteer for social work with faith, a person with a heart ; the bond of social solidarity and the spirit to overcome obstacles can only be stronger.
Absolute social equality is not possible. The important thing is that the state considers social solidarity to be a permanent concern. Social solidarity is both necessary and delicate, we must take care of it very carefully, treating it as a fight to preserve the country.
However, we need to affirm that social solidarity is the duty of the state, with the cooperation of civil society, and not the responsibility of enterprises. Enterprises, apart from the duty to respect the dignity of the workers, respect the laws of the state and respect the contracts signed with the workers, have the sole function of making profit to contribute to the wealth of society and pay taxes to the state, so that the state has the resources to guarantee social solidarity. We affirm that social solidarity cannot interfere with economic activity and become an obstacle for businesses.
9. Adopting a ‘small country doctrine’
We are now a very inferior country ; our most urgent requirement is to develop and catch up with developed countries. Therefore, the basic policy of Vietnam in this period must be one that we can call ‘doctrine of a small country’.
What is the doctrine of a small country ? Simply put, it is keep humble today in order to grow tomorrow.
Internally, the doctrine of a small country means that we will not divide and conflict with each other over sophisticated doctrines, we will humbly recognize the weakness of the country, we will treasure, love and protect each other to get out together of the present painful situation. The state will refuse boastful spending for prestige to concentrate all resources and forces on the efforts to get out of inferiority. The state will respectfully protect and preserve the few achievements. The state will place its emphasis on education and training, and will invest in a pragmatic education first.
Externally, we will not compete for an international role, will not involve in international disputes, except to defend human rights, justice, ethics and international law. We will try to create a peaceful and humble image to be accepted by the international community as a nation to trade with, we will definitely not engage in any international conflict. However, being humble does not mean accepting dependence. We will review the agreements that the communist government has signed with foreign countries and abolish those that are either dependent or insulting national sovereignty and interests, first of all the underhand agreements that the Vietnamese people was not informed of.
What is worrying now is that we live in an area with possibility of tension, even conflict. We regard the active US military presence in the region as an essential element for ensuring peace and stability, and we will encourage that presence.
We see the cooperation with the United States, Japan and other democratic countries as a great benefit that not only opens us up to large markets, provides valuable scientific and technological transfers, but also helps us to embrace the way of organizing, thinking and working of advanced societies. We will honestly cooperate with them and learn from them.
With a modest and peaceful foreign policy, we will not need a large army. With a domestic policy that respects all freedoms and is based on the spirit of national reconciliation and concord, we will not need a massive police apparatus. The army and the police will thus be reduced to a minimum, but sufficient, to fulfill the duties of non-political tools to protect the territory, the environment, security and order.
The spirit of ‘the doctrine of a small country’ is to acknowledge our inferiority and mobilize all resources and forces to bring the country up. With a large population and industrious people, a favorable position, Vietnam has a great potential and the right to desire an honorable place in the world, if we persevere in our efforts for a few decades.
10. Pursuing a peaceful and cooperative foreign policy along with a good neighbor policy
In today's competitive world, good relationships are indispensable. We will not miss any opportunity to establish and strengthen all cooperative relations with every country in the world, first of all with neighboring countries.
For Western countries, especially France and the United States, with which we had complicated and tumultuous relationships, we will normalize not only diplomatic relations but also cultural and emotional relations. We have a lot to learn from them and a lot to expect from a mutually profitable cooperation. We also need to pay special attention to countries where migration policy is still permissive, or is expected to be permissive, to develop as much as possible the Vietnamese diaspora, with a medium-term goal to have one Vietnamese out of ten living in the developed countries. A peaceful and humble foreign policy, in parallel with exploiting the potential contribution of a large, successful overseas Vietnamese community attached to the homeland, is the basis of our diplomatic efforts.
But most of all, we have to strengthen our foothold in the Asia and Pacific region, especially within ASEAN. Within this bloc, we will actively contribute to strengthening solidarity, lowering cultural and trade barriers, promoting the real formation of a free exchange zone. We need to strive to join all Trans-Pacific partnership blocs and take every opportunity of these blocs so that our country can rise and catch up.
Most urgently, we have to tighten our cooperation with our two friends and neighboring countries, Laos and Cambodia, which are increasingly influenced by China. We have been the victim of a divide-and-rule plot stemming from the French colonial period that we must break today. Our borders with these two countries have not changed since more than two centuries. These are among the most stable borders in the world, testifying to the possibility of peaceful coexistence between Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. But we also need to explicitly proclaim a truly pacifist policy and make great diplomatic efforts to dispel misunderstandings left behind by a relatively recent past. We need to solemnly declare to these two neighbors that we absolutely respect the existing borders and are willing to facilitate communication and commercial ports usage so that they have access to the ocean. We will propose to them to cooperate in the construction of roads to the sea, and if possible, to reach an agreement on freedom of movement and migration. Both Laos and Cambodia need access to the sea via Vietnam, so cooperation will be natural if they firmly believe that Vietnam respects their sovereignty and territory. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have great prospects for forming an equal block of cooperation in which all three benefit and promote their specific economic strengths.
With China, we need to resolve in a friendly manner the disputes over territorial waters and islands in order to start a truly healthy era of cooperation. The two countries share a long border, once shared a culture and also have a lot of similarities in human behavior, so cooperation is a natural thing. The current concern is that China is on the one hand increasing its military power, and on the other hand demonstrating a regional hegemony policy. To China, we need to demonstrate a modest, amiable yet resolute attitude of defending our sovereignty over land, sea and islands. We have reason to hope that the active US military presence and the new Japanese assertive policy in the region will be a guarantee for peace and security. We also have reason to believe that China will choose restraint, peace and cooperation, but modernizing our defenses is another factor to encourage China to follow that good path. In the short term, when the relationship between China and Taiwan is unclear, we will pay special attention to the development of economic cooperation relations with Taiwan.
We need to identify the important economic role of Japan in Asia and we must promote Vietnam-Japan relations to a national development policy.
Finally, we also need to have a wise and pragmatic judgment about the countries of Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union. These countries are potential markets in which we already have many friends, relationships and knowledges to exploit.
11. Pursuing a civilized birth control policy
We now have a population of nearly 100 million, ranking 15th in the world, with a very narrow surface, 330.000 square kilometers. In addition, the proportion of our actually arable and livable land is very low, at only one third. Meanwhile, our population continues to grow by over one million people each year. On the other hand, our economic capacity and our level of transformation to an industry and service economy do not yet allow us to invest heavily in the expansion of living areas. Although population growth has been declining in recent years, there is still a big problem that requires a clear view. On the one hand, although the population has increased significantly, the rate of population growth cannot be reduced abruptly without creating in the near future an economic burden due to the reversal of the young-old ratio. On the other hand, the decline in population growth has been largely achieved at a high cost so far that makes us one of the countries with the highest abortion rate in the world, with disastrous psychological and social consequences.
The experience of the communist governments of Vietnam and China has shown that a policy of restricting childbirth determined to the point of barbarism only degrades people, but it does not reduce population. The problem needs to be solved at the roots of culture and concept of life. In school and mass education, it is necessary to disseminate knowledge about contraception and normalize male-female relations, to separate the fact of building a family and having children with the satisfaction of physiological needs.
A high birth rate is also due to two other reasons that we need to overcome, that is, the educational level and the low social role of women, and the anxiety of old age. Improving women’s educational level and actively integrating women into socio-economic activities is a necessary investment to limit population growth. All experience in the world has shown that the higher the educational level, the more actively involved in economic activities, the more women are inclined to restrict giving birth. Experience has also shown that securing a minimum income for the elderly, a must of every civilized society, will significantly limit population growth, because large number of children is first and foremost a guarantee for old age in countries lacking social security. We must take care of the elderly if we do not want to receive so many more children that we cannot afford to nurture and educate. This policy will create a safe mentality and will certainly reduce fertility, especially with the belief that the guaranteed income for old age will increase with economic development.
Finally, we also have the right to believe that population growth will decline in a civilized society that does not ‘value men and devalue women’ to the point of trying to give birth until having a son, a society with complete information and opportunities to advance for everyone. Once optimistic enough to plan for their future, couples will naturally realize that they have to limit the number of children.
12. Building a quality national happiness right in the effort
The communist rulers are very deceptive or foolish to say that Vietnam today is a middle-income country. The truth is the opposite. We are very poor and very well below the world average. In this year 2015, the average output per capita in the world is nearly 11.000 USD per year ; in our country, a moderate estimate is nearly 1500 USD, that is only equal to 15% of the world average. We lag behind tragically. Even if we achieve a steady growth of 2% higher than the world from now on, a positive record, it will take another century before we truly become an average country. But do we have that time before discouragement and despair disintegrate the country ? Certainly, we do not have that time, we must catch up within a generation. That is a great challenge.
The challenge is greater because all factors are detrimental. The society is corrupted, the hearts are disappointed and dispersed, the national spirit is very low, the environment is polluted, morality is decadent, the criminal gangs are raging while the civil society is absent. The legacy of the communist regime is horrible. We will have to mobilize tremendous efforts in all aspects while still living with poverty and inferiority for a long time.
In that situation, we have no choice but to build in the country a quality happiness, that is a peaceful and enthusiastic national context, where people, although not yet rich, are free and respected ; their dignity, their interests, their health and opportunities for advance are protected in a harmonious, peaceful and solidary society, with a friendly environment. Besides, that is a condition to rise up ; the bigger the effort, the more it should be shared equally. The social model must have the image of a happy family because it is harmonious and joyful, sharing willingly and rationally the sacrifices and the achievements, under a simple but clean and orderly roof, in the belief that tomorrow will be better than today.
The most important thing is also something that can be done immediately because it does not require large expenses. It is improving the environment, landscapes and public places. Due to traditional culture, we are not aware of the importance of the environment even though the problem is very serious and directly affects everyone. Blindness makes successive leaders unaware that development, including economic development, can only be sustainable if the environment is protected. Polluted plants cause long-term damage to society many times greater than the short-term income they generate. Corruption is a major cause of environmental destruction ; the absence of civil society is another cause. The amazing fact is that so far, our country has not had an environmental protection association, yet the environment has been ravaged to critical levels and continues to be devastated, while in rich, strong and civilized countries, environmental protection has become the target of countless associations, including political parties that take the environment as their highest priority. For today’s world, environment has become a fundamental political issue.
We cannot tolerate plants that do not treat smoke and waste in the name of economic gain. We must also strictly prohibit deforestation, filling and encroaching ponds and lakes. Public sanitary facilities must be adequate. Drainage system must be complete. Construction must be orderly ; each area can only have a few types of houses with some colors. It is necessary to increase public transportation, create environmental tax on cars and motorcycles, encourage the use of bicycles, ban petrol motor vehicles in the center of cities and crowded areas, strictly punish the fraudulent companies constructing bridges and roads. We will stop the Central Highlands Bauxite Project, suspend nuclear power projects, even those under construction, and eliminate nuclear power until adequate waste treatment techniques are found, and our country has the full capacity to ensure the absolute safety of the reactors. Those measures may in short term reduce the profits of some companies, but ultimately, they still have great economic benefits because they protect and encourage investment in many other industries, especially tourism ; the most important thing is health and a peaceful life. Pollution is a serious violation of human rights because clean water, fresh air, quiet space are the most basic human rights.
Building a harmonious, peaceful and solidary society does not require great costs beyond the national capacity as many people think. The costs are negligible compared to the sums stolen by the corrupted officials ; an honest government will have the means. What it requires is something we can do even without being rich yet. It requires that the law is absolutely honest, transparent and respected, a government determined not to compromise with corruption, run by knowledgeable and visionary persons who make serving the nation their ideal, a government which cannot be suspected of fraud. The Vietnamese people are so used to sacrifices and sufferings that they can accept extraordinary efforts ; they can also forgive mistakes, provided that they believe that the leaders are wrong, but not ignorant and deceitful, they only make mistake because everyone can make mistake on difficult and complex decisions. We may have such leaders, but they have not had the opportunity because they have not yet the strength of a team. The main endeavor of the Rally for Democracy and Pluralism yesterday, now and in the future, is to discover, regroup and train such people that the country needs.
VI. Institutions and constitution for Republic
The choice of a political regime cannot be purely theoretical, even less copying an existing model that has succeeded in another country, no matter how much we respect the experience of peoples in the journey to democracy and prosperity.
We will choose a political regime, at the same time a constitution, that meet the basic requirements of the country :
- Building honestly and irreversibly democracy to firmly integrate into the democratic world.
- Achieving real and definitive national reconciliation and concord to mobilize all brains, hearts and hands to strive to rise and build a common Vietnamese future.
- Developing the country following the model of market economy with freedom and creativity as engine.
- Decentralizing to allow the regions to maximize their special advantages in a unified Vietnam while minimizing regional disparities.
- Promoting civil society and satisfying the legitimate aspirations of ethnic and religious communities.
- Achieving real unification, that is, in national consensus.
In the light of these basic requirements, we will choose a parliamentary and decentralized democratic political system.
1. Two false prejudices about the political regime
Before discussing a politically appropriate regime for Vietnam, we need to clear up two prejudices, which are also two incorrect but very common worries of Vietnamese people.
1.1. Pluralistic democracy and political stability
The first worry is that a pluralistic and multi-party regime can cause partisan dispersion, in which no party has the majority to seize power, and thus cause political instability. One may fear that the government will change continuously according to the unity or disunity of temporary alliances.
This concern is groundless, it stems from a misunderstanding caused by a poisoning propaganda that many Vietnamese have been victims.
The fact that there are more or less parties and whether a political party has a stable majority in parliament depends mainly on the voting method, not on the level of political freedom. To put it simply : single name vote in one round ballot leads to bipartisanism because it eliminates small parties, while proportional ballot leads to the emergence of many political parties.
Single name and one-round ballot means that each electoral district will elect one representative, and the candidates run with personal legal status, although they may bear the brand of a political party ; whoever gets the highest number of votes will be elected. This electoral method is beneficial to large political parties, eliminating small parties and ensuring the permanent presence of a majority to form and run a government in a stable manner, in contrary it does not allow the minority trends to have a say in parliament. In fact, it often leads to a bipartisan regime. Thus, the nominal and one-round voting way is a technical solution to the concern of having a stable government without the need to limit political freedom legally.
Proportional voting means that the ballot is organized in the whole country or in each region between political parties, the number of elected representatives of each political party will be proportional to the votes it gets. For example, a party which gets 20% of the votes will in principle win 20% of the delegates. This way of voting is very democratic because it allows all tendencies to have a say and a place in parliament, but in contrary it presents the danger of leading to a fragmented parliament in which no party has a majority enough to rule.
The optimal solution is a combination of these two voting ways to both ensure democracy and ensure the relative stability of the government. Technically, there could be a multitude of formulas, including the single name, two-round voting method, that has the effect of combining the parties sharing the same tendency in the second round.
These statements allow us to assert that, giving political stability as reason to limit the activity of political parties, is groundless. In the future Vietnam, there is no need for restriction, and there will be no restriction on the right to form and develop political parties.
There is also a need to put an end to the tricky confusion about stability. Stability has two meanings.
The first meaning is civil stability, which means stability in the life of every citizen, ensuring that there is no arrest, no confiscation of property, no ban on business, not being victim of sudden and frequent changes in the law, or arbitrary decisions of the government. This stability is essential for economic development, so that people rest assured to anticipate and plan their activities. This stability requires democracy, human rights and a rule of law state.
These observations allow us to assert that using the pretext of political stability to limit party activities is unfounded. In the future of Vietnam, there is no need of, nor can there be, any restrictions on the right to form and develop political parties.
The second meaning is the stability of the ruling group, or in other words, the prolongation of a government with the same rulers. This extension, if it is not due to free elections, but to a tyrannical dictatorship, is very much at odds with civil stability and therefore completely at odds with development, because the people must always live in fear, they dare not and cannot make long-term business plans.
Experience has shown that civil stability is essential for development, while the stability of the ruling group is completely unnecessary, it even has a bad effect because governments that last too long almost certainly lead to abuse of power and corruption. In Japan, since the end of World War II, few governments have lasted two years. In Italy, the average life expectancy of governments is much shorter. Instead of this, the economies of both countries are growing rapidly, they are both members of the group of the seven most developed countries. While countries with long-lasting governments like Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea and many countries in Africa and Latin America are very stagnant and backward.
When dictatorships – such as the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam – say that stability is needed for development, many persons agree because they understand it as civil stability, while the dictatorships think of stability in the second meaning, that is stability of the ruling group. It is a fraud that needs to be denounced.
1.2. Unity and decentralization
The second worry is that decentralization may undermine territorial unity and restore the warlords’ situation.
The answer is definitely no.
Regions are not nations, self-governing is not synonymous with independence. Regional laws cannot conflict with national laws.
There should be a healthier view on unity, transcending the administrative, heavy and bureaucratic unity. Unity is mostly unity in people’s hearts. When each person and each locality feel they have a foothold and a voice in the national community, while their own characteristics are respected, they will feel better integrated in the nation, and national concord will be stronger. On the contrary, in the present fast changing and complicated world and in a country with nearly one hundred million people, a centralized government cannot decide everything, localities are in practice autonomous ; but this autonomy is illegal, that is, always in a logical but illegal conflict with the central government, and thus with the national community. Centralized power therefore led to warlords instead of unity. Because it can unite the nation, decentralization needs to be carried out both on the national level and in the organization of each region.
Decentralization is the overwhelming trend of this era ; it is the conclusion of two centuries of democratic experimentation on earth. Surprisingly, it took the nations a long time to discover a simple truth : a government can only consist of a small number of people, and a small number of people cannot decide everything for a large country with a large population, living in territories with different geographical and human conditions.
Decentralization has clear advantages : it encourages political activities in the localities, it brings democracy everywhere to everyone, it avoids long and complicated administrative lines for daily activities, it stimulates local cultural and press activities, it allows each locality to choose the most suitable living way for its characteristics and therefore to develop.
The impoverished regions will have a separate government that will give all the priority to develop the regions and bring them to the national level of development, instead of being forgotten by a central government busy with urgent problems of the developed and strong regions. No one will faithfully and precisely alarm the predicament of a region like the government of the region, whose sole mission is to develop the region.
Decentralization also contributes to the stability of the nation and democracy. On the one hand, it neutralizes coup plots (overthrowing the central government, then what to do with the local governments ?). On the other hand, it avoids crises at the central level that should not happen, because of problems that only appear in regions at different times. Another extremely important advantage of decentralization is that it alleviates political conflict, because a party may lose at the central level but it can take power in some localities, where it is trusted. Conflict between government and opposition will therefore be less fierce. In the context of Vietnam’s current history, decentralization thus avoids the situation where winner takes all, loser loses all, thus decentralization contributes positively to national reconciliation and concord.
Decentralization allows minority trends, religions and ethnic minorities to have significant political weight in the regions where they are present in numbers, thereby alleviating feelings of discontent and ideas of separatism and autonomy.
Another important advantage of decentralization is that, thanks to the local governments, whenever there is a change in government, those who come to power at the central level are not apprentices, they have at least experience at the local levels.
However, in order for decentralization to have a real content and effect, the regions must have a viable and developable size and population.
Our country now has over 90 million people ; when the population growth will stop, our population will stabilize around 110 million. We can have ten to fifteen regions, with five to fifteen million people each.
To avoid administrative burdens and especially for civil status, each region will be a combination of several existing provinces. Grouping provinces into a region will be based on ethnicity, economic function, natural resources and transport criteria.
Each region will have its own parliament with power to appoint the regional government, enact regional laws that are not in conflict with the constitution and national laws, vote on certain taxes and local budgets.
The regional government is elected by the local parliament to implement policies that have been voted by the local parliament.
The regions cannot have an army, they cannot issue their own money, they do not have diplomatic representation, they cannot sign treaties with other countries, they cannot own companies with business purpose, they cannot organize referendum with political purpose. All elections and referendums must be authorized and recognized by the central government to be valid.
The regions cannot sign treaties with each other. Coordination between regions is entirely within the authority of the central government.
Each citizen has the right to choose a residence across the territory. The regions do not have the right to prohibit immigration into regions, but only the right to restrict the mobility of citizens under legal investigation.
The number of regional police cannot exceed a percentage, as determined by the central government, compared to the number of national police present in the region.
The central government has the right to set a minimum content for each level of education. The degrees allowing legal free practice professions must be recognized by central government.
Provincial and sub-provincial government agencies will be defined by a national law that follows the principle of decentralization.
2. The political regime
2.1. Parliamentary regime : the most democratic and stable institution
We are determined to exercise democracy most effectively and prevent the return of any form of dictatorship. We choose the political institution on the basis of that determination. The first thing to do is to choose one of three formulas : a presidential regime, a semi-presidential regime and a parliamentary regime.
First of all, we explicitly eliminate the presidential regime, that is, the regime in which a person is directly elected through universal suffrage and holds full executive power. This regime has many unacceptable handicaps. We can name the two most common handicaps.
The first handicap is the formula of voting for one person instead of a political party. This way of voting prevents the political parties from growing, because the main condition to seize power is to have a candidate who attracts voters ; so, the core condition is to have a good campaign committee, not a party apparatus. He or she may be elected for superficial reasons such as being young and good-looking, walking gracefully, speaking eloquently, etc. rather than because of his/her party’s prestige and his/her political ability. Once elected, this candidate will control the party, he/she will not depend on the party. Experience has shown that in every presidential regime, including the United States, there is no strong political party like those in parliamentary regimes ; this is a great damage, because the political parties are both the place of training for political talents and the environment of production and screening of ideas on the major issues of the country.
The second handicap is that it gives too much power to a person for a predetermined time. In the context of a country that does not yet have a democratic tradition, it easily leads to abuse of power and dictatorship, with the consequence of repression, riot, even civil war. Moreover, if the president for any reason is discredited during the term, the national activities will be dangerously deadlocked for the rest of the term because the president cannot be replaced.
In pure theory, the presidential system has the advantage of ensuring a strong government that is able to decide quickly on necessary strategic options, but the reality is that the risk of war is now over, even the cold war has ended ; there is no longer a need for a strong government which takes quickly important decisions. Moreover, what a president can do, a prime minister supported by a majority of parliament can also do. The historical truth is that so far, all presidential regimes in the world have failed or at least shown weakness, often have led to an individual dictatorship, as in the case of most countries choosing this regime, or have led to a conflictual deadlock between the executive power and the legislative power.
It was the failure of presidential regimes that led to the emergence of ‘semi-presidential’ regimes, which mean having both a president and a prime minister. The president is the head of state and shares – more or less in accordance with constitutional provisions - the executive power with a prime minister who is accountable to parliament in most cases. The president, directly elected through universal suffrage, is very powerful, on par with a president in a pure presidential system even if the constitutional rights may be different. This supremacy is a guarantee of political stability, similar to a presidential system ; in return, the price to pay is, on the one hand, some disadvantages of the presidential regimes, and on the other hand, the unavoidable conflicts of authority within the executive branch between the president and the prime minister.
Semi-presidential regimes have the effect of alleviating the disadvantages of the presidential system by reconciling it with parliamentary regime. There have been several successful semi-presidential regimes. However, the semi-presidential regime is a very complex regime, the nature and content of the regime may vary depending on coincidental factors : the president and the prime minister are from the same party or not, the term of the president and the term of parliament are the same or not, the president or the parliament is recently elected, etc.
In a parliamentary regime, the executive power is in the hands of a prime minister elected by parliament and accountable to parliament. Thus, when electing a parliament, indirectly, people also choose a prime minister. The advantage of parliamentary regimes is that people vote first for the political project of a party instead of voting for a person, and then they select a representative among the candidates who are close to them that they can evaluate ; through their representatives, they are able to monitor and control government activities on a permanent basis.
The parliamentary regime is the most democratic and judicious regime, provided that it does not lead to political party inflation and a paralyzed parliament because it is divided between many opposing tendencies. This condition, as proved by experience, can be satisfied by electing all or most representatives through the single name one-round mode.
We will choose the parliamentary regime because of its simplicity and its democratic aspect.
2.2. Government organization
A decentralized institution leads to the obvious existence of two parliaments at the central level. The Senate represents the regions while the National Assembly represents the masses. In each region, we need only one house of representatives playing the role of parliament at the local level.
The Senate exists only at the central level. Each region has an equal number of senators directly elected by voters of the region ; the community of overseas Vietnamese will also be represented. The Senate plays the role of ensuring national unity and harmony across regions, presenting law propositions, appealing, if necessary, laws passed by parliament, recommending and proposing to the government the policies and the appointment of senior personnel. The Senate reserves the right to request hearings from government officials at all levels.
The National Assembly consists of representatives who are in majority elected according to the single name, one-round mode, the rest are elected proportionally. In a Vietnam with a population of 100 million, the National Assembly can consist of about 500 representatives, of which about 450 are elected on a nominal one-round basis, the rest are elected proportionally on the country scale. The fact that the majority is elected on a nominal one-round basis guarantees that there will be no political party inflation and there will be a majority (of one party or a coalition of several parties of the same trend) to form a government. The small part elected proportionally allows all parties to participate in parliament ; it also allows the leaders of the political parties of national stature to avoid running in local elections and to focus their efforts on the issues of the country.
In each region, the number of representatives elected proportionally may be higher, a half may be elected according to the single name, one-round mode, a half may be elected proportionally.
To limit the number of political parties, it is necessary to set a minimum to be present in the National Assembly or regional parliament through proportional vote, for example 5%.
On the executive branch, at the central level, the Prime Minister is elected by the National Assembly and is accountable to the National Assembly. The ministers are appointed by the Prime Minister. In the regions, the executive is in the hands of a governor elected by a regional parliament and is accountable to the regional parliament.
The head of state, the president, may be elected by an electoral college of all deputies and senators at the central level. The head of state, because he/she is elected by a large electoral college, will be trustworthy. The president does not hold any specific power, but is a true head of state, standing outside and above the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, ensuring the continuity, stability and unity of the nation.
The Supreme Court, composed of judges selected among lawyers, has a long term of office, about ten years ; it is appointed by the president, the head of the Senate and the head of the National Assembly, one third each. The Supreme Court has the right to adjudge the constitutionality of laws, to arbitrate disputes between authorities, to judge senior leaders, to review judgments made by national and local courts.
2.3. Political parties : an intimate component of the government
In such a regime, there may be a lot of political parties, but due to the electoral procedure – the majority of representatives are elected in a single name one-round manner – there will be only a few important parties at the central level. In each locality, there will be only a limited number of local parties besides the parties of national stature.
All true democracies must respect the activities of the political parties. There is no decent political activity without political party. In the context of our country, after so many years under dictatorships in which all political activities are repressed, political parties are not only necessary, they need to be created, encouraged and nurtured. Political parties are an indispensable element for the country ; therefore, the state cannot ban the political activities of parties, it must support them instead.
Political parties must first fund themselves with the contribution of party members and sympathizers, but large parties will be funded by the budget. In return, all other funding methods including accepting financial support of companies and enterprises will be severely punished under the law. A share of about 1% of the national budget will be dedicated to funding political parties at the central level and an equivalent proportion at the regional budget level. Funding, at the central as well as the local level, is divided into two parts : one part is for political parties according to the number of representatives ; another part is divided by the total votes of each political party. In order to avoid political party inflation, it is necessary to set a minimum stature – based on the number of representatives or the number of votes – to receive funding. The cost to fund political parties is of course high, many persons may think it is too high, but it will avoid even greater losses when political parties, because they are not funded, become hostages of the power of tycoons, or when they have to obtain resources through unrighteous means. Once the national community has funded political parties, in return it has the right to ask an absolute honesty from the political parties. Political activity will be more respected and therefore democracy will be healthier.
3. The constitution of Vietnamese Republic
The constitution of the Vietnamese Republic formalizes the above-mentioned political institution and, at the same time, expresses the determination to build democracy according to the social model contained in the basic ideas and major orientations presented in the previous two chapters.
Right in the preamble, the Vietnamese Republic will solemnly declare the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations and its associated conventions as an intimate component of the constitution, with national reconciliation and concord as the leading spirit of all policies.
In the first chapter of the constitution there will be assertions that in Vietnam there is no idea banned to raise, and no subject banned to discuss ; the Vietnamese people and state condemn civil war and any intention of using violence to achieve goals or resolve conflicts ; the Vietnamese state does not approve and will abolish the death penalty.
After the chapters and articles on the organization of the state apparatus, the constitution will also have a special chapter with articles emphasizing major national goals : Vietnam has the vocation of a commercial, industrial, service and touristic country ; Vietnam will make every effort to live in a spirit of friendship and cooperation with other countries, contributing to strengthen peace in the region and in the world ; the particularly important responsibility of the Vietnamese people and state is to preserve and continuously improve the environment, air, forests, coastlines, continental shelf and territorial waters.
To build laws starting from the constitution, we will choose the empirical method, that is, at first enacting, or amending to retain, basic laws that are simple but accurate and transparent, then relying on jurisprudence to resolve similar cases, and at the same time, supplement and amend the laws.
VII. Struggling to establish a pluralistic democracy
The major problem ahead of us is to end the party-ruled dictatorship in the shortest time and in the best conditions. The Communist Party of Vietnam has been a great disaster for our people. It has been the culprit of the thirty-year civil war that shattered the country and killed many millions of persons. In its frenzy to impose communism, it has also committed horrific crimes, it has intentionally massacred hundreds of thousand patriots or innocent people. It has used all tricks to rob power, and after robbing power, it has failed in all areas and in all aspects, making our country poor and tragically backward compared to the world. We are one of the last nations on earth to still be denied basic human rights. Moreover, our country is still dependent on foreign countries and has lost land, sea and islands. The communist regime maintains itself purely through violence and persecution.
No one can deny the right to resist such a tyranny by any means, including by violence. However, we definitely reject violence in the name of wisdom and patriotism. The country of Vietnam has suffered too much destruction to accept a new civil war, we also cannot accept a period of post-communist chaos. Recent world history has also shown that nonviolent struggle is the most appropriate and effective way to bring victory to democracy. That is the method we choose.
The most prominent feature of the country today is that all Vietnamese agree that the party-ruled dictatorship is a disaster ; the struggle to establish pluralistic democracy is a national consensus. Nonetheless, the Communist Party of Vietnam still stubbornly sticks to a dictatorship that is not only completely wrong but also is condemned as a crime against humanity ; moreover, it defiantly gives itself the monopoly to rule the country for an infinite time. The prolongation of the communist regime is a great challenge to every logic and to the honor of Vietnamese people. The future generations of Vietnam will not be able to understand this historical period and will not know how to judge today’s people. This paradox has a cause we must identify, it is the absence of a political intellectual class. Because of the Confucian tradition, we only have professional academics whose vocation is to serve as tools of a government ; we do not have persons who dare and are able to think independently about the problems of the country, and dare to accept every challenge struggling for their viewpoint, that is, political intellectuals. It is precisely the absence of political intellectuals that makes us unaware that ending the dictatorship and establishing democracy is the greatest revolution in our country’s history ; it is also why we do not identify the conditions to have or to create in order to make this revolution successful. Also because of this absence, we cannot agree on the roadmap campaigning for democracy and what to do for each stage.
1. Four necessary and sufficient conditions of the democratic revolution
The history of major political movements in all countries across the ages suggests that there are four conditions that are both necessary and sufficient for a revolution – in the positive sense of a comprehensive change of both the regime and the national orientations – to succeed :
The first condition is that everyone in the country agree that the current regime is unacceptable and must be replaced.
The second condition is that the ruling party or ruling class, because it has lost consensus on a common ideology or it is corrupted, is divided and has lost the survival instinct of a group.
The third condition is that the vast majority of the population has reached a consensus on a new political regime and new national goals.
The fourth condition is that a political rally appears in accordance with the wishes of the entire people to serve as the meeting point for the aspirations for change.
Of course, no condition can be 100% fulfilled, but to some degree of maturity, one might consider a condition to be achieved.
Looking at the current context of the country, we can confirm that the first two conditions are met. The entire population is disgusted with the regime and is eagerly awaiting change. The desire for democracy is increasing among the people ; moreover, the transition to democracy is increasingly seen as natural and mandatory, the more it is delayed, the more damage is done to the country. Not only the people but also a large number of cadres and party members of the Communist Party are losing their patience before the immobilism of the communist party leadership.
On the other hand, the communist party is ruined. The cadres and members have lost all confidence in socialism and view the party leadership as corrupt oligarchs, whereas the party leadership also sees the majority of party members as cheating, incompetent and lacking quality. Very serious conflicts have occurred even among the highest levels of leadership. The dominant psychology in the party is competing to grab, each for himself. The communist party has lost the will and vitality of a union. The five million block of communist party members is no longer a political party but a plundering class.
The third condition is also nearly achieved. The vast majority of the public, including the communist party members, has agreed that the future political regime of Vietnam must be a pluralistic democracy, giving equal standing to everyone and each one ; everyone agreed that Vietnam’s economy must be a market economy based on private business, using competition as strength, and using profit as stimulant. Moreover, we are aware that this democratic revolution must be carried out in a non-violent way, in the spirit of national reconciliation. We just lack a clear and transparent political project, posing major problems of the country along with ways to solve. In that spirit, this political project is a contribution.
Finally, we also see important collaborative efforts. Some activists with different political backgrounds are also becoming familiar to each other and to the public. Awareness of the imperative need of an organized struggle is increasingly shared. The conditions for a gathering of democratic forces are becoming more and more favorable.
So, what remains is to complete the third condition, that is to reach consensus on a political project, and build the fourth condition, that is to form a large democratic rally. We can say that we have traveled three quarters of the road to democracy. But the remainder of the road, building a political rally as a focal point for democratic aspirations, is also the hardest. The reason is because we encounter a strong alliance between, on the one hand, the brutal repression policy of an extremely stubborn ruling party, and on the other hand, the passivity of a disbanded nation after so many disappointments and injuries ; that passivity is encouraged by the absence of a strong democratic rally.
2. The five stages of the campaign for democracy
How to build that democratic rally ? The history of many countries in all eras has also shown that every revolutionary struggle must go through five distinct stages to succeed. The campaign for democracy, though tolerant in its spirit and non-violent in its method, is still a revolutionary struggle because it aims to change both the political regime and the social organization. So, we also have to go through those five stages, a long and difficult journey that requires persistent efforts over many years.
2.1. Building an ideological basis
The ideological basis of a political rally, in addition to the values that are agreed and honored, includes a political project, the arguments to defend the project choices and a consensus on the struggle strategy. That project must be an elaborate synthesis of a serious observation of the country’s context and the most correct thoughts of the time. A political movement needs to be built on a strong ideological basis to succeed. The ideological basis must be an ideal that is attractive and feasible enough to bind together all comrades and to win support for the movement. The phase of ideological basis building can be considered to be almost completed when there is a political project deemed both serious and feasible by the best intellectuals of the country.
2.2. Building a core team of cadres
Winning the support for the political project, organizing human resources and means to bring the struggle to success is the work of the core team of cadres. In the current campaign for democracy, we are facing great difficulty because the persons having political ability are both rare and dispersed. Therefore, the main effort is, on the one hand, gathering these rare and precious elements and, on the other hand, trying to train new core cadres. This work is very difficult but cannot be avoided, because in the final analysis, any political struggle is a competition between teams of cadres. A political organization must always respect a certain proportion between its team of core cadres and the total number of members. Health is more important than size. Quality is more important than quantity. In the present age, when the modern media allow a small group to interact directly and permanently with the masses, the role of the core cadres is even more important.
2.3. Building and reviewing the means
Any struggle needs the means to succeed. The means are not only the material means. The means may come from the organization, from its members and sympathizers, from allied organizations, or from the capacity of mobilizing the support of international organizations, media agencies, organizations defending human rights and press freedom, trustworthy personalities in a certain context. The means can come in many forms and from many different sources. It is important to anticipate and plan their readiness. Building and reviewing the means is of the utmost importance because in the political struggle, either we have the necessary means for our political line, or we have to implement more or less the political line of the supplier of the means.
2.4. Building a popular base
The popular base should be understood as the group of members outside the team of core cadres. A member belongs to the core team or to the grassroots team depending on his/her political level or other reasons : his/her health, time he/she can devote to the struggle, his/her family situation or personal situation at a certain time. The popular base is also the community of sympathizers, especially the trustworthy sympathizers. Finally, the popular base is also the capital of sympathy that the organization has won. The effort to build a popular base is essentially an effort of communication with two goals : first is to convince the masses of the need to contribute to a common solution for the country instead of each one trying to solve his/her own problems with his/her own means, second is to win the agreement of the masses with the organization. The popular base can be considered as satisfactory when it is strong enough to be the drive belt between the organization and people in big cities.
2.5. Standing up for power
Only after the above four stages have been achieved, meaning that the organization is strong enough, that an effort to gain power can be thought of and the method to win power can be decided. In fact, the Vietnamese democrats must definitely reject the armed option from the beginning, because winning power by violence requires starting a civil war, which all Vietnamese must definitely condemn. Nothing destroys a country more than a civil war and nobody has the right, on behalf of anything, to start a civil war. The civilized world has renounced violence as a means of political struggle, the Vietnamese people, after the painful experiences of the recent civil war, must refuse violence even more explicitly. The strategy of the Vietnamese democrats is a peaceful evolution. That strategy means that the victory of democracy will come from social pressure. This pressure manifests itself mainly in two forms ; firstly, the change in the thinking and acting of people will put the regime in a ridiculous offside position, the official language of the government becomes a joke, the leaders are ashamed of their positions ; secondly, the masses gradually get rid of fear and will be increasingly encouraged to participate in large protests ; to a certain point, the government will have to choose between making concessions or being overthrown as the people stands up. Of course, we prefer the scenario in which the communist government gives in and participates in the democratization process.
But how to mobilize the masses ? All research and experience show that, no matter how discontented a population is, it will only rebel to fight if three conditions are met :
1. Everyone feel attached to a common destiny and there is only a common exit, sneaking is not the solution ; on the other hand, everyone agree that the common tragedy comes from a clearly identified group. In other words, there must be a consciousness of two distinct groups, the group of ‘us’ which is victim of the group of ‘them’. In the case of Vietnam, this condition means that the Vietnamese people are aware that the communist party is the cause of the current ugly situation and there is only a common solution for the whole country, no one can sneak to find personal solution.
2. There is an organization to encourage and lead the masses ; the organization’s core role is to maintain the enthusiasm of the struggle and avoid discouraging mistakes. The public is not patient. The effort to motivate the public will fail if different organizations make different calls, or if the leading organization is divided.
3. The leading organization must be strong enough for the public to firmly believe in victory. The masses are not romantic.
In the last few years, there have been many protests against Chinese encroachment or against the government robing land. All of these protests, if the goal is to change the regime, are still far below the necessary level, even to achieve a relative success, because they all follow the wrong process. Mass mobilization can only be the last of the five stages mentioned above. Moreover, these protests do not meet any of the three conditions required to motivate the masses.
The five stages must go in order, but there is no need that a stage completes before the next stage can start. The stages overlap each other. The five-stage process is a recipe for action, it is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Not following this process will surely lead to failure, but following this process does not guarantee success. Success depends also on many quantitative factors : to which extent is the ideological foundation accepted, are there many cadres, how are their skills, how abundant are the means ?
A very important remark : the first two stages, building an ideological basis and forming a team of core cadres, account for most of the time and effort of a revolution. It takes several decades to have a right, healthy ideological foundation, accepted by the masses, and a team of cadres of a few hundreds of persons, with a few dozens of hard-core cadres, mastering the ideological foundation, with a strong personality, determination, with the technique and discipline of struggle. But once these two elements are in place, the organization can rely on a historic opportunity to grow very quickly and succeed within a few years, even a few months.
The view of the Rally for Democracy and Pluralism is that the campaign for democracy is currently in the middle of the first phase only, and in the beginning of the second phase. But one cannot conclude pessimistically that the victory of democracy is still far.
3. The content of the campaign for democracy
From the above analysis, the struggling effort to end the dictatorship and build democracy of the Rally for Democracy and Pluralism will focus on the following key tasks.
3.1. Awaken the masses about the need for a common solution for the whole nation
The painful contradiction between the great potential and the tragic situation of the nation, between the widespread desire for democracy and the defiant prolongation of the totalitarian regime has one main reason : that is the sneaking psychology to find personal solutions to personal problems. That mentality is our historical and cultural heritage of thousands of years in which people have absolutely no voice, have to endure the government as a destiny and try to adapt to survive. Sneaking to survive, on the one hand, forced people to accept acting dishonestly and contribute to rot society, on the other hand, forced people to compromise with the regime, contribute to the regime and thus help the regime to survive, something that no one wants.
The first, great and arduous effort of the democrats is to awaken people that a common solution, i.e., a change of the political regime is mandatory, it is a mistake to isolate oneself and sneak to solve personal problems by personal solutions. Only a negligible minority will succeed in that way, and the success, if any, is only temporary and full of uncertainty.
We must begin to strike down the philosophy of sneaking and promote the will to be honest, worthy and responsible. As long as the public does not believe that all Vietnamese are bound together in a common destiny, and therefore need a common solution, the campaign for democracy cannot succeed and the dictatorship will continue to exist, or if it collapses due to its own ruin, it will only give way to an anarchic situation worse than a dictatorship.
The main difficulty of this psychological revolution is that it requires both reasoning and stimulation, therefore only political groups can effectively mobilize. Researchers, thinkers, even reputable notables, if any, are powerless, because the very fact that they stand alone is the proof that they have chosen personal solution and make their exhortations for a common awareness losing a lot of effect. The Rally for Democracy and Pluralism understands its responsibility and its role in this psychological breakthrough.
3.2. Winning a decisive victory in terms of thought and reasoning
In the revolutionary struggle, the victory in terms of thought and reasoning sooner or later leads to political victory ; on the contrary, a government with nothing left to say will be eliminated at the end. At present, the communist government is completely confused on the ideological front, but the Vietnamese democratic opposition has not yet won a definitive victory. The Rally for Democracy and Pluralism will continue to contribute positively to the struggle of idea to completely knock down the fraudulent arguments in favor of the dictatorship, and dissipate all confusions remaining in the population, including some democrats. This ideological struggle is very important, even after democracy is established, because it is the core campaign to change the way of thinking and acting, that is, to change the course of history.
We have to break the argument that democracy will lead to chaos. We need to prove that democracy is the basic condition to ensure there is no chaos, a way of life that allows society to constantly evolve and innovate in order. We need to assert that the country will not be able to rise if corruption is not pushed back, because corruption demolishes all plans, projects and works. But the experience of every nation in the world has shown that one cannot improve a corrupt government, the only solution is to replace it by another government. Democracy is in fact the institution that allows change of government without causing chaos ; democracy is therefore the mandatory solution for countries with a serious corruption problem like Vietnam.
We have to break the argument that, to have development, one needs discipline, and to have discipline, one needs to sacrifice democracy, limit freedom and human rights. The Vietnamese people need to be clearly explained that there can be no other national discipline than the constitution and laws. The Vietnamese people also needs to be convinced that democracy, freedom and human rights are not obstacles, but are imperative conditions for a healthy, continuous and sustainable development ; the initial progress in some dictatorships such as China and Vietnam is only a consequence of the relaxation of some freedoms and the partial removal of the authoritarian administration policy ; it will quickly reach its limit if there is no real change towards democracy. In reality, the development momentum in these two countries has stalled because the two governments of China and Vietnam refuse to push further reforms towards democratization.
We must break the argument that the East is different from the West, and therefore we cannot wholly accept Western values such as individual freedom, democracy and human rights. Freedom, democracy and human rights are universal values of all mankind, not only the West. These values are present in every civilization, including in Vietnam. The advantage of Western countries is that they know how to promote these values and so, thanks to that, they have prospered and surpassed the rest of the world. We need to promote those values to move forward. And because we are late, we need to promote them strongly and assertively.
We need to expose the fallacy of the argument that Asian cultural values are more profitable to development than Western cultural values. Behind that demagogic argument is the intention to justify authoritarian regimes. It is no coincidence that the Chinese communist regime is trying to restore Confucianism and it is not surprising if the Vietnamese communist regime answers favorably. We must be vigilant to defeat this propaganda plan. Of course, Asian cultures have many positive points, but the negatives are more numerous and more serious. The most developed Asian countries have developed by accepting the Western way of organizing and working democratically, not by denying the West and boasted their own characteristics. Besides, Asian countries have very different cultures and customs, so it is not possible to talk in general terms of Eastern or Asian values.
We must be aware that these are not just theoretical debates. Behind the fallacious arguments in favor of dictatorships are harsh prisons, brutal tortures that the most precious people of the country are the victims, while a minority of exploiters freely plunders national resources.
We also need to strongly reject a kind of ‘economism’ that some governments, including the Vietnamese communist government, have used as an excuse to deny or to limit freedom, democracy and human rights. Economy is not everything, and even in a purely economic area, the growth rate is not all. An achievement of 10% economic growth does not allow a complacent government to take credit, then impose a dictatorship on the people, especially when that growth only means partially shortening the delay due to the government and when the country had to pay a very high price on culture, morality and environment. The national goal that we strive for the entire Vietnamese people to share is a prosperous society with a high cultural level, a rational distribution of national income, an equal opportunity for everyone, a society with solidarity between citizens and with patriotism ensuring freedom and dignity for all, a country with the potential to constantly rise up and with a protected and continually improved environment.
Another very important effort is to convince all members of the Communist Party and state officials that they have absolutely no reason to be concerned about the end of the totalitarian dictatorship ; on the contrary, they will have every reason to rejoice in the victories of democracy. Their honor, dignity and legal rights will be respected. Moreover, they will abandon the guilt complex of collaborating with a bad and fraudulent regime. They will be proud to contribute to bringing the country forward with greater welfare for everyone, including themselves.
The effort to gain the sympathy of the Communist Party members and cadres is not difficult in theory, because most of them are also victims of the regime and are also very dissatisfied. The difficulty is the psychological legacy of the war and the harsh rule of the Communist Party. Many people do not believe that hatred can be easily erased, while there is still extreme rhetoric of an unconscious and irresponsible minority creating further concern. Therefore, the democracy campaign, on the one hand, must affirm assertively the spirit of national reconciliation and concord, and on the other hand, must strongly commit that there will be no discriminatory measures. To do so, the democratic ranks must bring together people from all political pasts. A political gathering, no matter how well-intentioned and righteous, that only includes people from one of the former factions, nationalist or communist, is hopeless.
In order to win decisively the thought and reasoning battle, the democrats themselves must have the right thinking and reasoning. The first and foremost effort is to convince those who want to contribute to the campaign for democracy, the intellectuals as well the masses, that a political struggle can never be an individual struggle, but always an organized struggle only. The struggle to end the dictatorship and establish democracy is a very difficult political struggle. It must be organized, and the organization cannot be established quickly ; it requires intelligent and enduring efforts for many years. But building an organization cannot be discarded. Experts, commentators, writers and artists may contribute individually, with information, reasoning and sympathy that are beneficial to the democracy campaign, but they cannot defeat the dictatorship ; only a democratic organization can do it. We appreciate those contributions but we must also recognize their limitations. Conversely, these persons also need to see their own limits and recognize the need for the organization, even if they have their own reasons for not joining an organization. Struggling for democracy without joining an organization should be considered an exception, not a routine.
The problem is that there are still many people who think that it is possible to fight for democracy without joining an organization. Some are also proud to belong to no organization, considering it as a sign of an objective and righteous spirit. They need to be warned that this is a very wrong attitude, harmful to the democracy movement and contradicting their own desire. They need to understand that personal political struggle is only effective for a very small number of persons, with very high prestige, level or position ; in nearly all cases, the positive effect is less than the negative effect of distracting attention from the most correct and necessary effort, that is to build a strong democratic organization.
Another big mistake to beware of is thinking that a political organization can be established quickly. This superficial belief led to a frequent situation : many people were eager to hastily form organizations when the political context seemed to be favorable to the democracy campaign, with the final result of contributing to miss the opportunity by distracting attention from serious efforts. The analysis of the conditions for a successful revolution, and the stages to go through, has shown that a serious political organization can only be the result of intelligent, continuous and persistent efforts for many years, starting from a complete political thought. Practical experience has also shown that in the last four decades, thousands of organizations have been created, all were in an embryonic state and all have disappeared ; even some veteran political parties, which made many sacrifices and won a lot of trust, have faded out because they could not update their political thought. Therefore, building a political organization requires a lot of intelligence, effort, time and also luck. That is why the attempts to form a new organization instead of contributing to an existing serious organization should not be encouraged.
We must also be wary of a misconception that all efforts should be concentrated on building civil society organizations. It is true that the absence of civil society has been the main cause that makes us lagging behind the world and makes our nation helpless against a tyrannical dictatorship. No one denies the necessity of civil society, but its role must be exactly identified. Each genuine civil society organization can only give special attention to one problem of the society and therefore is trustworthy on that problem ; however, it does not take care of all problems of the society and cannot have political ambition. Each organization exposes the errors of the dictatorship and exerts pressure on an area that it is particularly interested in and has experience of, and therefore has an authoritative voice. The strength of civil society organizations is that they have clear definite goals. They are valuable support for the democracy campaign, but they do not have the function of leading the struggle for democracy. That is the function of political organizations.
3.3. Forming a democratic front and fighting for free elections
The struggle to end the dictatorship and establish democracy requires a unified leadership in order to win the support of the world, create confidence in the victory and mobilize the masses. In particular, the mobilization of the masses will surely fail if the democratic movement is dispersed and there are conflicting calls and instructions.
That unified leadership may be an organization that outperforms other organizations in terms of force and prestige, forcing other organizations to cooperate because there is no other option. In reality, this possibility does not exist. The practical solution is a democratic front gathering the genuine democratic organizations.
All democrats are aware of the need for a strong democratic front, or a democratic alliance.
This democratic front is necessary for the Vietnamese opposition to appear in the eyes of the world as a reliable alternative, avoiding the situation of many organizations competing for the support of the governments and the international organizations, creating an image of a fragmented Vietnamese opposition with a low self-respect.
This front is also a mandatory condition to bring to the masses the confidence in victory, so that we can mobilize them and lead them to fight to get concessions from the communist regime.
This front can be established because time has filtered opinions and today there are only very few differences in point of view.
The first step of the effort to form this democratic front is to further promote contacts and direct exchanges, in a spirit of mutual respect, about the international context and the situation of the country, about the basic choices for the future, about the urgent issues and the ways to solve them. It is through these exchanges that a consensus can be reached and that the required persons for a successful campaign for democracy can be found.
This phase of mobilization should be done both in the country and abroad, in parallel with the efforts to spread the ideal of democracy and pluralism to the masses. It aims to find the persons sharing the same goal to unite for action. It is also intended to understand and compare all political stances to identify the political organizations that, although not completely sharing each other’s views, can still act together. Equally important, it allows the detection of fraudulent ‘democratic’ organizations created by the Communist Party in an attempt to undermine the democratic movement.
This union in a democratic front must surpass all divisions left by the past, in the spirit of sincere and complete national reconciliation, fully oriented to the future. The strength of this union is mostly based on the consensus on the purpose and method of struggle, along with mutual trust. This union must be open to all individuals and groups of all backgrounds, as long as they sincerely share the ideal of democracy and pluralism, sincerely approve the spirit of national reconciliation and concord, and firmly reject violence. A compromise can be found for all other disagreements.
We affirm that this democratic front is a front against all forms of dictatorship in which the communist dictatorship is only one, against oppression, against mediocrity and evil. This democratic front is not at all an extension of the past conflict, but it is a future-oriented union. It is open to all democrats from all political pasts and inclinations. But it is only open to the true democrats.
In order to be effective, like all political alliances, the democratic front will need a member organization to act as the locomotive to ensure stability. With that observation in mind, the Rally for Democracy and Pluralism, on the one hand, will strive to develop itself so that it can take this leading role, but on the other hand, it will be willing to cede this leading role to another democratic organization with more or even equal potential.
However, the awareness of the need for a leading organization cannot make us forget that the tricks to gain the upper hand only worsen a situation that is already difficult in itself. All organizations must see their own efforts as contributions to the victory of democracy. All organizations, including the large ones due to the combination of many organizations, must consider themselves as the elements and the stages of an ever-larger union. The Rally for Democracy and Pluralism is committed to always behaving according to that motto.
The form, tactics and leadership will be flexible according to the situation. When the communist government has made concessions and accepted the democratic rules, the campaign will be public and the leadership of the front will be based in the country. As long as the communist government continues stubbornly its repressive policy, the domestic activities will be discreet and the leadership will be located overseas.
In both cases, we need an active presence across the country and in all areas. We will take advantages of all loopholes, seize every opportunity, befriend all persons who want to renew the country to create and multiply opposition bases that are more and more active, more and more public. On the one hand, we strive to further open the closed door of the communist regime and take advantage of the flow of exchange between inside and outside the country ; on the other hand, we use every initiative to create more intense pressure, in many ways, on the regime, attack the stubborn conservative faction of the Communist Party on all fronts, blocking all its escape routes, except the escape to pluralistic democracy.
The mission of the democratic front is to fight for democracy and free elections. That mission is considered accomplished after the first truly free election. Whether and how the front will continue is up to the member organizations to decide in the aftermath.
This free election will not be decided and organized by the communist government alone. Which institution to elect, when to vote, how to vote, who is entitled to vote, who is eligible to be candidate are the decisions on which the Vietnamese democratic opposition must have a say.
The free elections can only take place when all fundamental political freedoms have been officially and solemnly confirmed and the laws that conflict with political freedoms have been repealed.
The free elections must take place in the spirit of national reconciliation, transcending all administrative barriers created by the current government or by circumstances. Practically, before the elections, all political prisoners must be freed and their civic rights fully restored ; all former political judgments must be abolished, overseas Vietnamese must also be recognized as nationals and have the right to vote and to be candidates.
The free elections must be held by a qualified government, recognized as capable of ensuring fair and honest elections. This government will welcome the unlimited presence of impartial international observers.
The above-mentioned requirements, though very modest and very reasonable, will certainly meet the opposition of the communist government ; that is why all public and international pressures must be used to force the communist government to make concessions and participate in the democratization process. In fact, the Communist Party has no other choice. Democracy has become the rule of the game of the world and a new wave of democracy is rising while China, its last support, has vacillated. It only has to choose to be the actor or the victim of an inevitable transformation.
The outcome of the free election does not matter much. Even in the case the Communist Party, or its successor under another name, obtains victory, it could no longer be an authoritarian ruling party ; the democratic regime has been established, the democracy campaign has been successful and the big winner is still the Vietnamese nation. However, with the tragic state of the country and the responsibility of the communist party – mistakes as well as the crimes – exposed through democratic discussion, we can predict, without fear of being wrong, that the communist party will lose miserably, it may even disappear after the first free election. Besides, there is every chance that the electoral competition will not take place between the Communist Party and the democratic organizations, but between the remaining conservative faction of the Communist Party and the democratic forces, because as soon as democracy and free elections have been accepted in principle, certainly a significant part of the communist party members, including some sections of the Communist Party, will secede and join the democratic ranks.
In the struggle for free elections and for the victory through those free elections, the Rally for Democracy and Pluralism always advocates the elimination of hatred and the respect for all people and every political opinion to collaborate and build together a common Vietnamese future. This spirit of national reconciliation and concord cannot be confused with an attitude of willingness to collude and complicit with anybody. The attitude of the Rally for Democracy and Pluralism is very transparent. The Rally has clear goal and direction and will persevere. The Rally will make every effort to win the free elections. If it wins, the Rally will, with the allied political organizations, share responsibility before the nation. If unfortunately, victory goes in the hands of forces with other viewpoints, the Rally will continue to fight in the position of a decent and responsible opposition.
Like all political campaigns, this struggle will require a lot of compromise. Non-violent struggle means accepting final victory through phased compromises. The Rally will accept phase compromises without fear to lose its soul because it has a founding ideology and main directions as guide. The Rally will accept phase compromises that shorten the road to democratic but it will not compromise on three basic standpoints : the ideal of democracy and pluralism, the spirit of national reconciliation and concord and the non-violent method of struggle.
VIII. For a successful transition to democracy
1. The transition problem
After the end of the dictatorship, we will go through an extremely difficult transition period. In a period of about five years, our country will have to make extraordinary efforts to overcome extremely difficult challenges before it can become a normal country and truly integrate into the international community.
We will have to transition from a monolithic, centralized, autocratic system to a pluralistic and decentralized with separation of powers regime.
We will have to replace a planned economy based on state-owned enterprises with a market economy based on private enterprises.
We will have to turn a corrupt, bureaucratic and haughty state machine, instrument of a party into an effective, responsible, healthy state serving the common good.
We will have to end an arbitrary management by resolution and directive to establish a true democratic rule of law state.
We will have to replace the police apparatus, conceived and organized as a tool of repression of the Communist Party, with a police apparatus that protects security, order and civil rights ; replace the courts considered as an extended arm of the police with independent courts that only have the mission to express the law.
We will have to replace an education of propaganda, indoctrination and low quality with an objective, liberal and high-quality education. We consider education and training as a vital struggle for the country.
We inherit a totally declined country ; banditry is rampant, corruption is an institution, deception and fraud have become national reflexes, infectious diseases are uncontrolled, youth are illiterate and they abandon school, people are depressed, pessimistic and disappointed, the gap between the rich and the poor is blatant and provocative, tens of millions live in extreme poverty, millions of land victims are frustrated since many years after being expropriated and only being compensated at a stolen price, the environment is destroyed and polluted, sovereignty and even lands are lost in the hands of foreigners. We will have to turn that country into an honest and clean country, disciplined, with full sovereignty, confidence, solidarity, economic resilience and attractiveness to foreign investments.
We inherit a country piled up with hatred due to war and discriminatory policies. We will have to heal the wounds without causing new ones. We will have to restore the honor of those who have been offended without offending others, to compensate the victims without creating new ones.
Our Vietnamese society is in a serious crisis of faith. People, with good reason, associate politics with domination, business with profiteering. The transition should be the decisive and persuasive first step of an ongoing effort to reconcile the masses with politics and business. It must inaugurate a new political philosophy and a new way of doing business, with politicians who have chosen to serve society instead of getting rich, entrepreneurs who are knowledgeable, creative, who dare and know how to take risks.
We need to clarify : the question is not to find a miraculous formula that can quickly turn the country into a rich and strong country, there is no such thing. The question is, from the realities of the country and the world context, to identify the problems that need to be prioritized and to propose the solutions.
The goal of this transitional period is to lay the foundations for an honest and responsible democratic government, to double the national product in the span of about five years, while improving the environment and the social relations, dissolving all hatred and animosity, clearing psychological deadlocks and really putting a harmonious Vietnam in the orbit of progress. This goal can be achieved, and will have to be achieved, by policies and measures that do not conflict with the broad directions outlined.
We have so many serious and urgent socio-cultural problems that need to be solved but we have only very limited resources. If we spend too many resources on these issues, we will have no resource for economic development and will stand still in poverty. On the contrary, there are social and cultural issues so severe that, if they are not solved, they will destroy all economic efforts. We have to recognize the harsh reality that we will still have to live with poverty and destitution for many years. In the context of tight budgets, we will have to set a priority for the problems. The leading spirit is to urgently address the issues essential for national reconciliation, social security and economic development ; other issues will be addressed in a different order of priority as soon as the economic possibilities allow.
2. The political measures
2.1. Return the government to the people
Every patriotic and lucid Vietnamese must expect the transformation to democracy to take place in peace and order, in the spirit of national reconciliation and concord. We will make every effort to involve the Communist Party in the democratization process. But in any case, the transition period will start with a Provisional Covenant of the Republic of Vietnam, returning the government to the people and solemnly affirming the fundamental freedoms including freedom of speech and freedom of the press, the right to form and join organizations, the right to vote and stand for election, the right to own land. This Provisional Covenant will summarize the principles contained in the major directions for building a pluralistic democratic Vietnam and will guide all actions of the transitional government until the new constitution of the Republic of Vietnam has been voted and put into effect.
The first concrete thing to do is depoliticizing the governmental apparatus, the army and the police. Civil servants and military personnel have the right to join political organizations but not to engage in political activities. All partisan activities in all administrative, security and military organs of the state will be strictly prohibited. The administration, the army and the police must be non-political tools, completely independent of all political parties, absolutely respectful of the constitution, absolutely submissive to all elected governments. The military and police will return to the noble mission of defending the country, maintaining security and order, and therefore need to be completely separated from all business activities. The companies currently owned by the military and police will be privatized. The persons working at those companies can be demobilized to continue their job.
The army will be modernized in equipment and training and will also be reduced in number. The defense budget will primarily prioritize strengthening the navy and the air force.
The peripheral organizations established by the communist party to impersonate and control the civil society – whether calling themselves front, unions or associations – will lose all official roles and benefits, and if they continue to exist, they will be ordinary associations, equal before the law to all other civil society organizations.
2.2. Implementing national reconciliation and concord
An effort that must begin immediately and continue for many years is to implement the policy of national reconciliation and concord. National reconciliation and concord are the national policy of the transitional period and is the subsequent political philosophy of Vietnam. National reconciliation and concord require fairness with the past and respect for the future.
All political prisoners will be released and their civil rights will be immediately restored.
All persons who, for political reasons -because of anti-capitalist policies, land reform, or because they were former civil servants and military of the South - were imprisoned, humiliated, will have their honor restored ; they will be compensated for their losses, at least symbolically.
In the name of national continuity, the state will assume responsibility for past mistakes, especially for those who have died unjustly, whatever their camp and whatever the period of time.
Those who have their property confiscated for political reasons will be reimbursed by the state, the actual reimbursement will be implemented gradually over time according to the state’s economic capabilities.
All citizens have the right to ask the state to reconsider the sentences that they, or their relatives, were victims if there is evidence that they were wrongly tried. When it is proved that a judge has betrayed the laws and professional conscience, and has intentionally tried unjustly following orders, he/she will no longer be authorized to exercise the profession of judge, and in serious cases may be prosecuted.
All citizens whose land has been expropriated have the right to ask the government to reconsider their case to either get their land back or be compensated more appropriately ; they also have the right to denounce forced land sales at low price in the name of public interest.
Overseas Vietnamese, if they desire, are granted Vietnamese nationality, for them as well as for their children born abroad.
A special agency, at ministerial level, will be set up to implement the national reconciliation policy, especially to receive and resolve the people’s complaints and claims. A committee of the parliament will be responsible for ensuring that all laws and regulations do not go against the national policy of reconciliation and concord. A council of national reconciliation and concord, independent of the government and composed of representatives of political parties, representatives of religions, representatives of ethnic groups, and prestigious figures of civil society, will be established to oversee the implementation of national reconciliation and concord.
The state will strictly prohibit any act of vengeance and discrimination. All Vietnamese, regardless the past, are treated equally in their obligations and their rights. All civil servants and military personnel will in principle be retained in the position they are holding. There must be objective and legitimate reasons for all personnel changes.
The implementation of national reconciliation and concord will take a very long time. All measures of the state must always show goodwill to truly heal the wounds left behind by the past, so that all Vietnamese can voluntarily join hands to build the country.
In order for the policy of national reconciliation and concord to have a legitimate foundation and be stronger, a law on national reconciliation and concord will be drafted for the whole people to vote through a referendum.
2.3. Promulgate a new constitution for the Republic of Vietnam and amend the laws
This constitution will be voted by a constitutional parliament, the first elected institution. This constitution is in line with the pluralistic, parliamentary and decentralized political regime that has been chosen and presented ; it will not contain any reference to a doctrine, a religion or a political party. It will also affirm Vietnam’s definitive and complete integration into the world community ; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations and the attached conventions will be considered an integral part of the Vietnamese constitution. The death penalty will be abolished because it is uncivilized, and in fact, it does not have the effect that its barbarism misleads us. The ‘treason’ crime will be removed in the language of Vietnamese law. After the vote of the new constitution, the legislative parliament – perhaps the constitutional parliament will vote to turn itself into the legislative parliament, if the situation allows it – will vote on fundamental laws. The guiding spirit to draft these basic laws is simplicity, clearness, ease to understand and to respect in the context of the country. The first laws are not necessarily perfect. It is important to lay a healthy foundation for the national activity ; the laws will be completed later to be increasingly complete and perfect. The existing laws will be reviewed ; some new laws may come from existing laws, after removing the references to socialism and the Communist Party, and provisions that are either anti-democratic or contrary to constitutional liberties.
2.4. Start to bring decentralization into practice
Right after that, it is necessary to bring decentralization into political life. This means that we need a territorial organization law that specifies the powers of the regions, the number of regions, their boundaries and a schedule for the elections and establishment of the local governments. The guiding principle is that the regions will consist of pre-existing adjacent provinces that are fairly homogeneous in terms of geography, transport, ethnic structure, economic vocation ; they must have an adequate surface area and population to be regions viable and able to develop.
2.5. Keeping the land of Vietnam for Vietnamese people
For many years, the communist government has ignored, even intentionally, and let many lands of strategic value falling in the hands of foreigners. The purchase and sale of these lands, sometimes done through Vietnamese intermediaries who lend their names as owners, is a great loss for the country. Many strategic watershed forests of high strategic importance have been long-term leased by the government to foreigners, and they have almost become foreign areas in the territory of Vietnam. Many almost exclusively foreign settlements have also formed in practice. This situation cannot be tolerated. We need to review the transfers of land to stop the shady land sales to foreigners. The unrighteous transfers of land will be recovered, in the serious cases, they may be confiscated without compensation.
A measure to both harmonize the need to attract capital and keep Vietnamese land for Vietnamese people is, not only allowing, but also encouraging Vietnamese residing abroad to get Vietnamese nationality and buy houses and land. It is also a measure to attach the overseas Vietnamese to the homeland.
More important is to review the treaties that the communist party and state have signed with foreign countries, especially those whose contents have not been published. Treaties only signed by the Communist Party of Vietnam with foreign countries will be declared immediately null and void ; treaties signed by representatives of the communist state but not approved by the National Assembly or not announced to the public will also be denied. Only treaties consistent with national interests will be maintained, after renegotiation if necessary.
3. The socio-cultural measures
The most acute and pressing issues facing the country are not economic but social and cultural issues.
3.1. Strengthening security and order
Vietnam today is one of the most insecure countries in the world. The first security threat is the Communist Party and State. Illegal arrest, imprisonment and savage beating have become common practice. The lack of security is also due to the increasing number of rogue elements, in many cases with the protection of the police. Of course, the social evils are a natural product of today’s stalemate society and will certainly decline with the return of hope and faith. But anyway, our country will remain unstable for a long time, and security and order will be a painful problem for a newly established democratic government. Ensuring security and order is not a limitation of freedom, but a mandatory condition for real freedom.
The law needs to be strict ; it does not need to be harsh, and especially not violent.
All Vietnamese, at the age of majority, will receive identification cards and passports, they have the right to stay wherever they want and to move freely within the territory or abroad.
Unclear laws are also a cause of law breaking. In the future, our country needs laws that are simple, easy to understand and respect, but also severe with the violations.
The current government has a large number of police, but the police are primarily used to protect the Communist Party’s political monopoly instead of protecting security and order, to repress the aspirations for freedom and democracy rather than repressing the social evils. Therefore, immediately in the transition period, a majority of intelligence agencies and political protection agencies will be transferred to security and environmental protection forces. Strengthening security and order is a matter of reforming the security apparatus. This reform is not only inexpensive but can also save a lot of money for the budget. A truly democratic Vietnamese government, without the need to repress opposition, can reduce the security budget and at the same time, significantly enhance social order.
3.2. Overcoming corruption and social evils
We are witnessing an ambiguous relationship between the communist government and illicit gangs under the cover of state officials. Smuggling, tax evasion and illegal trading become usual. This plague must end because it is a challenge to the nation, a great loss to the budget and a dangerous obstacle to the proper business.
Fighting corruption will be given the highest priority in the transition period because if corruption is not repelled, any national policy, no matter how sound, will fail. Corruption today has reached a suffocating level. The main cause of corruption is first and foremost the nature of the totalitarian regime in which the appointment and replacement of officials are entirely independent of the masses and public opinion. In addition, there are an overwhelming and cumbersome state apparatus, cumbersome and contradictory laws that allow subjective, biased, arbitrary explanations encouraging gang collusion between officials to cover each other.
The communist government is the cause of corruption, so a favorable period to fight corruption will open as soon as a democratic government has replaced the communist government. The problem of the transitional government is to give corruption a fatal blow and not allow it to recover afterwards. Corruption is an abuse of public power, so in order to fight corruption, the weight of state power must be reduced, which means replacing the heavy and authoritative state apparatus with a light state, with limited power. Then, there is a need for simple, transparent laws so that people know surely what they can do and what they cannot do, and they are no longer hostages of state officials. To mark a new phase, the new democratic government will need impressive measures such as strictly forbidding civil servants to receive gifts in any case, forcing all civil servants to declare their assets annually, compelling all agencies to periodically review the results of their anti-corruption efforts, etc.
The democratic government will decisively eliminate the gangs. They will not be entitled to any mercy, under any circumstances, for any reason.
Fighting corruption, as well as fighting smuggling and other social evils, requires determination but also the trust and support of the entire population. One of our allies in this tough battle is freedom of speech. In a truly free regime, corruption and bullying of the people, if not completely eliminated, must be reduced to a low level. The accusation of free citizens who know all their rights is the most effective anti-corruption weapon.
All initiatives will be welcomed to win the active support of the entire people for the efforts to make the country healthy.
3.3. Completely abolish all censorship policies and measures
The Provisional Covenant, as well as the new constitution, will solemnly recognize the freedom to compose and publish books and cultural products, and prohibit all laws aimed at censoring. In the future Vietnam, there will be no restriction on freedom of speech from the government. The law will only sanction blatant statements calling for violence, offending the honor and rights of citizens or groups of citizens and are sued by the same individuals or groups. Such civic associations will play a pivotal role in protecting the health of culture. Let us not forget that civil society is the foundation of pluralistic democracy.
3.4. Ensuring the objectivity of education and a minimum level of education for all citizens
There will be no problem of the state imposing official textbooks. The right to create textbooks will not be limited and the right to choose textbooks entirely belongs to the teachers. But an institution independent of the government, coming from the teachers, will draft the first textbooks, then it has the authority to recommend, without imposing, the textbooks having the quality to be used for teaching. Education is a very expensive investment of the country ; therefore, it must be purely oriented towards spreading knowledge and developing the intellect, and not being exploited for one-way propaganda.
A special focus is on teaching Vietnamese language. It is something that cannot be underestimated because a minimum level of education and a minimum of communication capacity are both an essential condition for economic development and a necessary condition for stability of the society and peace among people.
Since many years, the communist government has completely abandoned all educational efforts. We have lost a lot of pupils and students and the quality of education at all levels has been seriously reduced, especially since the communist regime implemented a wild market economy policy. Compulsory and free education must be enforced, at least through the 9th grade. It is very likely that the budget will not allow the recruitment of the required number of teachers, in which case we need to launch a national cultural solidarity movement, with students helping to teach pupils, the upper classes helping to teach the lower classes on a voluntary basis or with symbolic remuneration. It should be noted that the tragic situation of the current education sector is not difficult to overcome. The current deterioration of education is due in large part to the policy of the communist state. Education is viewed as a money-making service for the state rather than an investment for the future. The communist state also does not distinguish education from propaganda. The students are brainwashed with knowledge that both educators and learners know to be false and useless. In addition, the economic impasse as well as the gangrene of the society make young people and their parents not knowing what education is for. All these causes will disappear under a regime which respects freedom, people and considers education and training as a vital struggle of the nation.
3.5. Improve the living environment and the landscapes
Our country has been so devastated that we must preserve and carefully maintain the historical sites and places of interest. These are valuable assets, sources of pride and links between Vietnamese people. The restoration of these historical sites will not be very costly because of their small number, and may also has no cost for the state. We will bid the right to exploit and the obligations to maintain some historical sites and landscapes with value for tourism to Vietnamese private companies ; we will entrust some religious historical sites to the churches.
We have a narrow area and a large population, therefore the country must be conceived and organized like a big city, that is, clean, beautiful and safe, with administrative, legal, cultural, educational and medical agencies spread evenly throughout the territory, with forests that are cared for as parks, places of meeting and entertainment for equal citizens.
We need to specify and strictly implement construction standards to prevent unsafe or chaotic constructions from damaging the landscape. Tourism will be an important economic activity and it is difficult to imagine that it will be successful if our country is not beautiful.
The current policy of disorderly fishing has seriously reduced our seafood resources. We need to have immediately simple, transparent and strictly applied regulations to save the sea and seafood resources. The movement of indiscriminate deforestation and selling wood – still continuing – is in danger of turning our country into barren ; this movement must be stopped immediately. The restoration of forest trees is capital intensive and requires regular protection and care, so the state budget may not be able to assume it. It is necessary to study the solution of contracting each forest area to Vietnamese private companies for restoration and exploitation, with clear rights and commitments.
In parallel with the effort of industrial development, there must also be clear regulations on treatment of waste.
The bauxite mining project in the central highlands must be immediately and permanently suspended.
The projects to build nuclear power plants must be suspended until safe waste treatment techniques are discovered and Vietnam is able to ensure absolute security in operating the plants.
4. The economic measures
Economically, the first thing a decent government must do is to end the rule by resolutions, announcements, decisions, directives, and replace it by clear, transparent and stable laws. A new set of business laws is indispensable and cannot wait. At the same time, we need to focus our national efforts on urgent issues.
4.1. Privatize the majority of state-owned enterprises and land
The state does not have the vocation to make cars, to sell clothes, to run touristic companies and restaurants, to manage hotels and discos. The state-owned companies, the state-owned farms weaken the spirit of risk taking, stopping the initiatives and losing accountability. We consider private business to be the cornerstone of the national economy, therefore privatization of the state-owned enterprises and privatization of the land are a core policy of the transition period. Experiences of the countries evolving into market economy show that privatization must be carried out with all vigilance to avoid speculation, dispersion of national assets, degradation of the enterprises to privatize.
We will immediately privatize all state-owned companies and enterprises that can be privatized, that is, operating normally in a sector without defense secrets, to bring a new vitality to the economy.
We will immediately promote the privatization of the land according to the principle of returning ownership to the people who are cultivating on their land ; depending on the case, granting or reselling to farmers the land allocated by the state.
The guiding principle of privatization is that, the state will not do what the private sector can do. This policy will have to be basically completed after five years.
4.2. Encourage maximum investment, including foreign investment
The current investment laws will be gradually abolished because they are too restrictive and because they give foreigners the rights that the Vietnamese do not have ; they also divide the domestic people from those living abroad. In the future, foreign investors will have all the rights they currently have and will have more freedom than today, but they cannot have the rights that the Vietnamese do not have. Time to complete all the procedures to establish a company will not exceed a week. It is important to be aware of the relative value of laws that support investment. If the privileges are only effective in the short term, the investment law will only attract superficial investments, but if the investment privileges are valid in the long term, the investment law will tend to become a normal law. Besides, the investment decision depends very little on the incentives and very much on the political and economic context.
4.3. Concentrating efforts on two strategic transportation works
The two great works that we have to start immediately and continue for many years, through many stages, are the works of modernization and expansion in accordance with the international standards of the Thống Nhất (Reunification) railway and transformation of the national road Xuyên Việt (Trans Vietnam) into a highway, linking Hanoi and Saigon. These are works that are essential for economic activities, concretizing the unity of the country and creating many jobs throughout the territory. The current expectations for these two projects are still very low compared to the needs of our country, most of whose activities are concentrated along these two transport axes. Expanding and modernizing these two works is also essential for the project of construction and operation of Cam Ranh port, a key project that we will carry out vigorously for many years to bring economic power to the whole country and to the Central region, the most promising region of the country due to its coastal location, but currently the least developed area.
With the very special shape of our country as well as the recent difficult historical period, the Xuyên Việt (Trans Vietnam) highway must be both the main transport axis and a great landscape symbolizing the beautiful and strong unity of the country.
5. The sources of funding for the renaissance effort
A renaissance program, even a modest one, requires a lot of money. The goals of the transition period are also very ambitious. We will face many difficulties, but we will also have funding.
Firstly, we have to end the unthrifty expenses created by the communist government, the biggest one created by the Vietnamese communist party itself. Hundreds of thousands of persons are paid today to work solely for the apparatus of the Communist Party. Thousands of houses and rooms are illegally occupied as headquarters, offices for the party cells. Corrupt cadres and party members abuse the power to embezzle an important part of the national output. In the future, when the Communist Party has to accept a normal standing, on par with other political parties, the state will save a large budget, release a large human resource and recover some large assets.
The second source of funding is the reduction of defense and security budgets. We have no intention of conquering any country, and on the contrary, we are no longer afraid of being conquered militarily. The defense of border areas, seas and islands does not require a large infantry force as it is today but an elite motorized army, mainly the air force and navy. The current police apparatus – main and auxiliary – may include over two million persons, used primarily to protect the Communist Party and suppress democratic aspirations. A truly democratic state can reduce a significant part of the costs, but also enhance the capacity to protect the territory and maintain security and order.
The third source of funding comes from the privatization of the state-owned enterprises. As stated above, the main purpose of the privatization policy is to rationalize and make economic activity healthy. However, the privatization program will also bring an important resource.
The fourth source of funding will come from the more active contribution of the overseas Vietnamese community, when a real democratic regime, in line with the deep aspirations of the overseas compatriots, has been established. The community of overseas Vietnamese, with more than three million persons, mostly settled in the developed countries and with an annual income over 50 USD billion, can save 10 USD billion per year. But the overseas Vietnamese community is not only a source of investment, it can also make other important contributions to culture, science and technology. Once relations with the country have been normalized, the overseas Vietnamese community will be a great lever for the efforts to develop the country.
But the most important source of funding, increasingly abundant, is due to the economic development itself. Currently, many industries are paralyzed, many talents are neutralized because of the prohibition or harassment by the communist government. Returning true business freedom to the people will unlock a lot of new energy and we can expect new contributions. Our correct and honest economic policy is able to mobilize the remaining financial resources among the people. There is no force greater than the force we will have, thanks to the liberation and the mobilization of the vigor of a nation of nearly 100 million industrious persons. We have the right to expect quick and tremendous results. The goal of doubling total national output within the five years of the transition period requires a growth rate of 15% per year, but that is a goal within reach, because we are a coastal country with a convenient location and a diligent people ; the ability to entice foreign investment is huge. That is the rate that the China’s coastal provinces have achieved, even under the communist regime. Moreover, our country has a lot of untapped potential. We lag behind, not because of objective difficulties, but because of the bad and corrupt communist government.
6. The transition to democracy will succeed, the country will rise
We have the right to hope and be optimistic. Although our country has stumbled, it is still capable of standing up and move forward.
We do not need to expect any miracle or any favor at all. We can create that miracle for ourselves, we can give that favor ourselves in a simple way.
Normalizing relations between Vietnamese people. Solemnly asserting that the country belongs to all Vietnamese and not to any party or any doctrine. Recognizing an equal standing for everyone and for each person. Removing the chains of hatred and intolerance to look at each other like brothers. Bringing optimism and confidence in a faithful and honest government. Bringing clear and firm guarantees to private property and business rights. Determination to eliminate corruption and social evils that are destroying our national body. All these things we can do, and we can do right away. Then we will see this country changing skin and flesh, then we will see this nation rising up to conquer the future. We will discover the miracle of very simple values like freedom, democracy, national concord. We will see that a democracy with the rule of law succeeds even in difficult technical, cultural, social and human conditions because of its capacity for self-regulation and improvement. The country will stand up, move forward and rise strongly.
IX. Sharing the Vietnamese Dream
Our country has the potential to become a big, rich and strong country if we can mobilize all hearts, all brains, all hands in the cause of building a common future. Yet, the sad reality is that today we are still struggling to get what most nations already have : democracy.
The struggle has been longer than we expected, because in addition to the identified difficulties, there is another reason : this is a completely new struggle in our country’s history. So far, we have only had civil wars between dominant forces fighting for power, or wars against foreign aggression whose purpose, after all, is just to change a foreign slavery yoke by a domestic one. We have never been a free people. This time, we fight to open up a whole new era, the second era of our country’s history, the era of free Vietnamese and of a democratic Vietnam.
It is a struggle to bring the Vietnamese people and the Vietnamese nation from the darkness of slavery and poverty into the light of freedom and prosperity. For the first time, we have a real fight worth fighting. Thus, the Vietnamese of today must be aware that they are facing the opportunity to create the greatest and most glorious historical event, an opportunity that the future generations will not have.
The challenge facing us is big, but the hope impelling us is even bigger because this struggle is not only worthy and glorious, it will be surely victorious. We are transported and motivated by a global democratic wave and by the common aspiration of a nation that has gradually recovered from injuries. We are receiving reinforcements from a new generation that has liberated itself and is determined to be free. Behind the obstacles is a bright future.
We are bound to succeed. The Vietnamese people have awakened after having to pay a heavy price for hatred and division, monopoly of righteousness, fanaticism and worship of violence. We have understood with blood and tears and have accepted in our skin and flesh the simple but miraculous values, such as freedom, democracy, peace, justice, tolerance, effort. We are impregnated with national love and feeling of compatriots in our common humiliation of inferiority. We have realized that all Vietnamese are bound together in a common destiny. We have the biggest national consensus since the days our fathers founded the country. That consensus will be an invincible weapon that will help us overcome all obstacles.
The greatest lesson of world history is that a nation wanting to rise only needs three elements : a free society, diligent people and national consensus. We are a diligent people who have national consensus and are about to have freedom. We will rise. We have the right to be optimistic on our journey to the future.
We are optimistic and proud because our struggle is transparent. It does not aim to destroy or humiliate anyone, it is a struggle to honor people, to honor the right to be human and the right to happiness as a great people that our people deserve.
This dictatorship will be the last dictatorship in Vietnam. After removing it, we will forever enter a new era, the era of freedom, democracy, tolerance, protection, the glorious era of common efforts and common success.
Let us hold hands and shout aloud our common oath :
Vietnam will be a great country.
Being Vietnamese has been a misfortune so far, being Vietnamese in the near future will have to be a joy, a blessing and a source of pride.
The world has known Vietnam as a victim of hatred, division and monopoly of righteousness, then the world will have to know the future Vietnam as the land of tolerance, a successful model of recovered brotherhood and of revival from ruin and destruction.
That is the ideal of our time. That is the legacy that we will leave for future generations. It is the Vietnamese dream that all fellows of the Rally for Democracy and Pluralism are pursuing together and want to share with all Vietnamese, inside and outside the country, today and tomorrow.
Rally for Democracy and Pluralism
Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai (tài liệu học tập nội bộ)
多元民主集合会
第二纪元的启蒙书
多元化民主政治预案
2015年
译者：阮成泷（2020年）
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目录
壹、历史使命 1
贰、第四轮民主浪潮与世界新秩序 5
一、第四轮民主浪潮 5
二、美国，中国和太平洋地区 9
三、全球化运动威胁着一切国家 11
四、意识形态联盟让位于发展合作 12
五、不发达国家与新的世界背景 13
叁、越南面临着重大历史转折 16
一、挑战 16
二、展望 19
肆、民主纪元的思想基础 23
一、国家：连带的空间和共同的未来预案 23
二、多元化民主 26
三、民族调解与和谐 30
四、接受并坚定地表达进步的价值观 33
五、在民主、市场经济和个人创见的基础上发展国家 35
伍、越南模式的主要方向 41
一、以自由为动力而发扬创造力和进取精神 41
二、弘扬志愿爱国主义 41
三、尊重和促进民间社会 42
四、将越南确定为建立在群区之间的国家 44
五、果断选择以民营企业为基础的市场经济 45
六、迈向工业服务经济 45
七、促进国内市场发展 47
八、不断警惕加强社会连带 47
九、奉行“小国主义” 49
十、实行与睦邻政策并行的和平与合作外交政策 50
十一、践行文明的人口调控政策 51
十二、在努力中建设优质民族幸福 52
陆、越南共和国的体制和宪法 54
一、关于政权的两个错误偏见 54
甲、多元民主与政治稳定 54
乙、统一和散权制 56
二、政治制度 58
甲、议会制：最稳定和民主的体制 58
乙、政府组织 59
丙、政党：国家的基本要素 61
三、越南共和国宪法 61
柒、争取建立多元化民主制 63
一、民主革命的四个充要条件 63
二、民主运动的五个阶段 65
甲、建设意识形态基础 65
乙、打造核心干部队伍 65
丙、对设施的建设和审查 66
丁、建设群众基础 66
戊、夺取政权的进攻 66
三、民主运动的内容 68
甲、唤醒群众对全国共同解决方案的必要性 68
乙、在思想理论上取得决定性胜利 68
丙、组建民主阵线及争取自由选举 72
一、过渡问题 76
二、政治措施 77
甲、把政府还归给人民 77
乙、实现民族调解与和谐 78
丙、颁布越南共和国新宪法并修改法律 79
丁、开端将散权制付诸实践 79
戊、为越南人民保留越南国土 80
二、社会文化措施 80
甲、加强安全秩序 80
乙、克服贪污和社会弊端 81
丙、彻底废除所有审查检阅政策和措施 82
丁、确保教育的客观性和所有公民的最低文化水平 82
戊、改善环境，把国家组织成大城市 83
三、经济措施 84
甲、剥离大部分国有企业和土地私有化 84
乙、最大限度地鼓励投资含来自国外的投资 84
丙、着力推进两项战略交通工程 84
四、复兴努力的资金来源 85
五、民主制过渡将成功，国家将崛起 86
玖、分享一个越南梦 87
壹、历史使命
我们在人口方面排名世界第十四位，因此，在这个地面上每一千人有十五位越南人。越南人民被世界视为聪明和勤奋。得益于漫长而美丽的海岸，我们的地理环境十分优越，它靠近重要的交通轴，并且特别活跃的地区。我们拥有一个大国和富国的潜力，为建设一个和平，繁荣和文明的世界作出了有价值的贡献。
尽管如此，我们现在是世界上最贫穷，最落后的国家之一。我们的人均国民总产值远低于世界平均水平。我们仍然没有高科技产业，在文化和艺术领域还落后很多。我们在所有关于人种社会和环境的国家排名表中均排名最低；我们甚至缺乏最基本的人权。这场痛苦而令人无法接受的冲突必须对每个越南人提出质疑。
天生的所有人，不论种族，都具有相同能力。种族发展水平和生活水平的差异是由于文化条件，地理，自然资源和社会组织法而造成的。在这些因素中，社会组织至关重要。社会组织的好坏，善拙可以完全改变一个国家的命运。因此，尽管土地狭窄，资源贫乏，许多国家仍在强劲崛起，而其他许多国家虽然受到自然的优惠，却仍在贫困中挣扎。在这种意识中，当前的屈辱势在必行，不仅迫使我们思考自己，为自己找到一条路，还使我们相信，如果我们适当地重组我国，那意味着基于正确的价值观，我们一定会摆脱贫困，并会坚强崛起。
我们错过了许多历史性机会。
在以十八世纪思想爆炸和十九世纪工业大革命为标志的新时代到来之际，我们和许多其他亚洲国家一样，并不意识到当时该是重新审视所有价值和规矩，彻底革新思维和组织方式的时候了。几个世纪以来，我们一直对僵化的孔孟学说模范感到满意，失去了创造力并当场脚。而西方人，由于他们的客观性和方法论，通过不断的修正和创新，已经比世界其余地区更强大。
由于无法像其他一些幸运的国家那样及时适应，我们把主权和被殖民地属丟掉了。失去主权，我们总是失去了共同协商为本国寻找出路的能力，然后总是失去了解决分歧意见的对话精神。
进入二十世纪，我们已经同时解决两个难题：获得国家主权和适应新进文明。因为我们不同意一个新的国家预案，所以即使在每个越南人都希望重新获得自治的目标上，我们也存在冲突。第二次世界大战后殖民统治瓦解，我们错过了重新获得独立并崛起的机会。我们彼此分裂，相互谴责，相残相毁，使国家陷入内战并纷争，在遭受最不堪性破坏之后，最终结果是兜揽最荼毒的独裁政权之一；而其他国民，无论他们付出的代价是不浪费还是很少流血牺牲，都是获得独立的，在许多情况下甚至建立了民主。
目光浮浅使我们错过了1975年当和平时期恢复的重大机遇。胜利派系没有民族调解来医治战争的创伤，而是施加了极权主义，而极权主义在一个世纪前被遗弃在其策源地中，不久将在其中心地遭到拒绝，并被文明世界谴责为人类灾难。浮浅空泛也使我们错过了共产主义和共产主义运动崩溃时的又一次巨大机会。
回顾过去，我们必须认识到，我国遭受的所有失败的原因是我们缺乏政治思想，没有投入足够的思维来清楚地了解自己面临的重大问题并寻求解决方案。在任何时刻，我们始终缺乏适合新时代和国家形势的政治预案。我们最终相互残杀是因为我们无意识地吸收了借来的意识形态，并且比发起它们的民族更加痴狂地捍卫了它们。
我们迫切需要政治思想上的飞跃，以快速就社会组织的新基础价值达成共识。这种文化上的跃进必须与毅力和宽容相结合。当前的悲惨经历和自卑屈辱迫使我们就放弃急躁的心理，放弃对正义的垄断，克服痴狂心地来本着相互尊重的精神进行对话和妥协。没什么别个，因为所有越南人都在一个共同的身份下连属在一起：如果我国富裕发达，我们的生活将光荣，我们都将受到敬重；相反，如果我国贫穷落后，我们都会被鄙视，无论我们属于任何成分，任何倾向或如何主义。在当今悲苦的局势中，所有个人的最佳亦是每个人的最佳。
今天，我国大多数人民都处于穷乏，沮丧和愤懑的状态，我国陷于落后和僵局。经济，社会，环境，道德，教育，人剩等未解决的问题变得越来越尖锐，并达到了岌岌限度，如果这种崩消性势头没有迅速扭转，很快就不可能做出反应。然后可以将我国从拥有梦想在世界上有价值地位的民族清单中删除。我们必须断言，在这个共产主义政权下，这个国家是没有出路的。在其存在和统治的整个过程中，仅显示出不惜一切代价维持其对国家的统治，包括破坏国家，牺牲其民族利益和臣服外邦。这也是一个极度腐败的政权，每个民族的历史证明，它只能取代而不是改善一个腐败贪污的政府。我们这个时代的历史使命是迅速使人民摆脱极权专政的锁，并救国摆脱永远衰飒的危险。
永远衰飒的危险也就是亡国的危险，因为在这个时代，当国族意念遭到各方的攻击和反思时，没有带来幸福，自豪感和希望崛起的国家将早晚被解散。
我们摆脱僵局并崛起的出路是多元化的民主与人权，其基础是爱国之心，被认为是越南人民的爱与依恋。
民主将问题放在正确的位置，选择正确的解法和负责任的人员。多元化以尊重所有差异，在血腥冲突后进行民族调解。人权以荣誉每个越南人并促进所有人的活力和创见的。每个民族的经验表明，人权从未阻止任何人过上自己的生活，民主从未禁止过一个民族前进。民主是前进，为发展启路，发展巩固并促进民主。民主还是一个明智的选择，允许一个实力较弱的国家利用世界的情绪和支持来保护其权利和领土。
使国家民主化是一个显而易见的目标，但也充满了障碍。共产党已经表明，它可以做一切事情来维持政治垄断，而大多数越南人不再关心这个国家，这种沮丧对于一个贪恶的政权来说持续了太久，变成了国家本身的沮丧。因此，为民主而奋斗的人们必须同时抵抗共产党的顽固和群众的弃权心理。民主运动还必须是试图恢复受到严重伤害的爱国主义；这将需要大量的决心，勇气和坚毅。但这是一场必要的斗争。
在人类走上自由上国家民主之路，我们已经很晚了。到目前为止，尽管我们拥有悠久的历史，但实际上我们只有奴隶制。自主时代还意味着用本国奴隶制代替外国奴隶制。民主运动是将人民从奴隶之黑暗中带入自由之光明的斗争，它开启了民主时代，即我国的第二历史纪元。取决于当今人们的选择和态度，他们将被后代视为对我国历史上最伟大的革命做出了贡献，或者当国家最需要时害怕地逃避责任。
这项政治预案的雄心是为越南树立新的政治意识，并团结那些仍然有意志和信念去追求一个共同理想，即是一个越南今天值得其人民努力建设的国家，并以子孙后代继承为荣。这种团结是急切和必要的，因为政治斗争从来不是个人斗争，而只是有组织的斗争。
全球民主的新浪潮正在汹涌澎湃。我们无权错过这个交运。
贰、第四轮民主浪潮与世界新秩序
我们处在充满展望的顺利世界背景中。前无从来有可能结束极权统治体制并进入大民主时代大如此时。新民主浪潮，是世界历史上第四轮民主浪潮，已经开始并继续上升，而独裁统治在威望，才智，信心及意志力方面已衰变和耗尽。
一、第四轮民主浪潮
人类历史可以看作是人类走向自由，摆脱愚昧，疾病，饥饿，艰辛，尤其脱离暴政的束缚的旅程。事实证明，民主是组织社会自由行使的最合理方式，因此世界历史也是民主民族的旅程。
在那艰难的旅程中，民主遇到了统治权力的顽强抵抗。除了公然暴力之外，统治势力还运用意识形态武器。从悲观的哲理出发，认为人生是不值得命活，因此不值得斗争而对未来天堂的幻想来改善以出要求今天牺牲，通过统治者称自己为至上神代表并仅在该至上神之前负责任的神权政体；极端民族主义者；认为满足物质需求是唯一或最高优先事项的实用主义者；认为个人只有意味着为最上的祖国，教会，政党等集体之要素的集体主义。对民主的最阴毒迟延性的破击是将民主基础的个人主义跟自私主义同化，前提是民主导致离零和混乱。
这起伏有其原因。首先，因为民主的复杂性既难以实现，也难以维护。有证据表明，在人类要组织起来几千年生活之后，才有民主在希腊茁苗，然后熄灭了，不得不再等两千年，才能在欧洲的几个地方胆怯地重新出现，并且直到最近才有所强发。另一个重要原因是，民主生活把基础建在政党上，而在禁止和消灭反对党之后的独裁政权，但最终不得不垮台时，只会留下政治真空。可是民主是文明社会的自然性生活方式，因此，如果发生退位也不能破坏先前民主浪潮之成果，民主仍会随着社会发展而日趋成熟。在某种程度上，它足够强大，可以产生新一轮民主浪潮。现实表明，民主化运动是不可逆转。在20世纪初，即第一轮民主浪潮之后的一个多世纪，只有大约十个民主国家：美国以及一些西欧和北欧国家。既是，除了美国以外，这些国家亦未必是民主的，因为它们同时是在殖民地侵犯人权的殖民者。尽管经历了风风雨雨，但进入二十一世纪，世界上近两百个国家中有三分之二是民主的。目前，在2015年，这一比率超过四分之三，在被视为独裁国家中，只有少数几个国家敢于公开宣称实行一党制。世界上民主进程正在加速，世界新秩序正在完成。
直到二十一世纪首先年代，世界见证了三轮民主浪潮。
第一轮民主浪潮始于1776年美国独立战争和1789年法国大革命，其旨在推翻基于政教合一的绝对君主制，无论是基督教神权制，伊斯兰教神权制还是儒教。它迫使欧洲君主制放弃实权以其成为君主立宪制国家，从而摧毁了奥斯曼帝国以及俄罗斯和中国的君主制。
第二轮民主浪潮始同于第二次世界大战，旨在推翻沙文民族主义。在君主立国后出现并发展起来的这一主义，认为民族之间的冲突是自然而然，因为所有民族都必须保护和扩大其生存空间。第二轮民主浪潮拒绝了这种极端性民族主义，并确认了各族人民之间的平等与所有国族的自治权。结果是纳粹德国，意大利法西斯和日本军阀帝国皆所歼灭。德国，意大利和日本这三个国家都成为民主国家，日本成为亚洲第一个民主国家。大多数英国殖民地也成为民主国家。但是，此轮民主浪潮很快就停止了，并让位于当时资本主义和共产主义之间的冷战，被视为两个民主化的公式相互竞争。应该强调的是，共产主义运动是作为民主运动而诞生的，其已是在被利用为犯罪之前建立一种民主的错误公式。
第三轮民主浪潮旨在反对共产主义并消除冷战所产专政制度。它始于1974年一场革命，这场革命推翻了葡萄牙的萨拉查独裁统治，当时两个自称民主的公式为资本主义和共产主义之间的辩论定局了，民主概念内容足够肯定。共产主义公式的失败是相当明显，与资本主义国家相比，交通和通讯的进步暴露了与资本主义国家相比共产主义国家在精神和物质上的劣势。共产主义已经扫地了吸引力。民主国家不再恐虑共产主义的胜利，并且有足够自信以放弃反共专政制度，即使他们付出的代价将其暂时让位给共产主义制度。这一民主浪潮分为两个阶段。在早期阶段，它压低了葡萄牙，西班牙，希腊，菲律宾，南高丽，台湾，南越南以及亚洲，非洲和拉丁美洲许多其他国家的右翼专政制度。一些国家成为民主的，但其他国家进入了共产主义轨道，例如南越南，老挝，柬埔寨，安哥拉，埃塞俄比亚，也门，尼加拉瓜等。但不久之后，浪潮就泼洒了，使大多数共产主义政权垮台，包括苏维埃联盟为是马克思·列宁主义的圣地。
第三轮民主浪潮在1990年代中期停止，首先是柏林墙倒塌和冷战结束后的乐观主义，才是造成退潮的原因。人们认为，民主已经赢得了胜利，幸存的独裁政权将足够明智，可以将自己转变为民主国家。这种心态措手不及。后来，克林顿政府在美国和希拉克在法国推动了实用主义。就国际关系而言，这种主义奠权利而尤其奠经济权利为最上并每当权利与道德之间发生冲突时，就必须权利优先。促进民主和人权已不再是头等大事，且各国政府，无论是独裁和侵犯人权，仍然可以成为美国和欧洲及一般发达民主国家的伙伴。到21世纪初，世界陷入了反恐斗争，乐观主义心理虽然不再，但实用性对外政策得以延续，甚至在奥巴马总统任期初期中得到了推广。此外，实用主义的经济表现是一种通过鼓励消费来刺激经济增长的政策，即使与支付价格是贸易平衡被重洞穿，平行于房地产和证券投资。长期以来，这项政策在中国，越南和许多其他国家都支持着独裁暴政。这些政权实施了经济开放政策，以剥削贫困而由其本身造成的原因：最大程度地剥削工人以尽可能低贱地出口商品，得益于廉价旅游服务来吸引了游客。实用主义使幸存独裁政权包括中国和越南这样的共产主义残余继续生存，甚至增强经济实力。
最终，实用主义导致了危机，并迫使世界彻底修整对外政策和经济模式，即一方面在国际关系中捍卫民主和人权价值观。另一方面，把生产经济放在首位，而不是投机，要审慎地兼顾国家预算和贸易平衡。独裁制度不再得容忍侵犯人权，也无法依靠出口生存。正是这一修整导致我们目睹了第四轮民主浪潮。实用主义已是人类历史上的一个括号。括号即将封闭，独裁制度的宽恩限期已经结束。
第四轮民主浪潮，从2010年开始，旨在于经济开放的独裁政制。这些政权不能续存更长时间; 它们不是基于某种政治理想，即使有时那些枯燥无休无止地重复的口号，诸如"建设社会主义"等等。它们纯粹是非以某一种理想或政案之名义的盗贼制政权。它们甚至没拥抱幻想。它们完全靠压制而生存。一切它们都是残废的政府。在政治权力的两个必要方面、即正名和暴力，它们只有暴力，因此必须利用暴力。为了便于压制则统治集团必须强大，反之，群众必须软弱。剥削和不公正必须作为政制生存逻辑中的权利而增加。但这是一个自杀性逻辑，因为它对政权使人更加仇恨，而想要与否的则经济开放和媒体和交通的惊人进步也改变了人民，社会和力量相关性。人民边不再完全依赖政府在日常物质需求中，边足够的信息来清楚当权者的平庸和诡诈。他们还拥现代化的设施以相互交流，相互激励和相互合作。这些荒唐的政制之所以存在，是因为知识分子消极被动，但今天知识已经普及化，一支新鲜的知识分子队伍也应运而生。变革被迫必来，而且已经到来了。第四轮民主浪潮正在兴起。
在东亚，它已将形式性民主制度诸如在印度尼西亚，泰国，马来西亚，新加坡和菲律宾等转变为实质性民主制度，在缅甸造成了突然转向。
在拉丁美洲，它巩固了新生的民主国家，为土著人民提供了应有的立足点和发言权，并逐渐迫使古巴国开放。在北非和中东，它挖掘了突尼斯，埃及和利比亚的长期独裁政权，并迫使其余独裁政权在民主化还是覆灭之间做出选择。它还旨在解决了一个具有世界重要性的问题，即是将伊斯兰教脱离政治舞台，回到作为宗教的正确位置。
在美国和其他发达民主国家，它要求更健康和更有连贯性的的民主水平，优先考虑创造就业机会的生产活动，而不是为投机，为尊重环境人类和个人选择。清净环境，清净用水和清净空气被认为是人权的基本组成部分。
新一轮民主浪潮也正在推撞俄罗斯的虚假民主制度，以及越南和中国的幸存两个共产主义政制，在那里，这两个共产政党已将其转变为两个与愤怒感群众分开存在的剥削性阶级。此外，中国和越南两政府都将面临巨大的困惑，因以出口为基础的经济政策不再符合危机后的经济秩序。
当今世界最大的特点是势力相关性发生了变化，其余的独裁政制不再对民主国家构成威胁。它们在科学和技术方面都非常落后，在政治意识形态上完全赤裸裸，没有欺骗的幻想，在军事实力上不如民主国家，经济比重不到世界经济的十五分之百。民主世界不再需要也不再害怕独裁政制。世界格局的一个重要变化是联合国的化身。联合国自成立以来的主要任务是缓解紧张局势，使冷战不会成为真正的武战。今天已经达成了这一使命，联合国必须找到一个新的使命，以便有理由继续存在。经过一段时间的探索，这一新使命越来越被确认为促进以人权为核心的普遍价值观并建立民主秩序。实用的对外主义时代（即不愿接受与暴政为了和平而共处和经济合作已经结束）。此外，除了少数微不足道的例外，其余的独裁政制严重依赖对外贸，无法挑战民主世界。它们过着最后的艰难日子。
第四次民主浪潮将继续加强，只有告终了在最后一党制政权并导致穆斯林国家的宗教和政治歧视之后才能完成。
我们面临着使本国民主化的非常有利的机会。
这第四次民主浪潮将把民主强加于一切国家。然后，每个国家面临的两个问题是，一方面，要了解自己的路线图，以了解全球化世界中的挑战和希望，另一方面，要不断批评自我民主制度要连连完善，因为民主作为一种社会组织方式的特征是可以而且应该不断改进的。
伴随着这一民主浪潮，世界正在完成向新纪元的重大转变。这是一个以创造先进国家力量的价值观为基础的纪元：和平，自由，民主，人权，平等，法治，对话，合作，利润，环境和连带。文化，艺术，科学，技术和经济等成就决定各国民族的位势和荣辱，前提是有稳定和康宁的民主体制以便继续存在。教育和培训将是一场新的世界大战，是所有民族的生存战线。
暂时之，世界领导地位仍主要属于美国和西欧，但多极化趋势将越来越强。日本成功地从使用现代技术的传统日本转变为各个方面真正现代的日本，开始了健康增长的新时代，并将发挥越来越重要的作用。俄罗斯，中国，印度，巴西，印度尼西亚和韩国等许多国家在世界重大问题上将拥有越来越重要的发言权和权重。在不久的将来，领导层的重要组成部分将转移到太平洋地区，其中有中国和俄罗斯，如果成功地实现民主转型，也将发挥领导作用。高位可能会改变，联盟也会改变，但处规不会改变，因为基础价值观不会改变。在此处规中，决定性武器是取得杰出成就的创造力。但创造力只是在自由人民，民主社会中才产生和发展。民族之间即将到来的竞争将是一场竞赛，以最大程度地组织同时具有知识，技能，自由，连带，纪律，活力和创造力的国家空间。不了解处规或不愿迅速适应新价值观的国家必须等待非常黑暗的未来。
二、美国，中国和太平洋地区
当今世界的突出浓点仍然是美国的压倒性角色。
尽管在一个越来越多的民族崛起或看到崛起方向的世界中，相对权重已经下降，并将继续自然下降，但美国在各个方面仍然是一个优越强国，尤其是在军事力量方面，它也是最具创造力和前进潜力的强国，因此美国的优势将持续到本世纪。几十年后，如果没有美国的协议，任何重要的国际问题都将难以解决。美国因此是一个世界问题，任何国家，无论它喜欢与否，都有它的美国问题。好消息是，凭借这种无与伦比的力量，美国也被证明是将民主和人权问题纳入外交政策的积极力量。令人担忧的是，美国人对了解世界的兴趣不大，经常以几乎纯粹的内部标准（有时是短期经济权益）选择领导层和要大取向。然而，随着全球化世界中竞争日益激烈的势力，美国人逐渐意识到，他们只有在民主世界中才能安全。所以美国对民主和人权价值观的积极捍卫从今起只能增加。
但是，如果全世界都有美国的问题,那么东南亚国家就会有更多的中国问题。通过与发达民主国家的交流，中国的经济实力大大雄强，军事实力显著加强。令人担忧的是，尽管中国迄今已变得强大，但它仍然是一个极权主义政权，公然否认民主和人权的价值观，不仅如此，而且还表现出利用其军事力量实施地区霸权政策的愿望。亚洲是当今世界上战争威胁最大的地区。中国既增加了军事力量，又暴露出了一些霸权野心，这一事实使世界，特别是亚太地区国家感到疑虑。对中国的疑虑导致该地区发生了代价高昂且危险的军备竞赛，使局势更加紧张。
在这种情况下，越南是与中国争端最多的国家，也是没有财政能力翻新武器和增强空军和海军这两个核心部队作战能力的国家。因此，我国（越南）明智而强制性的国防政策是坚定地民主化，以完全融入民主世界，并根据国际法受到民主国家的保护，同时获得恢复邻国柬埔寨和老挝的感情和团结，中国在包围和控制越南的战略中正当贿赂了该两国。这也是我国与中国和平友好相处的条件。
然而，未来的前景并不完全黑暗。中国还不是一个富裕的国家——人均产出远远低于世界平均水平——这一事实异常增加了军事成本及挑衅行为正在引起全球对中国的疑虑有可能成为反中国运动，如果中国不想孤立，它将迫使中国反思自己。包括除中国以外的太平洋地区所有国家的跨太平洋伙伴关系(TPP)之建立就反映了这种疑虑。已经有迹象表明，中国人民和一些领导人开始意识到中国不应该也不可能奉行的地区霸权政策的危险。我们有理由希望中国转向更有利于世界和自身的政策。越来越多的理由是，在各个方面都比中国强大的日本正在变得更强大，并肯定了其为保护该地区的民主秩序和国际法作出贡献的能力和意愿。
但世界和我们最大的疑虑是中国可能会发生什么。中国共产党政权选择了不顾人类和环境的狂野增长模式，为一场重大危机积累了足够的矛盾。近年来，在世界陷入经济危机的同时，中国通过增加信贷和公共成本来掩盖自己的困境，以维持伪造的增长。这种冒险政策可能会暂时推迟危机，但只会在不再拖延的情况下使危机更加严重。中国的危机迹象越来越明显，这场危机可能非常悲惨，持续很长时间，甚至可能导致中国陷入破乱。另一方面，对民主的渴望在中国人民中已经逐渐成熟，不能保证在强制性转型之后，中国将在目前的领土和人口中保存，并在民主方面不能再拖延太久了。因为到目前为止,中国的统一仅靠暴力维持。世界可能不需要担心中国会在尴尬的情况下发动战争来解决内部矛盾。由于其结构和历史证明，中国只有在拥有实力时才具有侵略性，而不是在遇到困境时才具有侵略性。可是，由于人口众多，中国的一切悲剧也是世界的悲剧。越南更容易受到影响，因为我国靠近中国，并且在许多方面都依赖中国。此外，我们自己也有发生重大危机的风险。
如果中国是一个担忧，那么日本正日益成为一个确保。日本已经完成了从传统日本社会到真正先进日本社会的也艰难也强制性的转变，与西方先进国家的生活方式和价值观保持一致。这种转变使日本困惑了近三十年，因为它不得不修正从生产结构到劳资关系的整个社会模式，以取代以“努力，生产和出口”为基础的经济转成了创新和优质的经济，从应用现代技术到发明新进技术。但是日本成功了，今天日本是一个真正，稳定和自信的民主国家，摆脱了危机，在文化科学和技术方面处于世界领先地位。日本在外交政策上越来越果断和大胆，以承担美国在太平洋地区平等盟友的角色，为确保该地区的民主，和平与合作做出了贡献。
日本的新力量强化了亚太地区日益猛烈的民主趋势。韩国和台湾这两个地区的民主先驱已成为先进国家。随着民主缅甸的转变成为东盟的共识，越南共产党政制成为该联盟中唯一的反民主国家，如果不及时适应，它将很快被孤立。
此外，印度是当今人口最多的民主国家，并且即将成为世界上人口最多的国家，印度的强劲崛起。印度正在增加其在全球和该地区的影响力。这种现有激发了民主倾向，只能有利于和平与合作。
三、全球化运动威胁着一切国家
需要适当意识到的现象是国家观念的全球性退化。许多国家在没有外国入侵的情况下被破裂，像许多非洲国家一样在混乱中被破裂，或者被分解为小国，如捷克斯洛伐克，南斯拉夫和埃塞俄比亚等。加拿大，英国和比利时等许多民主和繁荣国家的完整性也或多或少受到威胁。
民族国家观念正从四面六方被攻击。从外部看，由于区域性结合而产生的外部承诺比国家空间更大的活动空间；从内部看，由于要求自治的族裔社区而产生；以及从外内部看，由于跨国公司和交流的频仍和加速而产生。现代交通和通讯也使地球变小，使人们亲近在一起。
当前的压倒性趋势是全球化趋势。资本不再有国家范围。大公司在世界各地寻找投资机会，并在全球范围内制定生产，营销和分销计划。为了奋发寻找更大的权重和业务范围，诸公司越来越多地合并在一起，以创建具有出色地位的众综合体。许多综合体的生产总和大于许多国家的总产量加起来还要多。在一个和平的世界里，经济力量本身就是最重要的力量，但它也可能侵入政治力量。大型跨国公司的出现对国家和国家观念本身都是一个日益严峻的挑战。贸易规则正在迅速商定并适用于世界。人权日益被认为是普遍的，被视为国际法的第一步，并置于各国法律之上。通讯网络，特别是互联网网络，允许彼此远离的人们可以直接交流和工作。一个人可以在他居住的半个地球之外的机构工作。距离正在消失。虚拟存在正在变得真实，并且与现身的存在一样有效。公民可以永久居住在外国，并可以作为本国公民常期和定期地为其国家服务。整个“虚拟世界”的重要性迅速增长而形成。现在，通过互联网在这个虚拟世界中进行文化，科技，金融和商业交流非常重要的。在不远的将来，这个虚拟世界将压倒现实世界，使现实世界成为其表现形式之一。
这一伟大的转变——本质上是可喜的——在成为一个国家的公民之前，日益将每个人变成世界的人。国家观念是相对的，国家不再是神圣的终极，而是为民族和在民族中每个人而建立幸福的条件。在当前和即将到来的世界背景下，一个不被视为情感，共识，共同的未来预案和连带空间的国家将无法长期存在。一个不保证安全和尊严，不为其人民带来福利和自豪感的国家将不可避免地解体，如果将其国界视为阻止进步价值观的堵墙并为暴政集团提供安全的专行区，它就会更快，更悲惨地解体。在这个新时代，我们需要意识到，缺乏文化，缺乏远见的统治集团是国家存亡的祸害。暴虐的独裁政权杀害国家，它们越恶坏越残酷，则它们杀害国家的速度就越快。
四、意识形态联盟让位于发展合作
共产主义的崩灭结束了意识形态的争论。民主和人权已被视为普遍的价值观，即使其余的独裁政权也只是尴尬地争论以拖延而不是否认。因此，意识形态联盟不再存在。相反，出现了越来越多的合作联盟，最突出的是区域结合。世界正逐渐被划分为几个大的地理集合体，在这些集合体中，各国在与世界其他地区的比赛中既相互竞争又相互依赖。在这些集合体中，国家边界，关税壁垒越来越模糊；人员，货物和思想的流动越来越容易。外交和外贸之间的边界越来越难以界定。各国根据地理，宗教，语言，生产相似性等所有原因寻找所有机会，以加强邦交，建立合作关系，结成联盟。在当今世界，与世隔绝就是死亡。不愿意或不能参与或利用这些伙伴关系的国家被认为是绝望的，因为它们被排除在一个相互关联的世界之外。这些结合的一般规则越来越多地包括尊重民主价值观，例如正确和受尊重的法律，独立的工会，国家不干涉公司治理，信息自由，行动自由，明白度，公司之间的公平竞争等。这些结合隐含地强加了民主秩序。随着实用主义的破产，参与和操纵这些合作联盟的能力将越来越取决于对人类普遍价值观的尊重和表达。余下的暴政将日益被孤立。
五、不发达国家与新的世界背景
崛起或灭亡是落后国家的命运。不了解这一点的进展缓慢的国家肯定无法生存。崛起是至关重要的，但也是充满荆棘和陷阱的道路。
我们可以预见，在进入各个方面的竞争之前，世界将经历一个相当长的过渡期，一般来说，新开放的国家将生产大部分商品，物品和半成品等，而高度发达的国家则提供大部分资本，服务，高质量的商品和生产设备等。因此，对于开放程度较低的国家来说，几十年后，最激烈的竞争将是它们之间的竞争。对于最不开放或无法迅速适应局势的国家来说，这种竞争将非常险难。
第一个险难是对投资的激烈竞争，这可能使穷国成为人质和大型跨国公司的受害者。总会有一些国家接受更宽松的条件来利用投资资本：低工资,艰苦和无保障的劳动条件，宽松的环境标准等等。
情况变得更加险难，由于自动化，微电子和信息学等产业的巨大进步正在导致自动化趋势越来越高，使得廉价劳动力不再是一个本身足以说服吸引投资的因素；开放程度较低的国家正在把一种战略利器丟掉。因此，在2008年开始但尚未完全结束的最近危机之后，富强国家一方面尽一切努力将投资来源留在本国，另一方面，限制进口和平衡贸易。稳定政治，非腐败政府、诚信人民，和平社会，安全秩序，简单法律，温和税收，有利地理条件，庞大消费市场,熟练和有效的人力资源等是争取国际投资的战略利器。这些通常是开放程度较低的国家难以满足的因素。在这种困难的条件下，必须以最公正的方式分享所要求的牺牲，国家必须被人民视为一种情感，一个连带的空间和一个共同的未来预案，方才能被接受。否则，在教育和培训方面需要最昂贵投资的最精英分子将寻求向发达国家移民。如此，前提是要有真正爱国，有才华，有道德，知识渊博和有远见，具有深厚的民族感情并能够说服人民接受必要努力的领导层，即比发达国家的领导层更有能力。
反之，新的世界背境也具有开放程度较低的国家可以利用的优势：
其一，由于意识形态联盟，无论是公开的还是变相的独裁政体都将不再受到滋养，并将被淘汰。即使经过一段时间的摸索，人民也将被解开，更多的活力将被释放，国家也将得到更合理的治理。从现在起，他们将拥有使许多民族超越世界其他地区的主要武器：民主。独裁政体的淘汰对进展缓慢的国家来说是巨大的祝福。经验表明，一切独裁政体都是有毒的。独裁政权以优先发展经济，维护纪律和秩序为伎俩，只是腐败和滥权的藏身之处，允许流氓和堕落的集团控制人民，阻止一切进步，腐蚀国家。消除暴政比以前容易得多，但这也是落后民族在这场生存斗争中必须迅速做的事情。
其二，经济已成为所有国家的头等大事。在这个地位不断变化的世界中，富强国家之间的激烈竞争也导致大公司和开放国家寻找新的市场和新的投资机会。开放程度较低的国家，如果知道如何创造稳定的社会环境，有利的经济条件，如不受到指控和孤立，将能够找到非常有益的合作来源。
其三，由于通讯和运输的进步以及地球上人口的增多，世界变得越来越小，所有国家都变得相互连带依存。一种新的意识诞生了，地球是全人类的共同家园。每个国家都感到有必要生活在一个没有威胁的世界中。民族越富裕和发达，就越需要通过为一个和平与稳定的世界作出贡献来确保其成就。因此，无论如何，富强国家也不能让其他国家生活在贫困中。这不仅是人道主义的义务，而且是紧密联带的义务。一个具体的例子是自然环境问题。切尔诺贝利不仅是乌克兰国的灾难。中国的烟囱不仅污染了中国的空间，因此不仅是中国的问题，而且是世界的问题。亚马逊森林的破坏不是巴西国的问题。一个国家水域的污染是许多国家的问题。另一个例子是从穷国到富国的移民运动，这给富强诸国带来了一系列难题。这种连带迫使各国扩大和顺为条件以帮助发展缓慢的国家有机会发展。这种互助虽然主要源于发达国家不想生活在危险世界中的愿望，但也是劣等国家可以利用兴起的机会。
其四，开放民族对幸福和便宜的要求迅速增加，比其经济增长的速度要快一些。工作时间在减少，工资增加，老年人和退休人员的比例越来越高，关于社会，文化，艺术，健康和便宜等的公共支出将增加，从而导致税收增加。当然，新发明将不断出现，以降低成本和提高品质，但在当今的媒体世界中，这些发明如果出现在发达国家，也将很快传播到其他国家。最后,生活水平高的国家的总体趋势仍然是国民总产值的成本，回报率和再投资份额，与发展中国家相比，是不利的差距。在这种情况下，由于对便宜和消费的要求较少，开放程度较低的国家的人民将能够接受更多的牺牲和努力，从而有可能与开放国家进行有效竞争，前提是这些牺牲和努力得到公平分配，以免导致冲突。
叁、越南面临着重大历史转折
我民族（越南）正面临着建国以来最大的挑战之一，但与此同时，解除独裁枷锁、开启民主时代的前景也前所未有。
一、挑战
在有利的国际背景下，我们的处境非常悲惨，越南的未来非常风雨飘摇。
我们错过了起飞。当一个缓慢发展的国家通过融入世界经济而开始崛起时，成败主要在于能否造就一批真正、诚实、知识渊博、有领导力的企业家。一个不争的事实是，所谓的“创新”政策，在经济上开放但在政治上仍然封闭，在绝大多数情况下，它只是创造了通过贿赂权力和非法业务致富的假商人。我们也逐渐失去了年轻人的优势；处于工作年龄的人数已经停止并开始下降。
我们正在走向孤立。虽然原则上我国（越南）与所有国家都有正常关系，并且是东盟和许多地区组合的成员，但以一元论的名义顽固维护极权主义被谴责为犯罪、公然侵犯人权和公民权利、官僚主义和腐败、拒绝必要的兴革、国际交往中的粗鲁行为、日益明显和过度的依赖如果不及时改变方向，对中国的依赖有可能使越南陷入极大的孤立。越南几乎没有参加任何重大合作项目，在重要的国际市场中的存在微不足道。
越南的对外贸易虽然在客观上微不足道，但在国民经济中发挥着压倒性的作用，几乎是国民总产值的两倍，使我们严重依赖世界环境。越南加入国际贸易组织（WTO）后，投资一度强劲增长，为诚实融入世界创造了信心，但很快就稳步下降——由于弹压和贪污加剧，投资者感到失望——而其他国家则不断利用所有举措根据现有优势吸引国际资本。我们把一个大好机会丟掉，正处于严重危机的边缘。
该产业管理不善，但也受到主要来自中国的非法进口货物的非法竞争。大多数生产设备已经过时，包括腐败官员购买的新设备。国有企业被认为是经济活动的主流，被赋予了投资的主要部分，它们也是病态的企业，在大多数情况下，它们是由欺诈和无能的领导人控制的，这些领导人根据派系、贿赂和洗黑钱的标准任命的。
我们在数量和产品上都非常落后。我们今天的人均年产量，2015年，大约只有1500美元，是世界平均水平的15%，也就是七分之一。
在这种情况下，国家财产以极其不公平的方式分配，我们大多数人生活在极端贫困中。国家回报过低，加上不负责任的精神，导致政府放弃教育、基础设施、生产设备，甚至对人民的卫生和健康最起码的关注。教育和培训，如此崩溃，完全没有能力为青年在与世界的竞争中做好准备。绝大多数越南医院的状况是一种耻辱和犯罪。
必须直视现实，认清一个令人心碎的现状：我们是一个失败和陷入僵局的国家。虽然我们是世界第十四人口大国，但我们没有一项科技成果，没有一项发明，没有一家具有国际地位的公司，没有一流文学艺术作品，甚至没有一项体育成就为世界所知等。我们现在是一个微不足道的国家。越南人不仅贫穷，而且没有理由自豪。我们也是世界上最后一个仍然遭受极权主义枷锁和基本人权被剥夺的人民之一，例如言论自由、结社自由、选举和被选举权，包括土地所有权。数以百万计的上访者被掠夺了土地，他们的生活在愤怒中。
由于长期和灾难性的内战，我们的人性社会材料已经被撕裂，我们还没有完全意识到后果，由于这些战争所产生的不容忍和仇恨精神，由于共产党的歧视性政策，由于贫富差距太明显，由于人民对所有社会的基本价值观的全面怀疑，由于对作为占领军统治的残暴政府的无可奈何的怨恨而更加撕裂。
与此同时，国家最宝贵的资源——人——也在惨烈地退化。人们的健康因缺乏营养、药物和护理而恶化。危险的传染病在没有任何预防措施的情况下以惊人的速度传播。青少年大量辍学。随着教育系统的悲惨恶化，民族智力急剧下降。毒瘾、卖淫和抢劫正在增加。腐败社会中的艰难生活使人们越来越远离所有国家必须具备的基本价值观：道德、诚实、诚实、勤奋、纪律等等。谎言、欺诈、粗鲁等在社会关系中成为家常便饭。
在这种黑暗的情况下，有三个特别严重和紧迫的危险。
首先是贪污。人民和政府都同意腐化是国家问题，是摧毁国家的内部侵略者，但也许我们并没有充分意识到它的毒性，社会有一种倾向，接受它作为一种命运来生活。它正在成为一种规则并定制。但不能容忍腐败。它毁了一切。它把不称职的人放在重要岗位上，把大项目交给奸诈的利益集团。它损害了市场规则，庸俗化了人，把社会关系变成了虚张声势的竞赛。它抛弃了知识、研究和创造。它使每一个公共和私人的项目和计划都变得毫无意义和无用。它破坏了环境和基础设施，因为它掩盖了污染，允许欺诈性的建设和维护。一个例子是越南中部高地铝土矿项目和大规模建设核反应堆的决定；这两个项目都是不经济的，也威胁到国家的生命，但仍然被强加，因为它对贪污的领导层有很大的好处。另一个例子是道路和桥梁系统的迅速恶化，尽管它是不久前建造的。它威胁到国家安全，因为如果金钱可以买到一切，那么国家机器中的许多高级官员实际上是外国内部人员也就不足为奇了。在我国目前的水平上，它既使国家崩灭，又威胁到安全和主权，使国家和民族观念失去意义。如果不加以制止，它将很快摧毁这个国家。
第二个严重的危害是环境。几十年来，我们不断目睹我国（越南）历史上极其严重的悲剧：国家基础的迅速破坏。林木被砍伐，海岸、河流和水脉被严重污染，本国变得贫瘠，干旱接着洪水。水不能再喝了，空气不能再呼吸了。更不用说堆积如山的臭气熏天的垃圾，停滞不前的下水道。街上的城里人不得不戴着口罩，彼此变得陌生。污染已经达到了健康破坏的程度，对每个人，尤其是穷人，即大多数人来说都是悲惨的。它还会造成巨大的健康成本，降低劳动生产率，并有可能使游客远离我国，世界抵制我们的食物。这是一个可怕的灾难，必须立即停止。由于每平方公里可居住土地的人口密度为一千人，我们别无选择，只能将清洁环境作为国家的第一要务。境土首先是水土，如果国家境土贫瘠，污染严重到不能再居住，那我们就无话可说了。
该境土不仅遭到破坏，而且还被出售，许多具有战略经济价值的土地落入外国人手中，许多流域森林被长期租借，实际上处于外国控制之下。
第三个严重危险，也是国耻，是对中国的过度依赖。我们现在不再拥有事实上的主权。2013年6月21日的越中联合声明显示，共产党政府签署了许多将越南置于中国控制之下的隐性妥协，例如接受联合油气勘探（实际上是中国在越南专属经济区勘探石油和天然气），以便中国训练和训练越南军官和警察。最严重的是承诺参考中国——即在对外关系中接受中国的指示。越南不再拥有主权。越南人民不能接受。
这种依赖不仅是耻辱的，而且是危险的。自古以来，中国人总是用长辈的眼光看待包括越南在内的邻国，他们认为越南是一个国家。在农民渴望土地的文化中，他们对邻国的传统政策是兼并政策，要么是暴力，要么是移民。因此，接受对中国的依赖也是接受合并，这是我们的祖先几千年来为保卫国家而流了这么多血腥骨头。
“摆脱中国”也是我国（越南）崛起的强制性条件。我们需要摆脱儒家文化，这是我们与中国人和试图恢复的中国当局几千年来共有的一种奴役和智力异化的文化。我们在世界上有很多东西要学，但所有这些东西我们只能与其他民族一起正确、彻底和迅速地学习。中国和我们一样，但比我们更发达，我们生产的一切，他们都有，但更多更便宜。这就是为什么越南现在在很多方面已经成为贴着越南制造标签的中国商品的出口港口，并使对华贸易逆差越来越大的原因。
毕竟，中国越来越孤立。依赖中国意味着与中国一起被孤立的风险，加入跨太平洋合作集团将非常困难，甚至可能在东盟内部被孤立。世界越来越认识到中国是一个必须防范的危险。这种遏制政策将有可能使中国陷入衰退，因为中国经济严重依赖对外贸易。另一方面，经济增长是北京政权的唯一理由，经济放缓也意味着政权会摇摆不定。不管我们喜不喜欢，中国都将不再是归依处。
总之来说，国家处于危险之中，但政府并没有千方百计拯救国家，只是为了以一种被世界谴责为犯罪的主义的名义不惜一切代价保住权力。与人类并被越南人民视为当前悲惨局势的原因。共产主义国家在各个方面、各个领域都失败了，但作为对人民的挑战继续执政，不仅如此，还肯定了其无限期保持政治垄断的决心。2013年宪法规定武装部队必须绝对忠于越南共产党，在越南国家之前，这种傲慢达到了顶峰。共产主义政权因此是对人民的日常挑衅和灾难。那场灾难拖得太久，让人无助、厌烦，不仅痛恨政府，也逐渐失去对国家的信任。每个人都扭动着寻找个人问题的个人答案。今天许多越南人的梦想是离开越南，成为另一个国家的公民。国家逐渐失去了对强盗和歹徒的暴力垄断，并因走私和腐败而日益失去对税收的垄断。我们正朝着民族解体的方向迈进。我们必须发出警报。如果这种势头持续下去，民族观念有时会失去所有内容，分裂和自治的意图会出现和增长，外国势力会越来越多地支配我们，在一个民族观念受到质疑的世界里。国家本身的存亡越来越不确定。
亡国的祸殃从未像现在这样大。亡国是因为失去主权、失去民族认同，尤其是因为对瞬息万变的世界的适应缓慢。亡国的情景是自卑，主权和人权的缺乏，使越南的观念逐渐失去内容，变得乏味，意志和自豪感使越南人民逐渐消散，国家在真正消散之前在民心中消散。
二、展望
国家的处境虽然危险，但并不绝望。民主已经接近尾声，一旦国家有了民主，我们仍然有良好的基础，可以而且应该充分用于复兴。
我们拥有全国统一的语言，一种易于学习且足以承载所有文化、科学和技术知识的语言。我们也不会被压倒性的宗教所困扰。
我们有相当多的人口，近一亿人。虽然人口众多是提高生活水平的主要障碍，但由于我国的重要地位和越南人民勤劳高于平均水平，这也是一种力量。过去，我们已经展示了我们快速吸收最新科学和技术的能力；越南学生在世界各国的许多艰难的招聘比赛中取得了巨大而圆满的成功；越南工人很快学会了这个职业，并受到高度赞赏。撤离到国外的越南人也表现出极好的适应全新生活条件的能力。可以说，我们是一个相当精英的民族。这样的资本，即使被侵蚀——实际上已经衰落——也不可能在一两代人的时间内完全消失。如果找到一个合理的社会组织，越南人民就能恢复。而一旦越南人民康复，我们将拥有非常强大的人力资源。在努力崛起的过程中，当国家有民主可以合理组织的时候，我们也可以挖掘数百万大学和学院毕业但尚未获得机会的年轻人的巨大潜力，做出贡献的机会。虽然青年不再是越南的优势，但年轻且训练有素的人力资源仍然非常丰富。
在艰难的历史进程中，越南人民表达了保卫国家共同生活、建设越南共同未来的殷切愿望。越南人民的爱国主义虽然因为失望和沮丧而下降，但仍然能恢复。越南人民表现出非凡的活力，克服了许多艰巨的挑战。如果我们知道如何及时冷静下来，我们仍然有足够的力量克服今天的挑战并崛起。
我们有一个有利的地理位置。我们的土地虽然狭窄但肥沃，我们的农业如果经营得当，不仅能够为人民生产足够的粮食，而且能够出口。我们的海岸线漫长而美丽，我国紧邻许多重要的交通轴线，位于一个蓬勃发展的地区的中间，具有成为世界主要战略经济中心的所有前景。在旅游、工业和商业方面，我们拥有一个巨大国家的潜力。包括东南亚国家在内的世界各地涌动的民主浪潮也是一个新的积极因素，创造了一个日益健康文明的环境，对所有越南人民产生了激励作用。
我们生活在一个充满希望的思想转变中。肆虐国家的激烈战争让越南人民意识到暴力的危害。我们已经达成共识，即和平是所有价值中最宝贵的价值，内战是所有祸害中最大的祸害。历代奸诈独裁的经历，也给了我们对自由民主的强烈信念。我们也结束了关于经济模式的争论，认为只有以竞争和个人主动性为基础的市场经济才能成功。对一个暴力政府的普遍愤慨也起到了使我们忘记过去冲突的作用，明白有必要相互调解，团结起来共同解除独裁枷锁，解决共同问题，建设共同未来。我们也在头脑中、心中、皮肤中、肉体中了解了仇恨和分裂的悲惨后果。在许多基本点上，越南智慧已经开放。
我们之所以坚信不疑，最重要的原因是，几乎所有的问题，包括最严重的问题，都是本不该有的问题。它们都是共产党政权拥有的，因此一旦共产党政权结束，就会很快得到解决。
所以我们的核心问题是结束这个政权。但即使是这个棘手的问题也改变了参数。
共产党已经分裂了。它不再是凝聚党员的共同理想。此外，腐化、无能和无德也引起了全党甚至最高层的嫉妒和蔑视。政治局不再拥有最高领导权，因为它与中央执行委员会发生冲突，中央执行委员会是一个非常常设的机构，拥有任命和惩戒各级领导的最终权力。共产主义只是一个虚构。政权就像一艘没有船员的船，正在从政党独裁向个人独裁转变。这种转变是在非常不利的条件下发生的：党极度分裂，人民憎恨而没有一个有声望的人物。只能导致崩溃的情况。在亚洲历史上，政权垮台通常有两个主要原因。第一，直到与西方接触，因为统治者过度掠夺，尤其是从人民那里掠夺土地；第二，在与西方接触之后，因为政权顽固地奉行一种过时的意识形态。越南共产党政权同时具备这两个要素。它不可能存在。
这种制度之所以延续至今，有两个原因：
第一个原因是，大国，尤其是美国，自上世纪90年代中期以来近二十年所奉行的实用主义，纵容了剩余的独裁国家，尤其是中国和越南。但实用主义破产了，遭到了冷落，民主和人权价值获得了必须优先的立足点。
第二个原因，也是主要原因，是越南知识分子没有承担起引导群众的职能和责任。由于他们的文化和历史底蕴，他们要么缺乏痛的心，要么缺乏知的智慧，要么缺乏敢于斗争的勇气，要么过于看重所赋予的地位和权利。但旧的知识分子阶层已经过去，越来越多的新知识分子阶层已经加入，其中包括越南历史上从未有过的知识分子：政治知识分子。这些年轻人比老一辈人知识渊博，对共产主义和政权不再抱有任何幻想。他们不再努力寻找改善政权的方法，而是明确明白必须结束它。他们敢于做，决心做，知道如何做，并发现他们必须在一个团队中一起做；他们明白，政治斗争永远不是个人斗争，而必须始终是有组织的斗争。这个国家即将改变，因为它脱胎换骨了。
至目前为止，专制独裁政权的一个共同特点是，它们通常表现得非常稳固，直到突然崩灭。原因是他们的顽固和暴力需要一个断点，在那里量变已经积累到足以产生质变。由于新的民主浪潮，由于新的政治知识分子的出现越来越多，以及越来越明显的意识，特别是在警察和军队中，政权不能再持续下去，每个人都应该做出贡献，而不是帮助阻碍民主进程，成为必要的、必须的和即将到来的转变的代理人而不是受害者。民主任期可能非常接近。尤其是民主人士懂得以纯洁大度的情怀，以合理的斗争方式，以正确的预案，争取人民的信任和响应，重做、推进国家。
肆、民主纪元的思想基础
概主义和意识形态的时代结束了。从今以后，再也没有不能重置的真理了。然而，每个时期的政治集会仍然需要就一些基本判断达成共识。
在需要多样化和复杂的政策和措施来适应形势的巨大变化中，人们需要掌握根本选择，即什么是不变的，并解释措施和政策的原因。这是国家不迷失方向、人民了解并自觉为国家活动做出贡献的条件。我们是一个幅员辽阔的民族，要面对那么多严峻、棘手和紧迫的问题，我们的工作无疑是十分复杂的。正是这种复杂性要求政治组织确定理论选择，理论不是从意识形态或意识形态的意义上理解的，也不是具有理论结构的理论。复杂的理论，而是在相当长的时期内被认为是正确的、作为政策和措施基础的简单意见。
多元民主集合会的基本共识包括以下五点：国家必须被视为一种情感、一个共同的空间和一个共同的未来；越南的政治制度是多元民主；努力重建国家的指导精神是民族调解与和谐；越南社会组织必须真正表达进步的价值观；努力发展经济必须建立在市场经济和个人主动性的基础上。
一、国家：连带的空间和共同的未来预案
我越南国自古以来就形成了，有两千多年的历史。然而，就像所有其他国家一样，我们直到最近才知道国家的概念，即每个人都拥有的实体。原因是，国家概念本身也是一个非常新的概念，它与民主一起诞生。
在民主的概念出现之前，王国是一个君王的王国。领土和人民归君王所有，并置于君王的绝对和专属决策权之下。土地和人民可以根据君王之间的转让随意易手。在这种情况下，不可能有真正的国家。对祖先和熟悉的人的土地的天然依恋还不是民族精神或爱国主义。人民对国家没有任何权威，对国家也没有任何责任。民主意识将王国变成了国家，并成为国家或政府的基础，民有、民治、民享。
与随着时间的推移逐渐形成的王国不同，国家是一个由领土、政府、历史文化遗产和依附于该领土、接受该政府、分享该历史文化遗产以及最重要的是接受建设和分享共同未来的平等人民组成的实体。国家高于人民，属于众人。
伴随着国家作为众人的整体，也是每个人的整体的概念，出现了一种社区意识，每个人都不能完全解决自己的所有个人问题，相反，每个人的成败取决于每个人都有义务、权利和权力为保护和促进做出贡献的国家。这种社区意识反过来又创造了爱国主义，一种对亲人的爱，陪伴他们并与他们一起奋斗。这种爱国主义不能与狭隘民族主义的排外精神同化。
以国家观念为基础的民主国家，是17、18世纪人类最伟大的进步。这些国家——因为这些国家的组织是为了鼓励和接受人民的自由和自愿的响应，所以释放了全体人民的活力、意见和主动性，推动了所有科学、技术、哲学、文化和艺术等的进步，使西方国家远远超过了世界其他国家。往深里说，促使西方国家突然崛起的主要原因是国家观念的发现。
比许多其他民族幸运的是，由于特殊的地理条件，越南人有着长期稳定的共同生活传统。我们古老的陆地北部，北面和西面都被密密麻麻的悬崖所覆盖，而东面则背靠大海。由于这种孤立，我们的边界和人文结构几个世纪以来没有太大变化。因此，社区意识和对祖国的依恋非常高，能够成为非常强烈的民族和民族意识的基础。但是，由于缺乏政治意识形态，我们只是很晚才知道国家的概念，作为一个全体人民的整体。我们只有在外国主导的时候才知道国家的概念。从那时起，我们一直遭受战争——主要是内战——和独裁统治。我们从来没有民主这个民族和民族的根本要素，所以我们没有建立一个真正的国家，也没有发挥一个民族的真正力量。
如果说国家——民族已经是欧美国家强大和繁荣的原因，那么它们的缺席也解释了包括我们在内的许多国家的逊色和苦难。
强大而有益的国家，因为它们是正确构思的。民族是人民的，高于一切。国家，或政府，只有为国家服务的使命，因此必须在国家内部和国家之下。国家不是目的，而是工具，因此只需要在真正必要的水平上建立和维护。国家是目的，国家首先是自由平等的公民的集体。
国家没有自己的利益，只知道民族的利益，而民族的利益是全体人民对自由表达的个人意见作出正确总结后规定的。基本上，国家-国家是实现共识以建立自由人共同未来的工具。这就是为什么国家一方面鼓励每个人的贡献，另一方面确保每个人都能最大限度地发挥自己的能力，为共同福利做出最大贡献。
我们和许多其他不幸的国家一样，处于劣势，因为我们没有这样的国家。相比之下，到目前为止，我们只有一个统治集团而不是所有人的国家。那些国家有自己的利益，只知道自己的利益，所以他们只有不惜一切代价保住自己的权力，即使他们不得不给国家造成巨大的不利影响。这些是控制而不是服务民族的国家，将人民视为控制和使用的对象而不是保护和服务的对象的国家。
我们现在面临着特别严重的情况，因为我们还没有建立一个真正的国家，而国家的概念正在被重新审视和超越。因此，我们必须迅速建设一个真正意义上的国家，并与未来保持同步，这意味着在它必须拥有的意义上及时建设越南国家。
由于交通工具和通讯的爆炸式增长，同时伴随着交流的密集和新思想的扩张，民族民族精神的传统构成要素的相对分量发生了变化。
亲近中的安心感、对陌生者陌生人的恐惧感、血缘关系、对历史和传统文化的依恋感、对熟悉土地的依恋感、与具有相同习俗和生活方式的人交流的舒适感等。在一个允许地球两端的人们之间直接和即时的交流，包括共同工作的世界中，所有这些都变得不重要，并且越来越不重要，在这个世界中，人们每天都在移动和接触各种信息、图像和观点。地球已经是全人类共同的小家园，个人幸福成为最高价值。促成民族民族精神生成的传统情感越来越显露出其保守性和狭隘性。
另一方面，国家的作用和立足点也受到来自各方的破坏。从外部来看，随着区域组合创造了更大的活动空间，从内部来看，由于个人和种族社区的需求，以及由于跨国公司的迅速扩张而从内部和外部来看，跨国公司的作用和分量正在增加。
在这种背景下，将人们与国家联系在一起的原因当然必须改变，而且实际上已经改变。人们只因至少三个原因之一而与国家联系在一起：因为国家为他们提供了特殊的保护和利益，因为国家以简单的方式为他们提供了良好的自豪感。简单，因为国家是咱们的。
在构成国家的要素中，领土不再具有绝对价值，人们无论生活在哪里都可以爱国，为国家做出贡献。历史、文化和语言遗产的重要性也有所下降。政府也不重要。人们必须无条件地服从、尊重和服务的神圣祖国的概念更加过时。剩下的人和共同的未来预案，这两个国家的组成部分，其重要性正在增加。
因此，一个国家只有不是被想象成一个种族或过去，而是被想象成一个相互理解、相互尊重、相互合作以建设和分享共同未来的人之间的连带相互空间，才能存在。这样的国家主要是一个民间社会，有它的记忆，有它的问题，有它的未来计划。国家在国家内部和国家以下，以服务国家为使命，因此国家具有服务而不是控制公民社会的作用。
这样理解的国家仍然有能力将越南人民联系在一起，对每个人来说仍然是必不可少的，也是一个良好的合作环境。这个国家将使每个人受益，因为它将是每个人的自然发展环境。这个国家将成为支持我们所有人建立生活的源泉，同时联合建立共同的自豪感和增加共同的福利。那个国家也将成为每个人幸福和完整的情感支持。那个国家必须属于人民，而不是任何势力或政党。
这就是多元民主集团对越南的看法。多元民主政体的信念是，只有这样的民族观念才能让所有越南人有理由爱国，共同建设国家，即让越南生存和崛起。
二、多元化民主
为了摆脱目前的僵局，融入进步世界，能够有效调动所有民族力量，努力在国际社会中找到有价值的立足点，越南除了多元民主制度之外别无政治选择。
多元化民主不仅是越南的明显选择，也是世界的必然方向。
20世纪最激烈的争论是关于民主的争论。全世界有数千万人因这场争论引发的冲突而丧生。核心问题是如何让人民决定国家的命运，已经提出并检验了许多公式。
这场争论现在已经结束了。马列主义及其倡导的“社会主义民主”模式彻底瓦解。其余的共产主义政权只是纯粹的暴政独裁。以个人自由为基础的民主模式在理论上取得了胜利，在实践中也取得了胜利。民主国家的数量已经不堪重负，而且正在迅速增加。
许多人说，世界上大多数人民已经接受的西式民主是正确的，自然是多元的。这部分是正确的，但“多元化民主”这句话有其特殊的意义，尤其是对当前时期的越南人来说。它道出了一种精神、一种态度、一种理想。那种精神是一种宽容和宽容的精神，尊重每个人和所有意见。这种态度是对一切形式的独裁专政的直截了当的拒绝，包括，尤其是被称为“集权民主”或“社会主义民主”的虚张声势地“民主”，赋予一个国家和一个领导集团独特的地位。这个理想是建立一个为所有人都拥有有价值和平等地位的越南的理想。
如果不平等地看待所有趋势，多党就不是多元主义。在最专制和最教条的日子里，越南共产党政权有时有三四个政党，但这并不是它多元化的原因。多党只是多元化的必要因素，但不是充分的因素。多元是一种精神，而多党只是一种数字。
在与共产主义运动的英勇斗争中，西方国家做出了一个非常大胆的决定，不是拘泥于僵化的自卫纪律，而是最大限度地发展民主，最大胆的是尊重社会的所有差异，他们逐渐走向多元化民主。然而，许多西方资本主义制度并不是真正的多元民主国家。西方国家处于不同程度的多元化。
多元化民主是多元哲学在政治生活中的整合和运用。多元主义哲学的基础是宽容精神，承认和尊重社会中的所有差异。当然，多元存在于每个社会中，如果你想找借口，每个社会都是多元的，但独特的是多元哲学而不是将不同元素的存在视为必须的现实。承认和克服，并将其视为自然，需要鼓励和利用的丰富性。这是一种政治生活方式。多元化民主是民主，但不是所有的民主都是多元化民主。
多元化民主是一种新的政治制度，有其强制性的特点。我们可以强调五个特点：
其一，多元化民主承认并尊重所有社会背景、所有族裔、所有信仰和所有政治倾向的人的平等立足点和发言权。多元化民主谴责一切歧视，它强烈反对一党专政。具体而言，多元化民主制度的宪法不能包含任何政党、主义或宗教的提法。
其二，除了所有名副其实的民主都必须具有分权原则外，多元化民主要求散权以尊重地方差异。一个自由选举产生的政府，如果大部分权力集中在中央政府手中，就不是多元化民主的。在一个多元化的民主机构中，地方政府由当地人民选举产生，必须有广泛的法定权利，根据每个地区的具体情况组织生活。每个地区都必须有足够的面积和人口，才能成为足以自我管理和发展的实体。这样一些冲突的原因就会自然而然地得到解决。少数民族将在他们大量聚集的地方拥有相当大的发言权。在全国选举中没有获得多数席位的政党仍然可以在他们信任的地方掌权。多元化民主缓解了中央和地方两级的政府与反对派之间的紧张关系，消除了“胜者为王，败者为寇”的冲突。权力分散导致中央政府不直接统治，而只负责国防、外交、货币和地方协调任务的论点。中央政府的另一个作用是在全国范围内开展基础设施建设，并协助值得鼓励的地方方案。
其三，多元化民主奠定了公民社会的基础。除了政党、民族、地方和宗教社区外，公民协会还根据职业、利益、人生观、愿望、关切等组织起来。独立于政府运作，被视为重要的立足点，在日常生活和社会演变中拥有发言权和影响力。国家认为自己肩负着服务民间社会的使命，而不是控制民间社会，也不是代表民间社会决定日常活动。在经济上，这意味着国家经济必须把基础放在私营企业上，国有部门必须限制在最低限度，如果没有就更好。强大和多样化的民间社会是社会永久、自然和持续转型的最可靠保证，避免突然和破坏性的革命动荡。
其四，多元化民主尊重少数群体，总是寻求妥协。在一个多元化的民主制度中，少数服从多数的原则不是自动和机械地使用的，而是在尽一切努力达成共识后才使用的。多元化民主反对一切形式的专政，包括多数人的专政。在民主制度中，一个政府的合法性通常基于最终选举的结果，但在多元民主制度中，一个政府的合法性也取决于在所有重要决定中寻求共识的诚意。
其五，多元化民主本质上尊重民族的所有组成部分，不接受牺牲一个组成部分，不能允许一个组成部分剥削和践踏另一个组成部分。因此，多元化民主非常重视社会连带力，不能与俗称的“森林资本”齐头并进。社会连带也是培育和加强民族精神的必要条件，因为在生活水平、生活方式、利益和社会地位如此不同的人之间，同胞情谊最多只是一种理论。
消除一切差异、平摊、平分意义上理解的绝对社会公平，既不可能也不应该。可能的和必须的是一项社会联合政策，确保每个人在法律面前平等和平等的成功可能性，同时支持弱者或不幸者。
在多元化民主体制中，国家不再是绝对的统帅。国家的作用是承担三项职能：在社会各组成部分之间的关系中进行仲裁、制裁违法行为和调解民族之间相互矛盾的要求。国家调解而不是指挥国家是多元化民主的大胆特征。它将多元化民主与专制政体区分开来，但也使多元化民主与许多民主政体不同，在这些政体中，政府仍然雄心勃勃地代决定为公民社会。
在尊重所有差异的情况下，在由无数共同体、公民协会和企业组成的民间社会的基础作用下，在分散的政治组织下，多元化社会是无数相互联系的极其复杂的组合。这样一个复杂的社会只有在明确、透明和完全适用的法律下才能生存。多元化民主制度中的国家只能是法治国家。任何文明国家都必须是法治国家，但多元民主国家必须是完整的法治国家。法律要得到尊重，就必须是正确的，即由真正由人民选举产生的代表制定，只为共同利益服务；其目的在于规范个人自由在社会生活中的表达。
纵观越南的现实，如果有一件事我们可以肯定，那就是在当前仇恨堆积、信任危机和立场不统一的情况下，不可能强加任何力量，也不可能强加任何没有强烈反对的路线。未来的越南机构必须是一个尊重所有差异的机构，为每个人和每个人提供平等的立足点和发言权。该体制因此被要求成为一个多元化的民主体制。
不能以我国人民民主经验不足、纪律不严、人心分散等为借口。认为民主是越南的奢侈品。那么，我们是否必须暂时接受一定数量的独裁？要回答这个问题，我们只需要将民主国家的成就与共产主义政权的糟糕记录进行比较，看看右翼独裁政权给亚洲、非洲和拉丁美洲国家带来了什么。
但相反，不应误解民主的本质。民主并不能立即解决整个发展问题。任何政权的成功都需要正确的选择和有能力的人。民主不会带来食物和繁荣。民主不是选择和人民的替代品。但民主是一种生活方式，它允许正确地提出问题并正确地选择负责任的人。民主，尤其是多元化民主，也是一种社会组织方式，可以充分促进意见和倡议，这是进步的最基本动力。因此，民主程度决定了发展的上限。民主程度越高，发展的可能性就越大。
反而，独裁政权禁止意见和倡议，阻止社会的和平和持续演变，容忍腐败、不公正和滥用权力，从而阻止发展。我们需要警惕的是，不可能有明智的独裁，因为所有独裁的基础都是一个人或一群人的病态自大，他们认为自己足够聪明，可以代表整个民族思考。他们没有看到问题的复杂，也没有看到自身的浅薄。独裁者首先是个昏昏欲睡的人。此外，如果我们观察，我们可以看到大多数威权集团缺乏文化。
当然，多元化民主不能在糟糕的智力、社会和经济条件下提供其全部福利，但即使在这种情况下，多元化民主也远远超过独裁。
我们坚持：真正和立即的多元化民主。
为了真正的多元化民主，我们首先要做的是消除一个血腥的过去留下的、由一个歧视性政策无时无刻不助长的仇恨。民族调解是历史的必然。只有这样，我们才能相互接受，相互承认错误，相互原谅，才能共同生活，携手共建共同未来。如果不是多元化主义，最多只是由于未完成的力量比较而暂时相互容忍。这种没有民族调解的多元化主义只是病态的多元主义，只是为相互支付做准备。相反，多元化民主也是真正民族调解的必要条件。没有政治多元化的调解也只是虚张声势的调解，是被统治者向统治者屈服的调解，意味着不可能的调解。
我国不仅仅是战争留下的仇恨。还有无数分裂的原因，我们没有解决，因为我们不知道，或者因为情况不允许解决。宗教、地方、民族、贫富、人生观、政见等方面的差异不少，因为没有解决，所以越来越严重。多元化民主，由于其宽容精神和分权模式，是帮助所有民族都有立足点和发言权的解决方案，从而能够相互接受、团结、和谐，共同建设越南的共同未来。
没有人否认多元主义是一个美好的理想，美好到独裁政权，即使因此而苦不堪言，也不敢断然否认。
多元化民主正在成为我国走向未来的基本共识。这也是所有民族的必然方向。为多元化民主而奋斗的人有权为自己追求美好的理想而自豪，也有权为自己为某一必胜的立场而奋斗而乐观。
三、民族调解与和谐
四个多世纪以来，自16世纪初莫氏家族篡位黎氏王朝以来，我国不断从一场战争走向另一场冲突。本国在两个多世纪内多次分裂，被殖民并置于不同的行政制度下近百年。战争、内乱、复仇、怨恨、迫害等等是我们近代史上的永久元素。最激烈的是1945年至1975年的最后一场战争，在这场战争中，我们第一次在意识形态上相互冲突，然后胜利的一方实施了监禁和羞辱政策，以及无数的歧视措施。
由于历史的原因，我们公社的材料受到了严重的破坏。崩溃需要很长时间才能愈合，因此子孙后代所有政策的基本精神必须是民族调解与和谐。民族调解消除过去的仇恨和仇恨，走向民族和谐，努力建设共同的未来。
在当今瞬息万变的世界里，每个国家都受到无休止的干扰。一个行业前进而另一个行业衰退，一个行业扩张而另一个行业停滞不前。社会差距层出不穷，再完善的政策也不可能让所有人都满意。因此，每个国家、每个民族都必须不断调解，因为利益冲突和紧张局势总是发生。调解成为国家治理理念。
无论任何级别和历史，所有民族都必须调解。但越南人民是最需要调解的民族之一。
我们需要使整个民族社区与自开国以来一直在这个国家并在历史上一直受到践踏和排斥的少数民族调解。
我们需要调和宗教，特别是佛教和天主教，这两个宗教一直受到越南和外国统治者的迫害、压制、歧视并对抗。此外，仇恨是两种宗教都是受害者的历史环境的后果，有时会被夸大并用于非法野心。
我们需要调和和调和南北双方，南北双方经常分裂，处于相互竞争的地位，而且自1975年以来一直被一项无异于共产党占领的政策所分裂。
我们需要与海外越南共同体调解，他们不得不离开亲人、财产和祖墓，因为我们不能接受一个严厉的政府，因为海盗、风暴和警察而遭受痛苦和损失。
我们还需要让越南人民与越南国家调解。必须承认，作为越南人到目前为止是一件不幸的事情。国家只是一个牺牲。更有甚者，历任领导集团也以国家的名义犯下了非常严重的罪行。当然，国家不与统治者同化，但仍通过统治者表现出来。因此，当长期以来只有奸诈或暴政的统治者，或者既奸诈又暴政的统治者时，国家形象也会受到损害，爱国主义也会受到损害。让越南人民与越南民族调解是恢复爱国主义所必须做的事情，如果我们仍然希望越南的未来，这是不可或缺的因素。为此，作为国家代表的国家必须是一个谦虚、温和和诚实的国家。越南祖国必须被视为一种爱和共同的未来预案。
但最接近，也是最痛苦的，我们刚刚在一场持续了三十年的战争中互相屠杀。这场战争是一场内战，因为绝大多数倡导者、携带武器的人互相残杀，受害者都是越南人。一场耻辱的内战，因为交战的双方都接受了外国的命令和手段。越南共产党不承认这是内战的事实只会使内战更加激烈，因为他们甚至不承认眼前人民的同胞地位。应该意识到，内战比外国战争更具破坏性，因为除了生命和物质损失外，它还摧毁了民族精神和共同生活的意志，即国家的基础。到目前为止，没有一个民族在内战后的一两代人内恢复正常，即使经过努力调解，即使内战只持续了几年。我们的内战要长得多，还要激烈得多。那些仍在流血而非但没有愈合的伤口，却因随之而来的暴戾对待政策而恶化。
在最近的冲突中，我们没有一个好的选择。我们只是在坏事和我们主观认为更糟的事之间做出了痛苦的选择。我们只是忍受了，而不是控制了事件。很少有越南人真正为他们喜欢的东西而奋斗。在绝大多数情况下，越南人，无论是民族还是共产主义者，都只反对他们认为比他们所站的队伍更糟糕的一方。不能容忍国家政府腐败的人加入了共产主义者的行列，尽管他知道它的暴政性质，但他看到一个国家落入共产主义者手中是一个巨大的灾难，尽管他也厌恶它的坏处，但他加入了共产主义者的行列。兄弟姐妹、亲密的朋友只是因为轻重不同，或者只是被情况推着，甚至被迫，不得不背弃对方，互相残杀，互相开枪打死。因此，除了物质和生命的崩溃，每个越南人心中还有更大的崩溃。然后，有些人输掉了战斗，被监禁和羞辱，有些人意识到他们所有的牺牲都只是为了为摧毁国家的项目做出贡献。没有人有理由指责任何人，我们都遭受了耻辱性的失败。我们都是受害者。我们必须握手，重新创造历史。
摆在我们面前之谜是，一个对国家造成严重破坏的统治集团，在各个方面、各个领域都失败了，但仍然无限期地傲慢地赋予自己对国家的垄断地位，粗暴地压制一切反对的声音，即使是温和的。该组织采取一切措施阻止民族调解与和谐，因为他们知道，只有越南人民因仇恨和分裂而无能为力，才能维持他们的统治。他们不仅没有减轻战争的创伤，而且还扩大了对许多民族的敌意，并将仇恨延伸到刚刚通过政治镇压、民众分类和论资排辈而长大的一代人。
今天，绝大多数越南人民的愿望是民主。回首兄弟，取回朋友必须是一个新的民族聚会的指导精神，其中没有对错，只有平等的兄弟为国家感到难过，在民主运动中团结在一起。民族调解与和谐是孤立和击败顽固独裁集团的核心条件。
但超越一时的兴奋，民族调解与和谐也是打破困扰我们几个世纪，特别是半个世纪以来的仇恨和分裂恶性循环所必需的历史性决裂。这是一个非常艰难的历史突破，因为越南的政治实践中完全缺乏民族调解的概念。近八个世纪以来，自陈朝以来，斩草除根、诛夷三族、铲除一切，仍是统治者代替调解的手段。渐渐地，这种暴力的行为在集体心理中生根发芽，让调解的概念对越南人来说变得陌生。所以很多人说越南人民不需要调解，而我们实际上是最需要调解的人之一。正是由于缺乏调解精神，我们才被禁锢在仇恨之中。这种不公正的循环阻止了我们动员国家的所有力量崛起，并解释了为什么我们不得不永远在贫困和劣势中挣扎。
民族调解与和谐是当前民主运动取得胜利的必要条件，也是明天振兴国家的努力取得成功的必要条件。
实施民族调解不仅仅是一种情绪，还需要采取具体措施。未来的越南国家将把自由人作为最高的服务对象。未来的越南国家将把多元主义视为根本价值。精神、文化、政治、经济和社会等各个方面的多元化。未来的越南国家将严厉制裁对所有民族、所有社区、所有信仰和所有观点的所有侮辱性语言和态度。相反，国家将鼓励和全心全意地帮助所有倡议，努力使所有地区、所有民族、所有宗教、所有观点和政治观点的所有越南人民在精神上更加紧密地联系在一起，尊重所有差异。未来的越南国家将不得不恢复那些被羞辱的人的荣誉，必须赔偿受害者的损害，即使是不完整的，而不会产生新的受害者。消除仇恨意味着不会有政治案件，相反，会有一项法律禁止国家起诉任何人担任的职务，除非他们在任期间严重违反了现行法律。所有公民都有权谴责其所遭受的欺凌，国家将本着民族调解的精神，将此类诉讼作为法律面前平等的公民之间的诉讼处理。
这些措施是为了治愈历史留下的创伤而采取的，将有助于我们逐步走向民族和谐，努力建设和分享越南的共同未来。我们将关闭国家悲伤的历史，开启以民族自爱书写的新历史。民族调解与和谐必须成为我国几代人的坚定政策。
四、接受并坚定地表达进步的价值观
一个进步的社会必须建立在进步价值观的基础上。
西方列国之所以强大并超越世界其他地区，是因为他们的社会奠定了正确的基本价值观的基础。这些价值观是和平、自由、民主、平等、人权、法治、对话、合作、利润、环保和团结等。这些价值观不是西方人独有的，而是已经存在于所有社会和所有文明中。西方国家的优势在于，他们知道如何坚持和充分弘扬这些价值观的很大一部分，作为社会的基础。因此，他们获得了力量和繁荣。在与西方国家的接触中，各国都认识到了自己的劣根性，都在寻求与西方文明的妥协。然而，自然惯性导致大多数国家倾向于只接受西方社会的一部分元素，将其融入其传统，例如学习西方技术，同时保持旧的社会结构。但文明是由相互交织的价值观组成的整体，因此很难将一种文明的一个元素移植到另一种文明中。不能接受西方技术，同时拒绝产生和推动这些技术发展的基本价值观。各国的经验表明，这种半途而废的态度在导致危机之前只会取得有限的成功。俄罗斯虽然从17世纪末就开始了改革，但未能赶上西欧，出现分歧，最终成为共产主义政权，后果不堪设想；日本积累了矛盾，导致了自毁战争。今天，日本已经认识到这个错误，接受了二战以来进步世界的所有价值观，并刚刚完成了为期三十年的结构改革，以使社会适应这些价值观。俄罗斯也将别无选择，目前半民主半黑手党的政权已经开始摇摇欲坠。奉行“中国特色社会主义市场经济”政策和恢复孔教的中国也非常接近危机。
诚实和坚定地接受进步世界的政治、文化和社会价值观是先决条件。因为这样的选择，日本成为了世界领先的大国。一些亚洲国家，如南高丽和台湾，在过去的四十年里，效仿日本的模式也在强劲崛起。接受所有进步的价值观是我们必须做的选择，我们必须坚定地做。在该地区国家的犹豫和犹豫中，这一选择是我们赶上和超越他们的机会。
在这些价值观中，我们最需要的是和平。反对外国侵略的传统逐渐使我们将暴力视为解决冲突的自然方式。我们习惯于向有光荣壮举的英雄致敬，而忽视了默默建设的努力，这是一切进步的基础。从现在开始我们必须诅咒暴力，把和平提升为绝对价值。
让我们不要害怕接受新的价值观，这会让我们把民族魂粹丟掉。这些价值观在每个社会都有，包括我们自己的社会，只是遗憾的是，我们就没有如此充分地宣传它们，以至于像今天这样受尽屈辱和自卑。接受它们并不是否定我们自己，而只是意味着促进我们内在的美好。此外，前进和赶上世界是我们作为一个国家生存并保持我们的文化和民族特性的条件。
在共同价值观的基础上，西方列国根据每个国家的特点建立了许多不同的生活方式。英国社会不同于法国社会，德国文化不同于意大利文化，美国不像瑞典。在新价值观的基础上，日本和许多其他亚洲国家仍然保留着他们的传统。在进步价值观的基础上，越南仍将是越南，但会是一个更光荣的越南。
我们需要一场伟大的思想运动。我们的教育、我们的法律、我们的文化、社会和经济等活动都必须强调和尊重进步的价值观。学校除了以传授知识为核心使命外，还应该是一个以包容精神、责任感、自由客观的思维方式以及对国家、同胞、人类和自然的热爱认识青年的环境。体育运动也将特别努力促进客观头脑、和平竞争精神和尊重法律的精神。这场思想运动是所有努力中最重要的一次，因为这是建立新社会基础的努力。我们不仅要接受，而且要有志于作出补充和巩固普遍价值的贡献。这场思想运动也将帮助我们加强和提升国家急需的一类人，但我们才刚刚开始：政治知识分子，他们投入时间并努力了解国家的问题，敢于发表自己的意见，并愿意付出代价，为我们认为对国家正确的事情而奋斗。他们是群众的引路人，是民族的智慧。正是这种政治知识分子在整个历史进程中的缺位，使我国劣势，从一个错误漂移到另一个悲剧。
五、在民主、市场经济和个人创见的基础上发展国家
我们最痛苦的是落后和贫穷。因此所有国家努力的重点都必须放在发展上，透彻地看待发展问题极为重要。
人类仍有一半生活在贫困之中，近四分之一生活在极端贫困之中。两个世纪前，即使在最发达的国家，超过一半的人口在青春期前死亡。由于我们需要识别和把握一些特殊条件，这种发展在一些国家是一种非常新的现象。
首先，如何理解发展？
发展是一种持续的、持续的变化，可以更有效地利用资源和人力资源，为国家带来越来越大的回报，为人民提供越来越高的物质和精神生活。
发展是一个相对的概念。当一个国家在人均收入、教育、健康、住房和基础设施、经济活动、强大而现代的经济、清洁而优美的生活环境、丰富的交通、信息、学习和娱乐设施方面与世界其他地区相比取得了更高的成就时，它就被认为是发达的。
发展，即使有了上面的定义，也不是一切。一个国家的成功，除了发展，它也是一个事件，人们自愿参与努力建立一个共同的未来，每个人都感到自己是生活的主人，按照自己的意愿生活，在一个没有威胁的社会中受到尊重，享受他们努力的福利，有保障的机会得到公平的晋升，有理由相信明天会比今天好，你孩子的生活会比你自己的生活好。这就是我们想要达到的目标。
发展不仅仅是国民总产值的增加。因此，在教育和卫生系统完善、自然环境得到保护和改善、收入分配相对公平的情况下，国民总产值增长5%的水平必须被评估为比所有文化、社会和环境问题都被忽视的15%增长好得多。一个具体的例子是中国的情况。虽然增长率相当高，但如果转化为恢复成本，对环境造成的破坏甚至更高。贫富差距过大，地区差距越来越令人担忧，还有很大一部分人口成为游牧民，生活在城市的人行道上或郊区的意外集中区。我们不能接受这样的增长。我们寻求和谐与平衡的发展，因为只有这样的发展才能可持续，才值得被视为国家目标。
虽然发展不仅仅是经济发展，但经济发展是最重要的因素，也是实现综合平衡发展的关键。我们是最贫穷和进步最缓慢的民族之一，因此经济发展是我们最紧迫的目标。
需要立即击败灾难性的纥繨。
最大的政治骗局仍然是这样的论点，即一个快速发展的社会需要一个明智的独裁，需要暂停民主建设并牺牲一些基本自由。这个骗局是可怕地哀悼的原因。它在意大利、德国和日本创造和培育了法西斯军国主义政权。它帮助共产主义运动产生、发展和存在。它帮助维持了拉丁美洲和亚洲的前独裁统治。它仍然被包括越南在内的许多其他独裁国家用作理论支持。
这些制度只会带来可怕的结果。意大利、德国和日本的独裁政权积累了冲突，陷入僵局，不得不陷入自毁战争。苏联的共产主义政权破坏了自然资源和环境，折磨了人民，然后崩灭了。所有其他独裁国家都有同样的成就：贫穷、落后和压迫。
事实上，发展是自由和民主的结果。但由于发展本身也促进和促进自由和民主，很容易在错误的忍耐的后果和原因之间产生误解，即暂时接受独裁发展，然后发展就会带来民主。这种误解被独裁集团利用了。
各国人民的经验证明，民主与发展是相辅相成的。
在以民主为基础的社会建立后，欧洲和美国开始出现国家发展的现象。发展的原因是国家在日常生活中的分量减轻了，民主和稳定的宪法得到尊重，法律取代了统治者的任意决定，人民得到尊重和保护，经济按照市场规律运行，商业活动得到尊重，贸易和交流得到促进，意见和倡议得到鼓励和奖励，利润被提升到一个价值。
20世纪初唯一一个赶上西方国家的亚洲国家是日本，它是通过迅速接受西方经济活动而发展起来的。在一个完全脱离群众的傲慢骑士阶级的统治下，一个民主社会在绝大多数日本人中悄然形成，使日本早在18世纪就崛起了，然后从19世纪下半叶开始强势崛起。
意大利法西斯政权和德国纳粹政权在最初取得了一些进展，而日本军国主义政权在几十年内保持了发展，这一事实帮助我们确定了发展的另一个要素，即过去发展中存在的发展：民族共识。当时，这三个民族都对自己的劣势感到愤怒，都有足够有魅力的领导人将他们团结起来共同努力。
亚洲发达国家的经验需要正确看待，因为与一些人的肤浅判断和对独裁政权的狡猾解释相反，这些国家之所以发达，是因为它们比其他落后国家更民主、更自由，尽管它们可能尚未实现完全和真正的民主。
资源丰富的拉丁美洲国家在独裁统治下的落后中挣扎了一个半世纪，直到1980年代才通过民主崛起。
在欧洲，西班牙、葡萄牙和希腊这三个国家，因为与独裁政体纠缠不清，悲剧性地落后了；他们自70年代以来才通过摆脱独裁枷锁而崛起。
即使是最近在中国和越南取得的经济进步也不例外：它们是通过市场经济和更大程度的自由取得的。
各民族的经验证明：民主、私权、市场经济、轻国家是催生经济发展的因素。
但经验表明，同样的因素造成了不同国家经济发展的速度和强度不同，许多自然条件不利的国家比其他国家发展得更强大，也更民主，资源也更丰富。心理和文化因素起了决定性作用。
在观察了各国人民的历史之后，我们也可以用经济理论来处理发展现象。
经济发展需要三个既必要又充分的要素：人们有经商的愿望、会经商、有经商的手段。
为了做生意，人们需要一个有利的心理环境：商业活动受到社会的尊重，意见和倡议受到赞赏，风险接受受到尊重；他们还需要有理由乐观地相信业务将是有利可图的，而且回报将是他们的。换句话说，要做生意，加上乐观的经济环境，商人需要对做生意有利的社会心态和对私有财产的有力保障。这个发展的启动因素解释了为什么共产主义国家因为不尊重私有财产而崩溃。但更重要的是，它解释了为什么由于有利的社会心态，发展现象仅在少数国家存在。
为了能够做生意，企业家需要一个有序和安全的社会，需要法律的保障和行动的自由；他们不能被太多的法规所束缚，不能被一个坚硬的国家计划所束缚，不能缴纳过高的税收，不能被腐化的政府机构所骚扰。我们在这里看到需要一个民主的法治机构，需要一个市场经济而不是计划经济，需要一个轻量级的国家机构。但我们也再次看到了心理因素：道德和善良。贪污也是社会道德败坏的后果。
当然，商务人士也需要手段，即拥有必要的人力资源和必要的能力、良好的基础设施、投资资本和有效的银行信贷系统来调动流动资金。资金投入只是其中一个因素，并不是最重要的因素。资本少则投资少，利润生资本。再说，资本有自己的智慧和逻辑，尤其是在全球化的当下；有利可图的企业就会来到哪里。最重要的是人，老实、善良、熟练和有责任感的人。再次，心理和文化因素是核心。
一般来说，发展需要一个自由和民主的背景，主要是一个文化和心理问题。这就是为什么一些国家尽管资源匮乏，尽管遭到严重破坏，但仍然强势崛起。战败的德国和日本只用了几十年就成为最发达的国家。荷兰人挤在一小块自然资源微薄的土地上，也建设了世界上最繁荣的国家之一。正是由于发展首先是一个文化和心理问题，迄今仅限于少数国家。
要把心理和文化与智慧和知识区分开来。人天生具有同等或接近同等的智力能力，因此通过教育可以达到同等的知识水平。不同的是心理和文化，是社会所珍视和体现的价值观，是进取的头脑，是商业的冒险精神，是责任感，是集体生活中的行为方式。
为了发展，我们需要改变我们的社会和人民。
我们需要一个民主的社会，尊重人民，信任人民，让人民自由决定建设自己的生活。我们需要一个法治国家，有充分的法律，没有太多的程序，我们需要一个市场机制，而不是一个强加的计划。
我们需要自由、负责、诚实、对社区有依恋、进步和效仿的人，而不是嫉妒和破坏。我们需要热爱商业、渴望淳良致富的人。
我们需要一个没有强制力的经济机组。必须允许交易者按照商业和市场的客观规律自由行事。社会连带是一个体面政府的持续关注，但社会连带必须通过税收在国家收入分配阶段进行，而不是直接干预商业运作。
我们还需要一个稳定的法律环境，即宪法和法律，让人们可以安全地建设自己的生活并为未来制定计划，而不必担心规则的突然变化，突然损害我们的商业项目。
但宪法和法律稳定并不意味着政府稳定。在稳定的法律环境中，统治者的频繁更迭并没有阻止警察继续维护安全和秩序，也没有阻止法官继续审判，也没有阻止房屋机器继续运行。可能对经济活动有害的是颠覆一切的革命，以及国家法律和方向的突然变化。
进一步说，我们可以说，没有压倒多数的民主政府可以任意改变法律和政策，也可以确保法律环境的稳定，从而有利于发展。需要一个压倒性的、强大的政府来迅速决定变革，并实施一项国家发展计划。但国家计划是我们应该避免的。国家计划是一个意志的产物，世界时代的残余没有足够的智慧和经验来判断社会需要通过客观的市场规则来决定做什么、做多少以及如何做。经济计划是我们必须消除的发展障碍，我们需要的是国家的方向和每个问题的项目，特别是基础设施建设项目。当然，在困难和发展障碍的情况下，我们需要一个能够决定消除过去瓶颈所必需的选择的政府。但这种温和和民主政府的可能性仍然可以通过说服在一些基本选择上形成共识和支持来实现。
总之，要发展国家，首先是发展经济，我们需要民主制度、法治国家、市场经济活动、真诚尊重意见和个人创见、对人民的坚定信念。该机构将培养创造力、进步精神和责任感。但我们也需要一种重要的文化努力，以尊重进步的价值观，并将这种价值观引入人们的灵魂和反思。这些价值观是和平、自由、民主、人权、平等、法治、合作、利润、连带和环保。
建设多元化民主社会，弘扬进步价值观，我们就会有发展，尤其是经济发展。这是我们的发展理论。我们坚信，这样的社会和这样的价值观，即使想不发展，也是不可能的。反之，一个不民主的社会，或者没有进步的价值观，无论多么想和努力，都不会有发展，或者只有低水平的发展。自然资源和资本投资是次要因素。
在这样的发展理论中，国家的作用主要是维护和平与安全秩序，确保国防和正义，与国际社会建立良好的国家关系，调解和仲裁民间社会的诉讼。国家在经济中的作用将限于三个范围：税收、公共支出和货币量调节。税收，以便国家有预算来履行其职责并确保社会保障和团结。用于建设、维护和改善基础设施、促进和刺激某些职业的公共支出。流通货币量的调整，主要是通过设定基准利率和发行或收回债券，对价格、投资和增长产生直接影响。在所有这三个方面，国家也需要采取一切保留措施，以避免扰乱经济活动。稳定是商业的核心要素。在货币管理方面，我们必须避免政府根据短期政治要求行事的情况，委托一个来自政府但不受政府任意支配的中央银行机构。
再次，发展的需要迫使我们有一个调解和仲裁的国家，让民间社会来处理发展，而不是一个代表民间社会指挥和决定的国家。调解和仲裁在经济活动中的作用迫使国家放弃所有业务职能。国有企业不应该有，或者如果有，应该被认为是在一定时期内没有的限制。在我们的发展理论中，国家不与公民社会竞争，而是集中一切努力履行和履行国家的真正功能。
伍、越南模式的主要方向
为了在共产主义政权被摧毁掉后重建国家，我们必须彻底改革我们的政治、经济和社会制度，国家与人民的关系，以及我们国家与世界的关系。我们还必须审查民间社会的作用和教育的重要性，并为相互关联的社会、环境和人口问题选择长期解决方案。
在新提出的思想基础上，我们将按照以下主要方向重建国家。
一、以自由为动力而发扬创造力和进取精神
我民族有保卫国家的光荣传统，但作为回报，我们也花了太多的时间和精力来抗击外国侵略者。在这些艰苦的斗争中，我们必须始终坚持纪律和共识，始终搁置争议，处理紧迫的问题。那段奋斗的历史，一方面让我们对生活条件有很强的适应能力，但另一方面也让我们逐渐失去了长远的眼光、主动性、发明创造和冒险精神。
我们有漫长的海岸线和温和的海洋，但大海对我们几乎没有任何召唤。我们完全缺乏征服和利用海洋的决心。我们没有造船和航海技术，没有商船队，没有大型航海家。直到最近，我们只是作为一个大陆民族生活在陆地上。我们世世代代满足于孔孟之道统，却没有意识到儒家文化是一种奴役文化，它扼杀了智慧，腐蚀了人，首先是知识分子。这种专制和严厉的模式，在让我们取得最初的成就之后，在接下来的几个世纪里使我们原地踏步。
批判和创造力，冒险和进取精神是我们必须学习和习惯的。为此，我们必须鼓励和尊重思想和言论的自由。我们需要提出一个原则，即在未来的越南，不能有禁止讨论的问题，也不能提出禁止的意见。任何越南人都不能因他的生活方式或他的言论而受到惩罚，除非他直接呼吁暴力。
二、弘扬志愿爱国主义
在我们历史上的大部分时间里，我们只生活在绝对的君主制下，这些君主制认为国家是一个独立的君主制所有，若不是外国所归。我们的爱国主义因此没有发展的条件。当国家是每个人的，必须由每个人贡献的概念出现时，由于君王是天子，人民是奴隶的遗产，它很快就被绝对化了。祖国变得神圣化、至高无上、没有责任、不接受任何要求。那个国家被当作太多罪行的幌子。战争、哀悼、失望、长期忍受既糟糕又暴虐的独裁统治、不如其他民族的罪恶感严重损害了我们的爱国之心。正是因为爱国不强，我们才让共产党这个理想是为国际运动服务而不是为国家服务的政党，坚持主张消灭国家的主义，吸引了一大批同胞，控制了政治舞台。正是因为意志和爱国的消逝，今天我们没有像过去的君主一样对一个将国家视为自己的政党独裁政权做出足够激烈的反应，而全人类正在走向民主，我们自己也知道这个国家迫切需要民主。
但我们是越南人，我们的未来与越南的未来息息相关。我们别无选择，只能建立一个共同的越南未来。为了建立一个共同的未来，爱国之心仍然是必须的共同点。我们需要爱国主义的新力量。我们需要恢复和重明爱国主义。
我们需要将爱国主义定义为自由人民的自愿情感，紧密联系在一起，为我们自己和我们的子孙后代建立一个共同的未来。我们需要让每个人都以自己的方式爱国，我们不能让爱国之心被同化为一种主义的赞同。我们需要让越南人民与国家调解。我们需要一个和平而非凶猛的国家，一个有心而非张牙舞爪的国家，一个可爱而非可怕可恨的国家，一个鼓励而非禁止的国家，一个负责任的国家，一个与人民亲近的国家，而不是神圣到抽象和遥远，一个人权和民权的国家。
为此，代表祖国并代表祖国行事的政府，必须是一个诚实、谦虚、节俭、敬业的政府，尊重每个公民，让每个人都清楚地看到自己受到尊重。那个政府将消除所有仇恨，以国家连续性的名义道歉，恢复荣誉，并赔偿所有不公正的受害者。政府将保持警惕，以免任何民族感到被遗弃。那个政府不会强迫任何人爱国，相反，它会尽一切努力为每个人都爱国创造条件。
与民主、自由、意见和倡议一起，但最重要的是，爱国主义将是帮助我们接受共产党留下的遗产并携手征服未来的关键武器。
三、尊重和促进民间社会
一切文明国家都必须把基础建立在公民社会之上。我们悲剧性地落后于其他国家的主要原因之一是缺乏真正的公民社会。民间社会是指教会、协会、俱乐部、志愿组织、工会、合作社、公司和企业等。一般来说，它都是人民的组合，在政府之外建立起来，共同追求一些共同的目的，不以政治权力斗争为目标。
公民社会的概念与文明社会同时出现；在许多西方语言中，公民社会这个短语也有文明社会的意思。这些是将人们联系在一起并将人们与社会联系在一起的缠结绳索。这些相互交织的纽带创造了国家的丰富性和持久性。组成民间社会的公民组合也是意见、倡议和进步的摇篮。强大的公民社会确保新意见迅速产生，冲突被及时发现和解决，社会在和平与秩序中不断演变。更重要的是，一个健康的公民社会提供了我们可以称之为联合奇迹的东西。这是一种优势效应，即一种组合可以产生结构元素中不存在的全新特性和能力的现象。例如，基本粒子在不同特殊条件下的结合产生了原子；然后原子结合在一起产生分子，然后分子结合在一起产生生命。或者神经元的协调运动产生情绪和观点。独裁政体，特别是共产主义独裁，在扼杀公民社会的同时，使人民失去了这种卓越的能力。也许这就是民主社会优于独裁社会的原因。
在这个政治项目的社会模式中，公民社会将受到尊重和鼓励，更多的是被赋予一个重要的角色，以实现社会团结，帮助和捍卫弱者和不幸者。
每一种组合都会产生力量。公民社会的力量是一种协同作用，但绝不是统一的，公民组合有时彼此方向一致，有时彼此孤立，有时相互对立。民间社会的力量不时有机会与国家融合或反对国家，但总是影响国家，从来没有与国家竞争的野心，因为它没有也不可能有政治野心。
公民社会确保社会的活力，同时也确保自由、民主和人权，防止任何独裁意图。每一次暴政独裁都首先旨在摧毁公民社会。独裁政权的本质是依靠少数人来控制一个分裂的社会。暴君不需要人民信任和爱他们，只需要人民不要粘在一起，就没有抵抗力。没有什么比因分裂而无助的群众的冷漠和麻木不仁更能让专制集团满意的了。
相反，民主理念将公民社会视为国家的压倒性组成部分和基础；因此，国家的作用是使公民组合越来越多，不断进步和加强，为社会的繁荣做出积极贡献。多元民主国家将自己视为民间社会的工具，其使命是确保民间社会的健康运作，从而使民间社会为其公民创造幸福。这不是辞职，而是一个有信心信任公民的政府的新政治理念。在与民间社会的关系中，多元民主国家将自己视为民间社会愿望的仲裁者、协调者和表达者。国家服务而不是控制公民社会。
公民组合的建立和发展不会受到任何阻碍。特别是，非营利性协会只需申报成立，无需营业执照。具有文化和社会目的的协会也有权要求国家提供帮助。
四、将越南确定为建立在群区之间的国家
我国（越南）虽然历史悠久，但却是一个新的国家。中部地区自17世纪以来刚刚完成整合，南部地区自18世纪以来刚刚完成整合。我国在土地和种族方面得到了许多新的贡献。然而，我们的组织没有适应这些变化，仍然被错误地认为是一个单一群区的国家：京族群区。我们的历史就是京族的历史。我们的文化是京族的文化。道德、社会和法律的概念都以京族为基础，主要为京族服务。也许我们开国及护国的艰难过程并没有给我们时间和手段去认真思考一项群区政策，但事实是，我们在这一点上非常欠缺。纵观历史，除了少数几个例外，京族几乎从未承认对少数民族负有任何责任，而只是在必要时通过暴力强加他们的刻板印象。这种情况如果不明确识别，及时制定令人满意的政策，可能会导致非常有害的后果，尤其是在当前和即将到来的世界背景下。许多国家正在并将继续遭受少数族裔的狂热起义，这些起义要求他们自决权。如果我们不警惕这种情况的发生，本国北部山区和中部高地两大片地区可能会变得不稳定和不发达。
在一个被定义为群区国家的越南，诸群区必须受到同样的尊重。高棉越南人群区自古以来就生活在南部，为南方的开放做出了巨大贡献的越南华人群区在法律面前和民族感情上都必须被视为完全的越南人。
越南民族必须彻底摆脱同质化的意图，在差异中寻求共同进步。我们必须申明，越南不是由一个种族来定义的，而是由建设和分享共同未来的接受来定义的。
由于京族在整个领土上占多数，建立民族自治区不再可行，但权力分散将使民族在地方政府中拥有相当大的发言权。少数民族的文化和语言必须被视为国家负责保护的越南文化的组成部分。越南历史也必须被重新审视，并被视为联合组成越南国家的人民的历史。
尊重群区的精神也必须扩展到宗教社区、思想社区、职业社区和因各地生活方式不同而没有形成的群区。必须确保这些社区在国家活动中占有一席之地和发言权。
自1975年4月30日以来，我们有了一个新的重要群区：海外越南群区。这些越南人不得不离开他们的国家，因为他们无法忍受羞辱、迫害和歧视措施。越南民族必须向他们敞开怀抱和心扉。他们必须立即获得完全的公民身份，无论是对他们还是对在国外出生的孩子。
海外越南群区的形成是一个非常新的因素，也是国家的一大幸事。多亏了这个群区，越南人民熟悉了所有生活方式和文明，测试了所有社会组织模式，并潜入了所有科学和技术学科。这个群区，一旦与该国恢复正常关系，将确保越南成为一个开放的国家，摆脱所有偏执和偏见，永远走出死胡同。这个群区虽然规模不大，仍需加强，但有很大的潜力为国家做出贡献。海外越南人将成为越南国家无法创造的极其宝贵的科学、技术、文化和商业等桥头堡。经验表明，近年来快速发展的国家都归功于强大的海外社区的贡献。任何明智的越南政体都必须鼓励国内外交流，承认一个海外越南实体，并寻求所有举措，使海外越南群区变得更强大。
五、果断选择以民营企业为基础的市场经济
过去几十年的世界经验证明，集体和国有经济政策导致失败。经验也表明，自由市场是对生产最准确的指导，是有效分配最有力的保障。越南必须的经济选择是市场经济，以私营企业为基础，以商业头脑和创见为力量，以进步和致富的精神为动力，以利润为回报，以利润为奖励和兴奋剂。
这种选择意味着国家不会做私营部门可以做的事情。国家的主要经济作用是确保货币稳定，防止非法竞争，投资私营部门不敢或无法投资的有前途的行业，并承担一些必要的研究、研究和储备工作。国家也具有警惕有害的商业倾向和鼓励有益的经济活动的职能，但国家主要通过信息和支持而不是通过命令和禁止来履行这一职能。国家将尽一切努力维护领土完整，维护秩序和安全，维护正义，保护生活环境，促进有益的国际关系，建立和巩固国家共识，即正确履行国家功能。
为履行这一职能，保障市场经济的健康生活，国家必须本着实证的精神，从正确的基础出发，不断努力建设正确的法律体系，并在判例法的基础上不断补充。
六、迈向工业服务经济
越南耕地少但肥沃，农业潜力巨大。短期内的农业是振兴的杠杆，是经济发展的起点。因此，农业是我们当前的经济重点，在相当长的一段时间内也将是我们的经济重点。
然而，由于土地有限，人口众多，越南不能继续成为一个农业国。相反，我们的地位有利，我们的人力资源丰富而精锐。我们的自然功能是一个工业、商业、服务和海洋国家的功能。我们现在必须为那个未来做好准备，特别是那个改造，让许多不能用于农业的山区变成生活区，这意味着在现实中也有扩大国家的效果。
我们未来二十年的经济目标是从农业经济转变为工业、商业和服务经济。这意味着农业在国民总产值和人力资源协调中的比重将逐渐下降。这种转型努力的第一步是发展与农业相关的工业，如食品工业、化肥制造、农药、农业机械等，并提高其质量。同时努力寻找农产品的出口市场。这个转型时期的一个国家目标是，越南食品以其超高的质量而闻名于世界，越南农具和农业机械在品质/价格比上是冠军。
除了重点关注渔业和旅游业等前景明朗的行业外，我们还将特别关注两个新的前景：贸易港口服务和计算机信息学。这两个行业都需要全面、坦诚的对外开放政策。
由于我们优越的地理位置和海岸线，越南可以拥有非常大的贸易港口。我们将准备与外国综合体签署一些贸易港口的长期建设和运营合同。但吸引国际贸易服务的重要因素是安全局势必须稳定，政治机构必须开放，政府必须诚实，电信系统必须完整。
越南人在信息学方面相当有天赋。这是一个具有很大发展潜力的行业，仍然需要大量高价专业人士。信息学如果使用得当，也是一种客观的管理工具，可以消除许多腐败原因。我国目前对公共部门计算机化有很大的需求，希望得到国际机构的资助。我们可以以这些项目的实施为跳板，培养一支技术精湛、精益求精的信息学专家队伍。前景更高，因为通信的进步越来越多地允许在世界各地执行计算机合同而无需出国。
国家必须以将所有家庭连接到互联网为目标，以最大限度地利用该网络作为信息、学习、交流和销售的手段。
我们不会设立“出口加工区”等特殊地位的经济区，而是对全国各地的经济活动给予一切鼓励和便利，并制定全境共同的商业法。
我国有幸是一个沿海国家，人口稠密的地区离海岸不远，离好的港口也不远。基于这一优势，我们将在全境建立工业园区。这项政策需要对基础设施、交通和通信进行重要投资，但作为回报，它将节省更重要的移民成本，并避免在开放国家遇到的大城市发生满族受害者。需要强调的是，未来的任何政策都不是绝对强制性的。人口和劳动力的重新分配在所有国家，尤其是发展中国家都是永久性和自然的现象，但最好的办法仍然是让人们有选择职业和地点的权利，在充分了解机会后生活。是个人智慧与国家战略相辅相成、相互调适的方式。
这一重大转型成功的条件是与所有国家特别是发达国家保持良好关系，并在跨太平洋合作集团等大型合作集团中得到充分接受。
七、促进国内市场发展
我们将把国内市场作为前进的跳板。我国拥有近一亿人口，是一个非常大的市场，越南人民之间的交流本身就是一个非常重要的经济引擎。在任何经济体中，即使在全球化时代，除了石油出口国的非常特殊的情况外，国内市场总是比进出口活动更重要。国内市场在数量上既是重要的，也是出口的试验场，也是应对国际市场变化的必要仓库。如果国内市场强大，出口活动就可以发展。国内市场将受到所有商业执法的释放和重要公共项目的推动的刺激。农业、渔业、食品工业、纺织、服装、家用电器制造、建筑材料、设备和室内装饰等将成为我们国内市场的第一个跳板。
国内市场的发展必须与国内业务的发展齐头并进。我们没有大资本家，所以要积极推动、支持和鼓励个体企业和小公司，帮助他们繁荣壮大，逐步成为大资本家。
国内市场发展政策的当务之急是修复和加强道路和通信系统、运输和通信设施。
八、不断警惕加强社会连带
在多元民主国家的任务中，最重要的任务是确保社会连带。在其哲学基础上，多元主义尊重社会的所有组成部分，因此它不接受一个组成部分剥削和践踏另一个组成部分。我们尊崇利润作为一种价值观，追求利润主要是为了有实现社会连带的手段。此外，一个没有连带的民族不再是一个民族。我们不能抛弃弱者和失足者，就像一个文明社会不能拒绝残疾人的拐杖一样。我们承认社会中每个人的权利和尊严的平等，我们需要采取措施实现这种平等。
社会连带是保持社会基础持久性、确保每个人积极和兴奋地参与国家未来、避免可能破坏国家未来动力和导致骚乱的冲突的强制性条件。
现实中，经济发展往往催生和加剧社会差距。国家的主要任务是防止和减少发展不可避免地带来的紧张原因，因为它不可能完全平衡。
社会连带需要坚持不懈和谨慎地分配国家收入，以保护弱者。
社会连带需要一个社会保护制度，确保每个人对食物和健康的最低需求。
社会连带需要一个普遍和持续的教育和培训系统，以确保所有公民平等的晋升机会。
从短期来看，社会连带可能是国家的负担，也是经济发展的障碍，但从更长远和更明智的角度来看，这是经济发展势头继续下去的必要条件。社会连带也是确保民族自尊和民族凝聚力的必要条件。
国家当然承担着实现社会共同的任务。但国家也将特别鼓励民间社会通过志愿组织积极参与这项重要工作。社会预算的一部分将通过民间社会使用。志愿组织将根据其预算能力，与他们从公众那里筹集的用于社会工作的资源相比，获得资金。
公民社会的积极参与，试图实现社会团结，既有动员群众情感和物质贡献的作用，又有特殊的精神作用。在国家社会救济办公室面前，需要帮助的人可能只会遇到一个公务员，但在志愿机构，他们遇到了一个为信仰而志愿从事社会工作的人，他们遇到了一个人和一颗心，社会纽带和克服障碍的奋斗精神只能更加强大。
绝对的社会正义是不可能的。重要的是，国家将社会团结视为永久关注的问题。社会连带既是必要的，也是微妙的，我们必须非常小心地保护它，将其视为保卫国家的斗争。
但是，我们需要申明，社会团结是国家与民间社会合作的任务，而不是企业的责任。企业除了有尊重工人尊严、尊重国家法律和尊重与工人签订的合同的义务外，只有创造利润的职能，为社会的财富和财富做出贡献。向国家纳税，使国家有资源确保社会参与。我们坚持认为，社会连带不能干扰经济活动，成为企业的障碍。
九、奉行“小国主义”
我们现在是一个很落后的国家，我们最迫切的要求是发展，赶超开放的国家。因此，越南这一时期的基本政策必须是我们可以称之为“小国主义”的政策。
什么是小国主义？简单地说，就是要忍耐今天才能成长明天。
在国内，小国主义意味着我们不会在崇高的理论上分裂和冲突，我们会谦虚地承认国家的劣势，我们会尊重、爱和支持彼此，带领彼此走出僵局。国家将拒绝炫耀性支出，将所有资源和精力集中在努力摆脱劣势上。国家将尊重保护和保存已经取得的微薄成果。国家将强调教育和培训，并将首先投资于务实的教育。
在外交方面，我们不会争夺国际角色，除非捍卫人权、正义、道德和国际公法，否则我们不会在国际争端中采取态度。我们将努力塑造一个温和、谦虚的形象，被国际社会接受为一个绝对不会卷入国际冲突的可贸易国家。然而，谦虚并不意味着接受依赖。我们将审查共产党政府与外国签署的妥协，废除依赖或冒犯国家主权和利益的妥协，首先是越南人民没有得到通知的妥协。
现在令人担忧的是，我们生活在一个最容易造成紧张局势甚至冲突的地区。我们认为美国在该地区的积极军事存在是确保和平与稳定的必要因素，我们将鼓励这种存在。
我们认为与美国、日本和民主国家的合作是一项巨大的福利，不仅为我们开辟了巨大的市场，带来了宝贵的科技转让，而且帮助我们吸收了先进社会的组织、组织、思维和工作方式。我们将诚实地与他们合作，向他们学习。
有了温和与和平的外交政策，我们就不需要一支庞大的军队。有了尊重一切自由并以民族和解与和谐精神为基础的国内政策，我们将不需要庞大的安全机构。因此，军队和警察将被减少到最低限度，但足以履行保护领土、环境和安全秩序的非政治工具的职责。
小国主义的精神是承认自己的劣根性，调动一切资源和活力，把国家搞上去。越南人口众多，人民勤劳，地位优越，潜力巨大，如果知道如何坚持几十年，就有权在世界上占有一席之地。
十、实行与睦邻政策并行的和平与合作外交政策
在当今竞争激烈的世界中，良好的关系是必不可少的。我们将不放过一个机会，与世界上每一个国家，首先是与邻国建立和加强所有合作联系。
对于西方列国，特别是法国和美国，这两个曾经有着复杂和冲动关系的国家，我们不仅使外交关系正常化，而且使文化和情感关系正常化。我们有很多东西要向他们学习，也有很多东西要期待双边合作。我们还需要特别关注移民政策仍然宽松或前景宽松的国家，以发展尽可能大的海外越南社区，中期目标是十分之一的人。越南在民主发达国家有一个人。和平与谦虚的外交政策，以及利用庞大、成功的海外越南社区的贡献能力和对祖国的依恋，是我们外交努力的基础。
但最重要的是，我们必须巩固和加强我们在亚太地区，尤其是在东盟中心的立足点。在这个集团的核心，我们将积极为加强联系，逐步降低文化和贸易壁垒，促进自由交流区的真正形成做出贡献。我们需要努力加入跨太平洋合作集团，利用这个集团的一切机会，使我国能够崛起，逐步缩短延误。
最近，我们必须加强与老挝和柬埔寨这两个邻国的合作关系，老挝和柬埔寨越来越受到中国的影响。我们是法国殖民时期分而治之阴谋的受害者，今天我们必须打破它。两个多世纪以来，我们与这两个国家的边界一直保持不变。这些是世界上最稳定的边界，证明了越南、老挝和柬埔寨之间和平共处的可能性。但我们也需要大胆宣布真正的和平政策，并做出大量外交努力，以消除相对较新的过去留下的误解。我们需要向这两个邻国郑重宣布，我们绝对尊重现有的边界，并愿意在交通和贸易港口方面给予一切便利，以便它们能够向海洋开放。我们将要求他们合作建设通往大海的道路，并在可能的情况下达成一项自由行动和移民协议。老挝和柬埔寨都需要通过越南出海，因此如果他们坚信越南尊重他们的主权和领土，合作将是自然的。越南、老挝和柬埔寨有很多前景，可以形成一个平等的合作集团，三者都受益并发挥各自的经济优势。
对中国来说，我们需要本着友好的精神解决领海和岛屿争端，开启真正健康的合作阶段。两国边界漫长，文化相通，人文建设也有很多相似之处，合作是很自然的。现在令人担忧的是，中国一方面在增加军事力量，另一方面又在展示地区霸权政策。对中国来说，我们需要表现出谦虚、温和但坚决捍卫领土、海洋和岛屿主权的态度。我们有理由希望，美国在该地区的积极军事存在和日本新的坚持政策将是和平与安全的保障。我们也有理由相信中国会选择和平与合作的道路，但我们自卫能力的现代化也是鼓励中国走这条好的道路的一个因素。短期内，在中国与台湾关系不明朗的情况下，我们将特别重视发展与台湾的经济合作关系。
我们需要认识到日本在亚洲的重要经济作用，必须将越日关系置于国家发展政策的首位。
对于东欧和前苏联国家，我们终究需要一个明智而现实的判断。这些国家是潜在的市场，我们在其中有许多朋友、关系和理解需要利用。
十一、践行文明的人口调控政策
我们现在有近一亿人口，世界排名第十四位，面积非常狭窄，三十三万平方公里。而且，我们真正可耕种和可居住的土地比例很低，只有三分之一。与此同时，我们的人口继续以每年超过一百万的速度增长。另一方面，我们的经济能力和工业和服务业转型水平不允许在扩大居住用地方面进行大量投资。尽管近年来人口增长有所下降，但仍有一个大问题需要清醒地看待。一方面，虽然人口仍在大幅增长，但在不久的将来，人口增长率不可能突然下降，而不会因年幼比例的逆转而造成经济负担。另一方面，迄今为止，人口增长的下降主要是以高昂的代价实现的，使我们成为世界上堕胎率最高的国家之一，对人口增长、心理和社会产生了灾难性的后果。
越南和中国共产党政府的经验表明，残酷的限制生育政策只会贬低人，不会减少人口。问题需要从其文化和人生观的根源来解决。在学校和宣传教育中，要普及节育知识和男女关系正常化，把结婚生子与满足生理需要分开。
生育过多还有另外两个需要克服的原因，即女性的文化水平和社会角色不佳，以及老年焦虑。提高妇女的文化水平，积极地使妇女融入社会经济活动，是制止人口增长的必要投资。世界上所有的经验都证明，女性受教育程度越高，参与经济活动越积极，就越容易限制自己生育。经验还表明，确保所有文明社会都必须为老年人提供最低回报，这将大大限制人口增长，因为在缺乏社会保障的国家，大量儿童首先是老年人的保障。如果我们不想接受太多我们无法抚养和教育的孩子，我们必须照顾老人。这项政策将创造一种安全的心态，肯定会降低生育率，特别是相信随着经济的发展，老年的保障收入会增加。
毕竟，我们有权利相信，在一个不尊重男人和女人的文明社会中，人口增长的势头会下降，以至于我们必须生男孩，一个信息充足、每个人都有晋升机会的社会。一旦有足够的乐观来规划他们的未来，夫妇们自然会发现他们必须限制孩子的数量。
十二、在努力中建设优质民族幸福
共产党统治者说今天的越南是一个中等收入国家，这是非常谎言的。事实恰恰相反。我们非常贫穷，非常低于世界平均水平。今年，即2015年，世界人均产出接近11,000美元/年，我国适度估计接近1,500美元，仅为世界平均水平的15%。我们悲惨地落后了。即使我们从现在开始实现比世界高2%的稳定增长，这是一个积极的成就，我们也需要一个世纪才能真正成为一个中等国家。但是，在沮丧和失望使国家解体之前，我们有那个时间吗？当然，我们没有那个时间，我们必须赶上一代人的延迟。这是一个巨大之谜。
难谜更大，因为所有因素都是不利的。社会腐败，人心失落分离，民族精神很低，环境污染，道德沦丧，犯罪团伙猖獗而公民社会缺位。共产主义政权的遗产是可怕的。我们将不得不鼓励我们在各个方面做出巨大的努力，同时我们将长期生活在贫困和劣势中。
在这种情况下，我们别无选择，只能在越南和全国范围内建立以质量为核心的幸福，同时努力实现繁荣。这是一种我们可以称之为优质国民幸福的幸福。特别是，这种幸福体现在一个和平和令人兴奋的国家环境中，在这个环境中，人们虽然不富裕，但在一个和谐、和平和相互关联的社会中拥有充分的自由、尊重和安全、尊严和权利、健康和晋升机会，友好的环境。它是人们能够接受当前的困难并努力崛起的条件；付出的努力越大，就越需要平等分享，人们就越需要鼓励。越南社会必须有一个幸福家庭的形象，因为和谐与幸福，合理分享牺牲和成就，在简单但干净的屋檐下，整洁，相信明天会比今天更好。
最重要的是可以立即完成的事情，因为它不需要很大的成本。是为了改善环境、景观和公共场所。由于传统文化，我们没有意识到环境的重要性，尽管问题已经很严重，直接影响到每个人。短视导致历任领导人都没有意识到，只有保护环境，发展，包括经济发展才能可持续。污染工厂对社会造成的长期损害比其产生的短期回报大许多倍。腐败是环境破坏的主要原因；公民社会的缺席是另一个原因。令人震惊的情况是，到目前为止，我国还没有一个环保协会，尽管环境已经被破坏到了危急的地步，而且还在继续被破坏，而在富裕的文明国家，强大的环保已经成为无数协会的目标，包括那些将环境作为最高关注的政党。对当今世界来说，环境已经成为一个根本的政治问题。
我们不能以经济利益的名义，容忍那些没有烟尘和废物处理的工厂。我们还必须禁止砍伐森林和填满和侵占池塘和湖泊。公共卫生设施必须齐全。排水系统必须完善。施工必须有规划，每个区域只能按照几种颜色的几栋房子建造。必须增加公共交通工具，对汽车和摩托车征收环境税，鼓励使用自行车；禁止在市中心和拥挤地区使用汽油发动机的车辆；严惩弄虚作假施工的路桥施工企业。我们将取消中部高地铝土矿项目，暂停核电项目，甚至在建项目，淘汰核电，直到找到满意的废料处理技术，我国完全有能力确保反应堆的绝对安全。虽然这些措施可能会暂时减少一些公司的利润，但毕竟有很大的经济效益，因为它们保护和鼓励了许多其他行业，特别是旅游业的投资，更重要的是保护健康和安乐生活。污染是对人权的严重侵犯，因为干净的水、新鲜的空气和安静的空间是最基本的人权。
建立一个和谐、和平和相互联系的社会并不像许多人所认为的那样需要超出国家能力的巨大成本。与贪官掠夺国家的钱财相比，它们微不足道，廉政才有手段。它所要求的是我们即使不富裕也能做到的事情。这是绝对诚实、透明和受尊重的法律。这是一个决心不向腐败妥协的政府，由知识渊博、有远见、以报效国家为人生理想的人管理，一个不能被怀疑是欺诈的政府。越南人民已经习惯了牺牲和苦难，所以他们可以接受非常非凡的努力；他们也可以原谅错误，前提是他们相信领导者是错误的，但他们不是无知和狡猾的人，而是错误的，因为每个人都可能在困难和复杂的决定上犯错。我们可以有这样的领导者，但他们没有机会，因为他们没有团队的集中力量。过去、现在和未来，多元民主集合会的主要努力是发现、重新集中和培养更多国家需要的人。
陆、越南共和国的体制和宪法
政治制度的选择不能是纯粹的理论选择，更不能是对在另一个国家取得成功的现有模式的复制，无论我们多么欣赏各国人民在走向民主和繁荣的道路上的经验。
我们选择符合国家基本要求的政治制度和宪法：
-诚实和不可逆转地建设民主，以坚定地融入民主世界；
-进行真正和果断的民族和解与和谐，鼓励所有的思想、所有的心和所有的手努力崛起，建设越南的共同未来；
-按照以自由和创造力为动力的市场经济模式发展国家；
-散权制，允许地区在统一的越南中充分利用其特殊优势，同时尽量减少地区之间的差距；
-促进民间社会并满足民族和宗教社区的合法愿望；
-实现真正的国家统一，即民族共识。
根据这些基本要求，我们选择了议会制与散权制的民主政治。
一、关于政权的两个错误偏见
在讨论越南合理合理的政治制度之前，我们需要消除两种偏见，这也是越南人民不正确但非常普遍的担忧。
甲、多元民主与政治稳定
第一个担忧是，多元和多党制可能会导致政党分散，在这种情况下，没有一个政党获得多数席位来夺取政权，从而引发政治动荡。人们可能担心政府会随着临时联盟的解散而不断变化。
这种担忧是毫无根据的，它源于许多越南人成为受害者的中毒宣传引起的误解。
该事件是否有或多或少的政党，是否有一个政党在国民议会中获得稳定多数，主要取决于投票形式，而不是政治自由度。简单地说：单名和一轮投票导致两党制，因为小党被淘汰，而比例投票导致多个政党的出现。
单名和一轮选举是指每个选举单位选出一名议员，候选人以个人合法身份参选，即使可能打上政党的烙印，得票最多者当选。这种选举有利于大政党，淘汰小政党，确保永久存在多数，以建立和稳定管理政府，相反，它不允许少数倾向在议会中拥有发言权。事实上，它经常导致两党政权。因此，单名和单轮投票是对建立一个稳定的政府而不限制合法政治自由的担忧的技术回答。
比例选举意味着全国或每个地区的一般投票，在政党之间，每个政党的民选议员的数量将与他们的选票成比例，例如该党获得20%的选票，原则上也有20%的代表。这种投票方式非常民主，因为它允许所有趋势在议会中拥有发言权和立足点，但反过来，它有可能导致一个分散的议会，在这个议会中，没有任何政党拥有足够的多数来执政。
最佳解决方案是这两种投票方式之间的协调，以确保民主和政府的相对稳定。从技术上讲，可以有无数的公式，包括两轮单名投票，其效果是在第二轮中合并有相同倾向的政党。
这些言论使我们可以断言，以政治稳定为借口限制政党活动是毫无根据的。在未来的越南，不需要也不可能有任何限制建立和发展政党的权利。
还需要结束对稳定的欺骗。
稳定有两层含义。
第一个含义是公民稳定，即每个公民的生活稳定，确保他们不会受到迫害、没收财产、禁止经商，也不会成为突然和频繁的法律变化或政府武断决定的受害者。这种稳定性对于经济发展至关重要，因为只有这样人们才能放心地预测和规划他们的活动。这种稳定需要民主、人权和法治。
第二个含义是统治集团的稳定，或者换句话说，一个拥有相同统治者的政府的延长。这种延长，如果不是由于自由选举，而是由于专制独裁，与内定非常矛盾，因此与发展完全矛盾，因为人们总是生活在恐惧中，不敢也无法制定长期的商业计划。
经验表明，民间稳定对发展至关重要，而执政集团的稳定则完全没有必要，甚至会产生不利影响，因为政府任期过长几乎肯定会导致滥用权力和腐败。在日本，自二战以来，很少有政府能持续两年。在意大利，政府的平均寿命要短得多。尽管这两个国家的经济都在快速增长，但它们都是最发达的七国集团的成员。而越南、古巴、朝鲜等政府长期存在的国家以及非洲和拉丁美洲的许多国家则非常停滞不前和落后。
当独裁公司——就像越南共产党的领导层——说需要稳定才能发展时，许多人同意他们的观点，因为他们将其理解为公民稳定，而他们在稳定的意义上表现为第二，即统治集团的稳定。这是一种应该谴责的欺诈行为。
乙、统一和散权制
第二个担忧是，权力的分散是否会损害领土的统一和军阀地位的重建。
肯定的答案是否的。
地区不是国家，自治不是独立的代名词。地区法律不能与国家法律相抵触。
也应该有更健康的统一观，超越行政化、沉重化、案头化的统一。统一，主要是人心的统一。当每个人、每个地方都感到在民族社区中有一席之地和发言权，而自己的特色仍然受到尊重时，他们就会更加融入民族，民族和谐就会更加强烈。相反，在当今纷繁复杂的世界中，在一个拥有近一亿人口的国家中，中央集权的中央政府无法决定一切，地方实际上仍然是自治的，但非法自治，即始终处于合理但非法的冲突中。与中央政府，从而与民族共同体。中央集权因此被带到军阀而不是统一。由于其民族团结的效果，散权制既需要在国家层面上进行，也需要在每个地区的组织内部进行。
散权制是这个时代压倒性的趋势，是地球上两个世纪民主实验的结论。令人惊讶的是，各民族花了这么长的时间才发现一个简单的道理：一个内阁只能由少数人组成，少数人不可能为一个人口众多、居住在不同地理和人文条件土地上的大国决定一切。
散权制具有明显的优势：它鼓励地方政治活动，它为每个人带来民主，它避免了漫长而复杂的日常行政路线，从而导致人口过度集中。人口进入大城市，它刺激了当地的文化和新闻活动，它允许每个地方选择最适合其特点的生活方式，从而发展起来。
贫困地区将有一个专门的政府，把所有的注意力都放在区域发展上，并将区域提升到全国的发展水平，而不是被一个忙于处理发达和活跃地区紧迫问题的中央政府所遗忘。没有人像一个以区域发展为唯一使命的区域政府那样真诚而准确地惊动一个区域的困境。
散权制也有助于国家的稳定和民主。一方面，它抵消了政变阴谋（推翻中央政府，然后对地方政府做什么？）。另一方面，它避免了不应该在中央一级出现的危机，因为问题可能在不同的时间在每个地方出现。散权制的另一个非常重要的优点是它减少了政治冲突，因为一个政党可能会在中央一级失败，但仍然可以在一些他们信任的地方掌权。所以，政府与反对派的冲突将不那么激烈。在越南目前的历史形势下，散权制可以避免一切皆有可能，失去一切的局面，为民族和解与和谐做出积极贡献。
散权制允许少数群体、宗教和少数族裔在他们大量存在的地方拥有相当大的政治影响力，从而缓解不满情绪和分裂和自治的意图。
散权制的另一个重要优点是，由于地方政府，每次政府更迭，在中央掌权的人都不是学徒，但至少在地方一级有经验。
然而，为了使散权制具有其真正的内容和效果，地区必须有一个能够生存和发展的区域和可能的人口。
我国现在有超过九千万人口，当人口增长势头停止时，我们的人口在1.1亿人口左右会有一定的稳定。我们可能有十到十五个地区，每个地区有五到一千五百万人。
为了避免行政麻烦，特别是在公民身份方面，这些地区将是几个现有省份的组合。将各省集中在一个区域将基于民族结构、经济功能、自然资源和交通标准。
每个地区都有自己的议会，有权任命地区政府，制定不与国家宪法和法律相抵触的地区法律，对某些税收的水平进行投票，并对地方预算进行投票。
地区政府由地方议会选举产生，执行地方议会表决通过的政策。
地区无权拥有军队，无权发行自己的货币，无权拥有外交代表，无权与其他国家签订条约，无权拥有具有商业目的的公司，无权举行具有政治目的的公投。任何选举和全民投票都必须事先得到中央政府的同意，并在事后承认其结果才有效。
各地区不得相互签署条约。地区之间的协调以及涉及多个地区或涉及国家安全的案件由中央政府管辖。
每个公民都有权选择在全境居住的地方。地区无权禁止移民进入该地区，而仅有权在法律调查状态下限制公民的流通范围。
地区警察的人数不得超过中央政府规定的国家警察人数的比例。
中央政府有权为每个教育级别分配一个最低限度的内容。允许自由执业的资格必须由中央政府批准。
省级和省级以下的政府机构将根据散权制的原则由国家法律规定。
二、政治制度
甲、议会制：最稳定和民主的体制
我们的决心是以最有效的方式实行民主制，防止任何形式的独裁回归。我们根据这一决心选择政治制度。首先要做的是在三个公式中选择一个：总统制、半总统制和议会制。
首先，我们断然取消总统制，即由人民通过普选直接选举产生一人，并完全掌握行政权的政权。这种模式有许多不可接受的缺陷。我们可以说出两种最常见的缺陷。
第一个缺陷是投票给一个人而不是政党的形式。这种选举方式阻碍了政党的发展，因为掌权的主要条件是一个有吸引力的选民，所以核心条件是有一个好的竞选委员会，而不是一个好的竞选委员会。党的机器。他或她可能会因为肤浅的原因而当选，例如年轻漂亮，走路优雅，说话雄辩，等等。而不是因为他党的威信和他的政治能力。这个候选人，一旦被选为，将压倒该党，而不是该党。经验表明，在包括美国在内的所有总统制中，都没有像议会制那样强大的政党，这是一个巨大的损失，因为政党既是培养关键人才的熔炉，也是生产和筛选意见的环境。对国家提出的重大问题。
第二个缺陷是它在预先规定的时间内为一个人保留了太多的权利。在一个没有民主传统的国家的情况下，很容易导致滥用权力和独裁，导致镇压、骚乱甚至内战。此外，如果总统在任期内因任何原因失去信誉，则国家活动将在剩余时间内陷入危险的僵局，因为总统无法更换。
从纯粹的角度来看，总统制理论的优点是确保一个强大的政府能够迅速做出必要的战略选择，但现在的现实是战争的危险已经消失，即使冷战已经结束，需要一个强大的政府迅速做出重要决定不再存在。此外，总统可以做的，一个得到议会多数支持的总理也可以做。历史事实是，到目前为止，除美国外，世界上所有的总统制都失败了，要么导致个人独裁，就像大多数国家一样，要么导致行政和立法之间的僵局。
正是总统制的失败导致了“准总统制”的出现，即既有总统又有总理。总统既是国家元首，也是宪法规定的行政权力的一部分，在大多数情况下，总理对国民议会负责。总统是由普选直接选举产生的，因此威望很大，即使在宪法权利可能不同的情况下，也与纯总统制的总统相提并论。这种威望是政治稳定的保证，类似于总统制，一方面抵消了总统制的一些缺点，另一方面抵消了总统和总理之间不可避免的行政内部权威冲突。
准总统制通过调和议会制来减少总统制的弊端。曾经有过几次成功的准总统政权。然而，准总统制是一个非常复杂的政权，政权的性质和内容可能会因偶然因素而异：总统和总理是同一党还是不同党，总统和总理的任期相同或不同。总统和国民议会是短是长，最近选出的总统或国民议会等。
在议会制中，行政权力掌握在由议会选举产生并对议会负责的总理手中。因此，在选举国民议会时，人们也间接选择了总理。议会制的优点是，人民首先投票给一个政党的政治项目，而不是一个人，然后从与他们关系密切的候选人中选出一名国会议员，他们有评估条件；通过他们的议员，他们也有能力永久地监视和控制政府的活动。
议会是最民主的体制，也是最正确的机构，前提是它不会导致政党通货膨胀和议会瘫痪，因为它在许多对立的倾向之间存在分歧。这一条件，正如经验所证明的那样，可以通过以单名和一轮选举的方式选举全部或多数议员来满足。
我们选择议会制是因为它的简单性和高度民主。
乙、政府组织
一个散权制的机构导致两个议会在中央一级的存在。参议院代表地区，而国民议会代表群众。在每个地区，只有一个议会在地方一级发挥议会的作用。
参议院仅在中央一级可用。每个地区都有相同数量的参议员，由整个地区的选民直接选举产生，海外越南共同体也将有代表。参议院的作用为：确保跨区域的国家统一与和谐，提出法案，在必要时上诉国民议会表决的法律，就政策和高级人员的任命向政府提出建议和建议。参议院有权要求各级政府官员作证。国民议会由议员组成，绝大多数议员将通过单名和一轮投票选举产生，其余议员将按比例选举产生。在一个拥有一亿人口的越南，国民议会可由约五百名议员组成，其中约四百五十名是由单名和一轮选举产生的，这是一个分散的机构，导致两个国家的当然存在。中央一级的议会。参议院代表地区，而国民议会代表群众。在每个地区，只有一个议会在地方一级发挥议会的作用。参议院仅在中央一级可用。每个地区都有相同数量的参议员，由整个地区的选民直接选举产生，海外越南社区也将有代表。参议院的作用是：确保跨区域的国家统一与和谐，提出法案，在必要时上诉国民议会表决的法律，就政策和高级人员的任命向政府提出建议和建议。参议院有权要求各级政府官员作证。
国民议会由议员组成，绝大多数议员将通过单名和一轮投票选举产生，其余议员将按比例选举产生。在拥有一亿人口的越南，国民议会可由约五百名议员组成，其中约四百五十名由单名和一轮选举产生，其余在全国范围内按比例选举。多数通过单名和一轮选举产生，这保证了不会出现政党膨胀，并且会有多数（由一个政党或几个有相同倾向的政党组成的联盟）来组建政府。按比例选举的少数群体允许所有政党都参加议会，也允许具有国家地位的政党的领导人不必在地方选举中竞选，并集中精力处理全国问题。
在每个地区，按比例选举的议员的份额可以更高，议员可以按比例选举一半，单轮选举一半。
为了限制政党的数量，有必要设定一个通过比例选举进入国民议会或地区议会的最低水平，例如5%。
在行政方面，在中央一级，总理由国民议会选举产生，对国民议会负责。部长由总理任命。在各地区，行政部门掌握在由地区议会选举产生并对地区议会负责的总督手中。
国家元首总统可以由中央一级的所有国会议员和参议员组成的选举团选举产生。这位国家元首，因为他是由一个强大的选举人团选举出来的，所以会有很高的威望。总统不拥有任何特定的权力，而是真正的国家元首，站在立法、行政和司法之外并在其之上，发挥着确保国家连续性、稳定性和团结性的作用。
最高法院由法学家中选出的法官组成，任期约十年，由总统、参议院议长和国民议会议长各任命三分之一。最高法院有权裁定法律的合宪性或违宪性，仲裁权力机构之间的诉讼，审判高级领导人，审查国家和地方法院的判决。
丙、政党：国家的基本要素
在这样的机构中，可能会有很多政党，但由于中央一级的选举制度——绝大多数议员是单轮选举产生的——只有少数主要政党。在每个地方，除了具有全国性地位的政党外，也只有有限数量的地方政党。
所有真正的民主制都必须尊重党的活动。没有政党就没有严肃的政治生活。在我国的情况下，经过多年所有政治活动都受到压制的专制统治，政党不仅是必要的，而且需要诞生、鼓励和培育。政党是国家不可或缺的元素，因此国家不仅不能被禁止，而且必须支持政党的活动。
政党必须首先通过党员和同情者的贡献来资助自己，但有影响力的政党将由预算资助。作为回报，所有其他金融方式，包括接受公司和企业的财政支持，都将受到法律的严厉制裁。大约1%的国家预算将在中央一级用于资助政党，在地区一级也将有同样的比例。中央和地方的资金来源分为两部分：一部分根据国会议员或议员的人数分配给政党；按各政党总票数划分的份额。为了避免政党通货膨胀，有必要设定一个最低限额——根据国会议员、议员或选票的数量——来获得福利。这个政党的成本当然很大，很多人可能认为太大了，但当政党因为没有资金而成为寡头势力的人质或不得不通过非法手段获取资源时，它会避免我们遭受更严重的损失。一旦国家社区资助了政党，作为回报，国家社区也有权要求政党具有模范的纯洁性。政治活动将受到尊重，民主制也将更加健康。
三、越南共和国宪法
越南共和国宪法将上述政治制度正式化，同时表明了按照基本思想和主要方向所包含的社会模式建设民主制的决心。
越南共和国将在序言中庄严地宣布，它将联合国《世界人权宣言》及其所附公约视为其宪法的组成部分，并将民族和解与和谐作为所有政策的主要精神。
即使在第一章中，也会有东西确认越南国内不能有禁止的意见，也不能有禁止的话题；越南人民和国家谴责内战和任何使用暴力实现目标或解决冲突的企图；越南政府不赞成并废除死刑。
在关于国家机器组织的章节和条款之后，宪法还将有专门的章节，其中包括旨在强调伟大国家目标的条款：越南作为贸易和工业国、服务和旅游的职能；越南竭尽全力与各国本着友好合作的精神共同生活，为巩固地区和世界和平作出贡献；保护和不断改善环境、空气、树木、海岸、大陆架、领海等等是越南人民和国家的特别重要责任。
自宪法起制定法律，我们选择经验性的方法，即颁布或修改以保留最初简单但准确和透明的基本法律，然后根据判例法处理类似案件，同时修补法律。
柒、争取建立多元化民主制
摆在我们面前的重大问题，是在最短的时间内，在最好的条件下，结束党治专政。越南共产党对我国来说是一场灾难。它是三十年内战的罪魁祸首，这场内战使国家四分五裂，数百万人丧生。在对共产主义的狂热中，它还犯下了可怕的罪行，有计划地屠杀了数十万爱国者或无辜的人。它不遗余力地夺取政权，夺取政权后又在各个地区、各个方面都失败了，使我国一贫如洗，悲惨地落后于世界。我们是地球上最后一个仍然被剥夺基本人权的民族之一。而且，我国仍然依赖外国，失去了土地、海洋和岛屿。共产主义政权纯粹靠暴力和镇压来维持自己。
任何人都不能以一切手段，包括以暴力手段，否定反对这样一个暴政的权利。但是，我们坚决拒绝以智慧和爱国主义的名义进行暴力。越南也遭受了太多的破坏，无法接受新的内战，我们甚至不能接受共产主义后的混乱时期。最近的世界历史也证明，非暴力斗争是赢得民主制的最合适和最有效的方法。这就是我们选择的方法。
今天这个国家最大胆的特点是，所有越南人都同意党治独裁是祸害，争取建立多元化民主制是民族共识。然而，越南共产党仍然顽固地坚持专制主义，不仅完全错误，而且被谴责为对人类的犯罪，而且还肆无忌惮地赋予自己无限时间的统治权。共产主义政权的延续是对所有逻辑和越南民族荣誉的巨大挑战。越南的后代将无法理解这段历史，也不知道如何评价今天的人们。这个悖论有一个我们必须确定的原因，那就是缺乏政治知识阶层。由于儒家传统，我们只有具有政府工具功能的专业学者，而没有敢于和能够独立思考国家问题、敢于接受挑战为自己的立场而战的人，即政治知识分子。正是政治知识分子的缺失，使我们没有意识到结束独裁和建立民主是我国历史上最大的革命，没有看到要使这场革命取得成功必须具备或必须创造的条件。由于这种缺席，我们无法就民主运动的路线图以及每个阶段必须做的事情达成一致。
一、民主革命的四个充要条件
古往今来各国重大政治运动的历史表明，革命——从积极意义上理解为政权和国家方向的全面性变革——取得成功，有四个既必要又充分的条件：
第一个条件是，该国所有人都同意现有政权很糟糕，必须改变。第二个条件是，执政党或阶级，因为失去了对共同理想的共识，或者因为癌症，已经分裂、分裂，失去了一个组织的自我生存本能。
第三个条件是绝大多数人就新政权和新国家目标达成共识。
第四个条件是有一个符合全体人民意愿的政治集会，作为创新愿望的汇合点。
当然，从来没有一个条件是百分之百完成的，但在某种程度上，我们可以认为一个条件已经实现。
从我国目前的情况来看，可以肯定的是，前两个条件已经具备。全民已经厌恶了政权，迫不及待地等待着变革。人民对民主制的渴望越来越高；此外，民主转型越来越被视为自然和强制性的，它越拖延，对国家的损害就越大。不仅是人民，而且一大批共产党干部和党员也对共产党领导的惰性失去了耐心。
另一方面，共产党也被瓦解了。党的干部对社会主义失去了一切信心，把党的领导看成腐败的寡头，反之，党的领导也把广大党员评价为奸诈，能力素质不足。高层之间发生了非常严重的冲突。党内的统治心态是争强好胜，大家都活。共产党失去了一个联合体的意志和活力。现在的三百万共产党员，已经不是一个政党，而是一个分裂的统治阶级。
第三个条件也接近实现。包括共产党员在内的大多数群众都同意，越南未来的政治制度必须是一个多元化民主制，为每个人和每个人提供平等的立足点。大家一致认为，越南的经济必须是以私营为基础、以竞争为动力、以利润为兴奋剂的市场经济。此外，我们也意识到，这场民主革命必须本着民族和解的精神，以非暴力的方式进行。我们只缺少一个清晰透明的政治预案，它提出了国家的重大问题和解决方案。本着这种精神，这项政治工程是一项贡献。
我们终于看到了重要的联合努力的出现。一些来自不同政治历史的斗争面孔也逐渐为彼此和群众所熟悉。越来越多的人也认识到有组织斗争的必要性。民主力量聚集的条件越来越有利。
因此，剩下的工作是完成第三个条件，即就政治预案达成共识，并建立第四个条件，即形成强大的民主组合。可以说，我们已经走过了民主之路的四分之三。但剩下的道路，即建立一个政治集会作为民主愿望的聚集地，也是最困难的道路。原因是，我们遇到了一个强有力的联盟，一方面是一个极其顽固的执政党的严厉镇压政策，另一方面是一个在经历了如此多的失望和伤害之后已经分崩离析的民族的被动，这种被动是由于缺乏一个强大的民主组合而助长的。
二、民主运动的五个阶段
我们如何建立这个民主集会？各国和时代的历史也证明，一切革命斗争要取得成功，都必须经过五个不同的阶段。民主运动虽然在精神上是宽容的，在方法上是非暴力的，但仍然是一场革命斗争，因为它旨在改变政治制度和社会组织。因此，我们也必须通过这五个阶段的路线图，这是一条漫长而艰难的路线图，需要多年的不懈努力。
甲、建设意识形态基础
政治结合的意识形态基础，除了那些令人钦佩和尊重的价值观外，还包括一个政治预案，为预案中的选择辩护的理论，以及对战略斗争的共识。该预案必须是对国家背景的认真判断和时代最正确思想的精心综合。一个想要成功的政治运动需要建立在强大的意识形态基础上。意识形态的基础必须是一个足够美丽和可行的理想，既可以将所有志友们团结在一起，又可以为运动争取支持。当有一个被国家最有智慧的组成部分认为是严肃和可行的政治预案时，意识形态基础建设阶段可以被视为暂时完成。
乙、打造核心干部队伍
争取对政治预案的支持，组织人力资源和手段，使斗争取得成功，是核心干部的工作。在目前的民主运动中，我们面临着很大的困难，即政治上有能力的人既少又散。这样一个主要的努力应该是，一方面，千方百计地聚集那些稀有的元素，另一方面，努力培养新的核心干部。这项工作虽然难度很大，但也不能回避，因为任何政治斗争毕竟是干部之间的较量。一个政治组织必须始终尊重核心干部和成员总数之间的一定比例。健康比体质更需要。质量比数量更需要。在现代媒体允许一小部分人直接、频繁接触群众的当今时代，核心干部的作用更加重要。
丙、对设施的建设和审查
任何想要成功的斗争都需要设施。设施不仅仅是物理设施。媒体可以是组织、成员和同情者的贡献，也可以是联盟组织的贡献，还可以是动员国际组织、媒体、人权和新闻自由组织、特定背景下知名人士支持的能力。媒体可以以多种形式出现，来自各种来源。重要的是要预测和计划他们的准备情况。制定和审查手段至关重要，因为在政治斗争中，要么必须有必要的设施来实现他们的路线，要么必须很少执行提供手段的人的路线。
丁、建设群众基础
群众基础首先要理解为核心干部以外的集体成员。一个成员属于核心或基础团队的事实可能是由于政治资格，但也可能是由于其他原因：健康和可能花在斗争上的时间，以及一次家庭和个人情况。群众基础也是朋友的集体，特别是有声望的朋友。毕竟，群众基础也是组织争取的同情资本。努力建立群众基础主要是为了两个目的而进行的宣传努力：一是让群众相信需要为国家的共同解决方案做出贡献，但每个人都不能自己解决。个人问题通过个人解决方案；一是争取群众对组织的认同。当群众基础强大到足以成为大城市组织和人民之间的传递带时，就可以被认为是积极的。
戊、夺取政权的进攻
只有在上述四个阶段都已实施之后，即表示组织已足够强大，才可以思考夺取政权的前进方向，决定夺取政权的方法。事实上，越南民主人士必须从一开始就明确放弃武装解决方案，因为暴力夺取政权需要发动内战，这是所有越南人都必须明确谴责的。没有什么能用内战来摧毁一个国家，任何人都无权以任何名义发动内战。文明世界已经放弃了暴力作为政治斗争的手段，越南人民在经历了最近内战时期的痛苦经历后，不得不更加果断地拒绝暴力。越南民主派的战略是和平发展。那个战略意味着由于来自社会的压力，民主的胜利将到来。这种压力主要表现为两种形式；一是人们思维方式和行动方式的转变，让政权处于可笑的越位位置，政府的官方语言成了笑柄，各级领导为自己的职务而羞愧；一是群众逐渐放下恐惧，越来越能被鼓励参与大游行；在某个时候，政府将不得不做出选择，要么做出让步，要么因为群众站起来而被推翻。当然，我们希望共产党政府做出让步并参与民主化进程。
但如何激励群众。所有的研究和经验都表明，无论多么不满的群众，只有在满足三个条件的情况下才会反抗：
其一，每个人都有一种共同的命运，只能有共同的出路，但每个人都无法找到个人的解决方案；另一方面，人们一致认为，共同的悲剧来自一个明确的集体。换句话说，必须有两个明确的群体的意识，一个“我们的集体”是“敌人的集体”的受害者。在越南的情况下，这种情况意味着越南群众意识到共产党是造成当前糟糕局面的原因，全国只能有一个共同的解决方案，但每个人都无法找到个人解决方案。
其二，有动员和领导群众的组织；组织的核心作用是保持斗争的气氛，避免令人沮丧的错误。群众没有耐心。如果有不同的组织提出不同的呼吁，或者如果领导机构内部存在分歧，动员群众的努力就会失败。
其三，领导组织要足够强大，让群众坚信胜利。群众不浪漫。
在过去的几年里，发生了许多反对中国入侵或政府掠夺土地的抗议活动。所有这些抗议活动，如果目标是政权更迭，都远远低于必要的水平，即使是为了取得相对结果，因为它们都是错误的。群众动员只能是上述五个阶段中的最后一个阶段。此外，这些抗议活动不具备动员群众所需的三个条件中的一个。
五个阶段必须按顺序进行，但不一定是前一阶段必须完成，下一阶段才能开始。相枕。五阶段进程是指导行动的公式，它是必要条件，但不是充分条件。走错这个过程肯定会失败，但遵循正确的过程不一定会成功。成功与否取决于许多定量因素：思想基础有多大，干部有多有少，能力有多强，手段有多丰富。
一个非常重要的观察是，前两个阶段，即建立思想基础和形成核心干部，占据了一场革命的大部分时间和功劳。需要几十年的时间才能拥有一个正确、健康、群众共享的思想历史，一支几百人、几十人的干部队伍是真正的核心干部，掌握了基础。思想、领导、决心、技术和战斗纪律。但一旦这两个因素到位，本组织就可以依靠一个发展非常迅速的历史机遇，在几年甚至几个月内赢得主动。
我多元民主集合会的判断是，目前的民主运动只是在第一阶段和第二阶段的开始之间。但并不是因为这样，就可以悲观地得出民主胜利遥遥无期的结论。
三、民主运动的内容
从以上分析来看，本会努力争取结束独裁统治和民主制建设，将重点做好以下几方面的重点工作。
甲、唤醒群众对全国共同解决方案的必要性
巨大的潜力与民族的悲惨现状之间、广泛的民主愿望与极权统治的长期挑战之间令人愤慨的矛盾有一个主要原因：这是一种心态，为个人问题寻找个人解决方案。这种心态是几千年来人们完全没有发言权的历史文化遗产，不得不像命运一样忍受政府，并想方设法适应自己生存。扭动求生，一方面迫使人们接受做不诚实的事情，助长社会的腐败，另一方面使人们向政权妥协，为政权做出贡献，从而帮助政权生存，这是没有人想要的。
民主派的头一、重要和艰巨的用功是唤醒人民，必须有一个共同的解决方案，即政权更迭，但每个人都不能四分五裂，以个人解决方案解决个人问题。这种成功只会是微不足道的少数，如果有的话，成功也是暂时的，充满不确定性。
首先要推翻扭动主义，弘扬诚实、有价值、负责任地生活的意志。只要公众不相信所有越南人都在共同的命运中团结在一起，因此需要一个共同的解决方案，民主运动就不会成功，独裁政权就会存在，或者如果它因自身的崩溃而崩溃，它只会让位于比独裁政权更糟糕的无政府状态。
这场心理革命的主要困难在于它既需要推理又需要刺激，因此只有政治组合才能有效地动员起来。研究人员、思想家，甚至有声望的人物，如果有的话，也无能为力，因为他们独自站立的事实并不多，很少表明他们选择个人解决方案并使他们对常识的劝告失去了很多作用。我多元民主集合会了体会其在这一心理突破中的责任和作用。
乙、在思想理论上取得决定性胜利
在革命斗争中，思想理论的胜利迟早会导致政治胜利；相反，一个无话可说的政府也会被淘汰。目前，共产党政府在意识战线上已经完全混乱，但越南的民主相对诸派并没有取得决定性的胜利。多元民主的集合将继续在意识形态斗争中作出积极贡献，以彻底打破有利于独裁统治的谬论，并解除人民和部分民主人士之间仍然存在的干扰。这场意识形态斗争非常重要，即使在民主已经建立之后也是如此，因为它是改变思维和行动方式的核心运动，即改变历史的方向。
我们必须打破民主会导致混乱的论点。我们需要证明，民主是确保没有混乱的基本条件，是让社会在秩序中不断进化和创新的生活方式。我们需要申明，如果不打击腐败，国家就无法崛起，因为腐败破坏了所有计划、项目和工作。但世界上每个国家的经验都证明，一个人无法改善一个腐化的政府，只有一个解决办法，那就是用另一个政府取代腐化政府。民主是允许政府更迭而不引起混乱的制度；所以，对于像越南这样腐败严重的国家来说，民主是一个强制性的解决方案。
我们必须打破发展需要纪律、纪律需要牺牲民主、限制自由和人权的论点。需要向越南人民解释清楚，除了宪法和法律之外，没有任何国家纪律。越南人民还需要相信，民主、自由和人权不仅不是健康、持续和可持续发展的障碍，而且是不存在的条件；中国和越南等一些专制国家的初步进展只是部分放宽自由和部分取消专制管理的结果，如果没有真正的民主变革，很快就会达到极限。事实上，这两个国家的发展势头已经停止，因为中越两国政府拒绝进一步推动民主化改革。
我们必须打破认为东方社会不同于西方社会，因而不能接受个人自由、民主、人权等西方价值观的论调。自由、民主、人权是全人类的普世价值，并非西方独有。这些价值观存在于所有文明中，包括越南。西方国家的优势在于他们知道如何大力弘扬这些价值观，从而繁荣并超越世界其他国家。我们需要推动这些价值观向前发展。因为我们迟到了，所以我们需要大力和果断地推动它。
我们需要揭露亚洲文化价值观比西方文化价值观更有利于发展这一论调的谬误。在这种煽动性论点的背后，是为独裁政权辩护的意图。中国共产党政权试图恢复儒孔思想并非巧合，如果越南共产党政权做出回应也就不足为奇了。我们必须警惕挫败这个宣传计划。当然，亚洲文化有很多积极的一面，但消极的一面越来越严重。最发达的亚洲国家是通过接受西方人的民主思维、组织方式和办工方式而发展起来的，而不是通过否定西方、突出自身特色而发展起来的。此外，亚洲国家的文化和习俗差异很大，因此不能笼统地谈论东方或亚洲的价值观。
我们需要意识到，这些不仅仅是理论辩论。在为独裁政权辩护的诡辩背后，是严酷的监狱，是国家最宝贵的人民遭受的残酷迫害，而强大的少数人却肆意掠夺国家资源。
我们还需要强烈反对包括越南共产党政府在内的一些政府以否认或限制自由、民主和人权为借口的“经济主义”。经济不是一切，即使在纯经济领域，增长率也不是一切。十分之百的经济增长记录不允许一个政府沾沾自喜，然后将独裁政权强加于人民，尤其是当这种增长只是部分缩短自己造成的滞后时、并国家在文化、道德和环境等方面付出了非常沉重的代价时。我们努力让全体越南人民共享的国家目标是一个繁荣的社会，高度文化，合理分配国家收入，众人都有公平的晋升机会，人与人之间以及人与国之间的连带，每个人的自由和尊严都有保障，有能力不断崛起，自然环境得到保护和不断改善。
另一个非常重要的发奋是让所有共产党员和国家官员相信，他们绝对没有充分的理由牵掣党治独裁的终结，相反地，他们完全有理由为民主的胜利感到高兴。他们的荣誉、尊严和合法权利将得到尊重。更重要的是，他们摆脱了支持一个糟糕和欺诈的政权的罪恶感。他们将自豪地为推动国家前进做出贡献，为包括自己在内的每个人提供越来越多的福利。
试图争取共产党干部的回应在理论上并不难，因为他们中的大多数人也是政权的受害者，也非常不满。困难在于战争留下的心理遗产和共产党的粗暴统治。许多人不相信仇恨可以轻易消除，而无意识和不负责任的少数人的极端调门儿主张引起了更多的关注。因此，民主运动一方面必须坚决肯定民族和解与和谐的精神，另一方面必须雄辩地承诺不会有任何歧视措施。为此，民主队伍必须将所有政治历史的人聚集在一起。一个政治集会，无论多么善意和正确的路线，只由来自前国家主义派或前共产主义派之一的人组成，都是不可收拾的。
为了在思想理论战线上取得决定性的胜利，民主人士必须有正确的思想理论。第一个也是最重要的努力是让那些想为民主运动做出贡献的人、知识分子和群众相信，政治斗争永远不能是个人斗争，而永远只能是有组织的斗争。结束党治专政和建立民主制的斗争是一场非常艰难的政治斗争。它必须有组织，组织不能很快成型，它需要这么多年的聪明和坚持不懈的发愤。但组织建设是不可挽救的。专家、批评家、作家和艺术家等可以作为个人贡献有利于民主运动的信息、理论和情感，但他们不能击败独裁制，而独裁制与否在民主组织中。我们欣赏这些贡献，但也必须认识到它们的局限性。反过来说，这些人也需要看到自己的局限性，看到组织的必要性，即使他们有自己的理由不加入任何组织。不加入任何组织的政治斗争必须被视为例外，而不是惯例。
问题是，现时仍有很多人认为根本不加入组织便可以争取民主。有些人甚至为自己不属于任何组织而感到自豪，认为这是客观和正确精神的标志。应该提醒他们，这是一种非常错误的态度，对民主运动有害，也与他们自己的愿望相抵触。他们需要明白，个人政治斗争只有在极少数人拥有非常高的声望和资历或非常特殊的地位的情况下才真正有效，在几乎所有情况下，正面的效果都不等于负面的效果，即分散对最正确和最必要的努力的注意力，即建立民主组织。
另一个需要警惕的重大错误是，认为一个政治组织可以很快建立起来。这种轻率的信念导致了一种非常熟悉的情况，即每当政治环境对民主运动有利时，许多人就急于建立组织，最终结果是由于分散了对严肃努力的注意力而错失了机会。对革命成功的条件和必须经过的阶段的分析表明，一个严肃的政治组织只能是从完整的政治思想开始的多年聪明、持续和坚持不懈的努力的结果。实践经验也表明，在过去的四十年里面，成千上万的组织已经萌芽起来，但几乎都消失了，不仅如此，就连贡献了很多牺牲和赢得了很多声望的老牌政党，但也因为没有更新政治思想而消亡。缔造这样一个政治组织需要大量的智慧、努力和时间，包括运气。因此，不应鼓励建立新组织而不是为现有组织做出贡献的冲动。
同样重要的是要警惕一种误解，即只需要集中所有努力建立公民社会组织。诚然，公民社会的缺失一直是我们不如世界，使我们的人民对暴政独裁无能为力的主要原因。没有人否认公民社会的必要性，但必须正确看待其作用。每个真正的公民社会组织只能特别关注一个社会问题，因此在这个问题上拥有信誉的声音，但相反，它并不能完全了解所有的社会问题，也不能有政治野心。每个组织揭露独裁政权的错误，并对其特别感兴趣和经历过的地区施加压力，因此拥有权威的声音。公民社会组织的力量在于它们有明确的目标。它们是民主运动的宝贵支持，但它们没有领导民主斗争的功能。这就是政治组织的功能。
丙、组建民主阵线及争取自由选举
结束独裁制和建立民主制的斗争需要统一的领导，才能争取世界的支持，带来胜利的信心，并动员群众。特别是，如果民主运动分散到只有相互矛盾的呼吁和指示，动员群众的工作肯定会失败。
统一领导可能是一个在力量和威望上超越其他组织的组织，迫使其他组织合作，因为别无选择。其实，这种可能性几乎不存在。真正的解决办法是一个把真正的民主组织聚集在一起的民主阵线。
没有一个民主人士没有意识到需要一场强大的民主阵线或民主联盟。
这场民主阵线是越南民主相对诸派作为可靠的替代方案出现在世界眼中所必需的，避免了组织竞相争取政府和组织支持的情况。国际形象是一个分散和缺乏自尊的越南反对派。
这场阵线也是给予群众胜利信心的必备条件，从而能够动员群众，进而能够带领群众为共产主义政权而战。
这场阵线之所以能够建立，是因为时间已经过滤了意见，今天的意见分歧很小。
力争组建这场民主阵线的第一步是本着尊重的精神，就国际背景和国家现状、未来的基本选择、未来、需要解决的紧迫问题以及如何解决这些问题进一步促进直接接触和交流。正是通过这些交流，才能达成共识，才能找到赢得共识所需的人。
这一运动阶段应在国内外进行，同时努力向群众广泛传播多元化民主的理想。它旨在找到志同道合的人来结合行动。它还旨在了解和比较所有政治立场，以确定那些虽然意见不完全相同但仍然可以协调行动的政治组织。同样重要的是，它允许发现共产党为破坏民主运动而设立的冒充性民主组织。
这种民主阵线的结合必须超越过去留下的所有分离，本着诚实和完全民族和解的精神，完全面向未来。这种结合的力量主要建立在对斗争的目的和方法的共识以及相互信任的基础上。只要真诚地分享多元民主的理想，真诚地赞同民族和解与和谐的精神，并坚决拒绝暴力，这种结合就必须对所有背景的所有个人和组织开放。任何其他异议都可以妥协。
我们申明，这个民主阵线是反对一切形式的独裁制的阵线，其中共产主义独裁制只是一个，反对压迫，反对邪恶和欺诈。这个民主阵线绝不是过去冲突的延伸，而是一个面向未来的组合。它对所有政治过去和所有岗位的所有民主人士开放。但相反，它只对真正的民主人士开放。
为了发挥作用，与所有政治联盟一样，民主阵线将需要一个成员组织作为确保稳定的火车头。有了这个判断，我多元民主集合会，一方面会努力发展自己，使自己能够发挥主导作用，但另一方面将愿意将领导作用让给另一个比自己更有优势或相等的民主组织。
然而，认识到需要一个领导组织不能使我们忘记，占上风的伎俩只会使一个本身就很困难的局面进一步恶化。每个组织都必须将其努力视为对民主胜利的贡献。每个组织，包括由多个组织组合而成的大型组织，都必须将各个视为一个成分，一个组合的阶段越来越大。我多元民主集合会承诺始终遵循这一座右铭。
形式、战术和领导将根据情况灵活。当共产党政府做出让步并接受民主规则时，运动将是公开的，前线的领导机构将设在国内。只要共产党政府顽固地继续其镇压政策，国内的行动就会不起眼，领导机构就会设在海外。
在这两种情况下，我们都需要在全国和每个地区都有积极的存在。我们将利用每一个漏洞，抓住每一个机会，与每一个想要更新国家的人交朋友，以创造和繁殖越来越活跃、越来越公开的反对机构。一方面，我们努力打开共产党政府的隐蔽之门，利用国内外交流的流动，另一方面，我们利用一切举措，对政权施加越来越强烈和多方面的压力，在各条战线上攻击前共产主义集团，阻止其所有出路，除了真正民主的出路。
民主阵线的使命是争取民主和自由选举。在第一次真正自由的选举之后，这项任务被认为已经完成。是否继续，如有，如何继续，由成员组织决定。
这次自由选举将不能由共产党政府单独决定，单独举行。选举哪个定制、何时投票、如何投票、谁有权投票、谁有权参选，是越南民主相对诸派必须有发言权的决定。
唯有在所有基本政治自由都得到正式和庄严确认，与政治自由相抵触的法律被废除的情况下，才能进行自由选举。
自由选举必须本着民族和解的精神进行，超越现政府或环境造成的所有行政障碍。具体来说，在选举之前，必须释放所有政治罪犯并恢复其完全公民身份，必须消除政治犯罪记录，也必须承认海外越南人具有越南国籍、男性和选举权和被选举权。
自由选举也必须由一个有资格被视为有能力确保公平和诚实选举的政府举行。本届政府将欢迎公正的国际观察员在自由选举中不受限制地存在。
上述要求虽然很温和，也很合理，但肯定会遭到共产党政府的反对，因此必须在各个领域施加一切群众和国际压力，迫使共产党屈服，参与民主化进程。其实共产党别无选择。民主已经成为世界共同的游戏规则，新的民主浪潮正在汹涌而起，而中国这个最后的支撑已经动摇。他们只能选择成为不可避免底过渡的代理人或受害者。
自由选举的结果并不重要。即使共产党或它的化身以不同的名义获胜，它也不能再是一个专制的执政党；民主制已经建立，民主运动已经成功，大赢家仍然是越南人民。然而，随着国家的悲惨局势和共产党的责任——错误和罪行——通过民主讨论暴露出来，我们可以毫不畏惧地预测，共产党将在第一次自由选举中失败，甚至可能被抹去。此外，完全有可能的是，选举不会发生在共产党和民主组织之间，而是发生在共产党的剩余成员和民主力量之间，因为一旦原则上接受民主和自由选举，就可以肯定，相当一部分共产党员，包括共产党的一些基层，将脱离并加入民主的行列。
在争取自由选举和通过自由选举获胜的斗争中，我多元民主集合会始终主张消除仇恨，尊重每个人和所有政治观点，相互合作，一并建设越南的共同未来。这种民族调解与和谐的精神不能被同化为愿意与任何人勾结和同谋的态度。本会的态度非常透明。本会有明确的目标和路径，本会有执着的追求。本会将尽一切努力赢得自由选举。如果获胜，本会将与盟军政治组织一起在国家面前分担责任。如果不幸的是胜利掌握在其他立场的力量手中，本会将继续以一个正确和负责任的相对派的立场进行斗争。
与所有政治运动一样，这场斗争将需要许多妥协。非暴力抗议意味着接受通过阶段性妥协取得最终胜利。本会会接受阶段性的妥协，但不会害怕把自我丟掉，因为它已经有了根本的思想和大方向作为指导。本会将接受缩短民主路线图的阶段性妥协，但不会在三个基本立场上妥协：多元民主的理想、民族调解与和谐的精神以及非暴力抗议的方法。
捌、成功的民主过渡
一、过渡问题
在党治独裁统治结束后，我们将经历一个极其困难的过渡时期。在大约五年的时间内，我国将必须作出非常非凡的努力，克服极其艰巨的考验，才能成为一个正常国家，真正融入国际社会。
我们将不得不从一元论、中央集权、专制体制过渡到多元、散权和分权的体制。
我们必须用以私营企业为动力的市场经济取代以国有企业为基础的计划经济。
我们必须将腐败的政府机构、官僚主义、办公桌和党的工具转变为一个有效、负责任、健康、为公共利益服务的国家。
我们将不得不通过决议和指令结束任意管理，以建立一个真正的民主法治国家。
我们将不得不用公安秩序、安全和公民权利的公安机构取代被构想和组织为共产党镇压工具的公安机构；用独立的法院取代被视为公安延伸臂的法院，这些法院仅以表达法律为使命。
我们将不得不用客观、自由和优质的教育来取代宣传、灌输和缺乏质量的教育。我们认为教育培养是国家的生存之战。
我们继承了一个全面衰落的国家，抢劫猖獗，腐败已经成为一种制度，谎言和欺诈已经成为全国的反思，传染病肆无忌惮地蔓延，青少年文盲失学，民众情绪低落悲观郁闷，贫富差距暴露挑战，数以千万计的民众生活在赤贫之中，数以百万计的上访者多年来生活在愤怒之中，土地被剥夺后仅以征收价格补偿，生态环境遭到破坏和污染，主权甚至土地大量流失给外国人。我们将不得不把那个国家变成一个诚实和健康、纪律严明、拥有充分主权、信任、相互联系、具有经济韧性和吸引外国投资的国家。
我们继承了一个由战争和歧视政策留下的仇恨堆积如山的国家。我们将不得不在不造成新的崩溃的情况下修复崩溃。我们必须在不冒犯他人的情况下恢复被冒犯者的荣誉，在不制造新受害者的情况下赔偿受害者。
越南社会正处于严重的信任危机之中。人们有充分的理由将政治同化为统治，将商业同化为牟取暴利。过渡时期必须是持续努力使群众与政治和商业和解的坚定和令人信服的第一步。它必须开辟一种新的政治运作哲学和新的经商方式，政治家是选择服务社会而不是致富的人，企业家是知识渊博、富有创造力、敢于和敢于冒险的人。
我们需要确定：问题不是找到一个可以使国家富强的神秘公式，没有这样的公式。问题是从国家的现实和世界背景中找出需要优先解决的问题并提出答案。
这个过渡时期的目标是为一个诚实和负责任的民主政府奠定基础，在五年内将国民产出翻一番，同时改善环境和社会关系，消除一切仇恨嫌隙，缓解心理堵塞，真正使和谐的越南走上进步的轨道。这一目标是可以落实的，而且必须通过不与所概述的主要方向相抵触的政策和措施来实现。
我们有太多严重和紧迫的社会和文化问题需要解决，但我们只有非常有限的资源。如果我们在这些问题上花费太多资源，我们将没有资源用于经济发展，我们将陷入饥饿。反之，有如此厉害的社会和文化问题，如果不解决，所有的经济努力都将被摧毁。我们必须认识到一个残酷的现实，即我们将不得不在许多年内生活在极端贫困中。在预算紧张的情况下，我们将不得不确定问题的优先次序。指导性精神是紧急解决对民族调解、社会安全和经济发展至关重要的问题，其他问题将在经济能力允许的情况下尽快以不同的优先顺序加以解决。
二、政治措施
甲、把政府还归给人民
所有爱国和明智的越南人都必须希望民主制转型在和平与秩序中进行，本着民族调解与和谐的精神。我们将尽一切努力让共产党参与民主化进程。但在任何情况下，过渡时期都将从《越南共和国临时宪法》开始，该宪法将政府交还人民，并隆重地确认基本自由，包括言论和新闻自由、建立和加入组织的自由、选举和被选举权以及土地所有权。该临时宪法将概述建设多元化民主制越南的主要方向所包含的原则，并将指导过渡政府的所有行动，直到越南共和国新宪法通过表决并生效。
要做的第一件具体事情是将政府、军队和公安的机器非政治化。出差人和武军人有权加入政治组织，但不得从事政治活动。在国家的一切行政、安全和军事机关中，一律禁止党的活动。行政、军队和公安等机构必须是非政治工具，完全独立于所有政党，绝对尊重宪法，绝对服从所有民选政府。军队和警察将回归保卫国家、维护秩序和安全的崇高使命，因此需要与所有商业活动完全分开。目前由军队和警察拥有的公司将被剥离撤出。在这些公司工作的人，如果愿意，可以退伍继续工作。
军队将在装备和训练方面进行现代化改造，同时也将精简军队。国防预算将主要优先加强海军和空军。
共产党为冒充和控制民间社会而设立的外围组织——无论是以阵线、工会还是协会的名义——将失去所有官方角色和利益，如果继续存在，将只是在法律面前与任何其他民间社会组织平起平坐的普通协会。
乙、实现民族调解与和谐
必须立即开始并持续多年的一项努力是执行民族调解与和谐的路线。民族调解与和谐是过渡时期的国策，也将是越南此后的政治理念。民族调解与和谐需要公平对待过去，尊重未来。
任何政治罪犯都将被释放并立即恢复公民身份。
由于政治原因、资产阶级斗争政策、土地改革或作为南方公务员被监禁或羞辱的人将恢复荣誉，并至少象征性地获得损害赔偿。
国家将以国家连续性的名义为过去的错误承认，特别是对那些在任何级别、任何时期都枉死去的人。
因政治原因被没收财产的人，由国家偿还，真正的偿还将根据国家的经济能力随着时间的推移逐步执行。
如有证据表明他们受到不公正的审判，所有公民都有权要求国家审查他们或他们的亲属作为受害者的判决。被证明背弃法律和职业良知故意作出命令不公正判决的法官，不得再执业法官，严重者可被起诉。
所有被剥夺土地的公民都有权要求政府审查其案件，以便或归还土地或获得更适当的补偿；他们也有权举报滥用公共利益名义强行低价卖地牟利的行为。
如果他们愿意，海外越南人将被承认为越南国籍，给予他们以及他们在国外出生的孩子。
将设立一个专门的部级机构来执行民族调解政策，特别是接收和处理人民的投诉和索赔。议会的一个委员会将负责确保所有法律和条例不与民族调解与和谐的国家政策背道而驰。将设立一个独立于政府并由政党代表、宗教代表、族裔代表和民间社会知名人士组成的民族和解与和谐理事会，以监督民族调解与和谐的实施。
国家将禁止任何报复性报复和歧视行为。所有越南人，无论过去如何，在义务和权利方面都受到平等对待。原则上，所有公务员和军事人员都将保留在他们目前的职位上。任何人事变动都必须有客观和正当的理由。
民族调解与和谐的实施将需要很长时间。国家的一切措施都必须始终表现出善意，真正弥合过去留下的裂痕，让所有越南人都满意地握手建设国家。
为了使民族调解与和谐政策有正当的基础和力量，将起草一项关于民族和解与和谐的法律，供全体人民通过全民投票进行表决。
丙、颁布越南共和国新宪法并修改法律
这部宪法将由制宪会议投票，制宪会议是第一个选举产生的机制。本宪法符合选定和提出的多元化、议会制和散权政体，不得包含任何主义、宗教或政党的提法。它还将肯定越南果断和全面融入国际社会；联合国《世界人权宣言》及其所附公约应被视为越南宪法的组成部分。死刑将被废除，因为它是反文明的，它实际上没有其野蛮性可能误导我们的效果。“叛国罪”将在越南法律语言中删除。在新宪法表决通过后，立法议会——在情况允许的情况下，甚至可能是制宪会议本身——将对基本法律进行表决。起草这些基本法律的指导精神是简单、明亮、易于理解和在国家背景下受到尊重。最初的法律不一定是完整的。重要的是为国民生活奠定健康的基础，然后法律将得到补充，使其越来越完整和完整。将审查现行法律；一些新的法典可能来自现有的法律，因为它删除了对社会主义和共产党的提及，以及反民主或违反宪法自由的规定。
丁、开端将散权制付诸实践
紧接着，有必要将权力分散到政治活动中。这意味着需要一项领土组织法，规定各地方的权限、各地方的数目、各地方的边界以及选举和建立地方政府的历程。指导原则是，这些地方将包括彼此接壤的现有省份，在地理、交通、种族结构和经济功能方面必须相当同质，并且必须有足够的面积和人口，才能成为生存和发展的实体。民主党政府寻求并努力通过分权政策实现的一个重要目标是显着减少目前河内和西贡两个城市的过度人口集中。
戊、为越南人民保留越南国土
多年来，共产党政府视而不见，甚至故意让许多具有战略价值的土地落入外国人手中。这种土地买卖，有时是通过应名儿所有者的越南人的中介进行的，对国家来说是一个巨大的损失。许多具有高度战略意义的流域被政府长期租借给外国，几乎成为越南领土上的外国地区。许多几乎是外国人自己的生活区也在实践中形成。这种情况是不能容忍的。有必要审查土地转让，以防止向外国人出售黑幕土地。非法转让的土地予以收回，情节严重的，可以无偿没收。
一项既能调和吸引资本又能为越南人保留越南领土的措施是，不仅允许而且鼓励拥有越南国籍的海外越南人购买房屋和土地。这也是将海外越南人与祖国联系起来的一项措施。
更重要的是审查共产党和国家与外国签署的条约，特别是内容尚未公布的条约。仅越南共产党与外国签署的条约将立即宣布无效；由共产党国家代表签署但未经国民议会批准或向人民宣布的条约也将被否定。只有符合国家利益的条约才能在必要时重新谈判后得到维护。
二、社会文化措施
摆在国家面前的最严峻和最紧迫的问题不是经济问题，而是社会文化问题。
甲、加强安全秩序
尽管没有内战和内乱，但今天的越南实际上正逐渐成为世界上最不安全的国家之一。第一个安全威胁是共产党和其政府。非法逮捕、监禁和残酷殴打等已成惯例。缺乏安全也是由于流氓分子越来越多和越来越猖獗，在许多情况下有公安力量的掩护。当然，社会弊端是当前社会僵局的自然产物，肯定会随着希望和信念的回归而减少，但无论如何，我们的国家仍然会不稳定。新成立的民主政府。确保安全和秩序并不意味着限制自由，而是真正自由的强制性条件。
法律应该是严格的，而不是苛刻的，尤其不应该是暴力的。
每个成年后的越南人都获得身份证和旅行证件，有权随心所欲，在领土或国外自由行动。
法律不明确也是犯罪的一个原因。未来，我们国家需要一部非常简单、易于理解和尊重但对违法行为也非常严格的法律。
政府现在有很多公安，但公安人士主要用于保护共产党的政治垄断，而不是保护秩序安全，用于压制民主和自由的愿望，而不是防止社会弊端。所以，即使在过渡时期，很大一部分情报和政治保护警察机构也将转移到保护秩序、安全和环境的力量。这种安全秩序的加强主要是对安全机器的改革。这种改革不仅不花钱，而且可以为预算节省很多。一个真正民主的、不需要镇压反对派的越南政府，可以减少安全预算，同时大大加强社会秩序。
乙、克服贪污和社会弊端
我们目前正在目睹共产党政府与被国家官员掩盖的非法商业团伙之间的模糊关系。走私、逃税、非法经营成为常态。这种情况必须停止，因为它是对国家的挑战，是对预算的巨大损失，也是对正当商业的危险障碍。
反贪污将是过渡时期的最高优先事项，因为如果不打击贪污，任何国家政策，无论多么完整，都将失败。今天的腐败贪污已经达到令人窒息的程度。贪污的主要原因首先是官员任免完全不受群众和民意支配的极权专制的本质。此外，国家机器铺天盖地、臃肿不堪，规则繁琐、矛盾，允许主观、偏颇、武断的解释，助长官官相护的帮派勾结。
共产党政府是腐败贪污的根源，因此一旦民主政府取代共产党政府，就会迎来打击贪污的有利时期。过渡政府的问题是给贪污以致命的打击，之后不让它卷土重来。腐化是对公权力的滥用，因此，要打击腐败贪污，首先要减轻国家权力的重量，也就是说，要用轻国家、有限权力取代沉重的、全能的国家机器。然后需要一个简单、透明的法律，让人们确定他们可以做什么，不能做什么，不再是国家官员的人质。为了标志着民主政府的新阶段，它必须采取令人印象深刻的措施，例如绝对禁止公务员在任何情况下接受礼物，强制所有公务员每年申报资产，迫使所有机构定期审查以击防贪污的结果等。
民主制政府将打击歹徒。他们在任何情况下都不会因任何原因受到任何宽容。
打击腐败，打击走私等社会弊端，需要决心，更需要全民的信任和支持。在这场艰苦的战斗中，我们的盟友之一是言论自由。在一个真正自由的政权中，腐败贪污和对人民的压迫，如果不彻底消除，也必须减少到低水平。对自己所有权利了如指掌的自由公民的痛斥，是最有效的反腐武器。
任何倡议都将受到欢迎，以争取全体人民对使这个国家健康的努力的积极响应。
丙、彻底废除所有审查检阅政策和措施
临时宪约和新宪法随后将庄严承认书籍、报纸和文化产品等的创作和出版自由，并禁止任何具有审查性质的法律。在未来的越南，言论自由不会有任何限制。法律只会制裁公然呼吁暴力、侮辱公民或公民组织的荣誉和权利并被这些个人或组织起诉的言论。这种公民协会将在保护文化健康方面发挥关键作用。我们不要忘记，公民社会是多元化民主体制的基础。
丁、确保教育的客观性和所有公民的最低文化水平
不会出现国家强加官方教科书的问题。编写教科书的权利不受限制，选择教科书的权利完全属于教师。一个独立于政府的机构，来自教师，将起草第一批教科书，然后有权向教师介绍但不向教师强加合格的书籍，足以用作教学书籍。教育是国家非常昂贵的战略投资，必须纯粹以传播知识、拓展智慧为目标，不能用于单向宣传。
特别注重越南语教学。这是我们无法挽救的，因为最低限度的文化水平和最低限度的沟通能力既是经济发展的必要条件，也是社会稳定、人民之间和平的必要条件。
多年来，共产党政府几乎完全放弃了教育的所有努力。我们失去了很多学生，各级教育的质量严重下降，特别是自从共产党政权实行狂野的市场经济政策以来。必须强制教育和免费教育至少到高中第三年级结束。预算很可能不允许招聘所需的教师，在这种情况下，我们需要发起一场全国性的文化运动，学生帮助教学生，高年级继续教低年级。自愿或象征性的报酬。还应看到，教育行业的悲惨现状并非难以克服。目前教育的恶化主要是由于共产主义国家的政策。教育被视为为国家赚钱的服务，而不是对未来的投资。共产主义国家也不区分教育和宣传。学生被灌输了教师和学习者都知道是错误和无用的知识。此外，经济僵局和社会腐败使青少年和家长不知道该学什么。所有这些事业都将在一个尊重自由、尊重人民并将教育培养视为国家生存斗争的政权下消失。
戊、改善环境，把国家组织成大城市
我们是一个遭受如此多破坏的国家，因此我们必须谨慎地保管和维护我们的历史遗迹和景点。这些是宝贵的资产、自豪的源泉和将越南人民联系在一起的纽带。这些古迹的修复成本不会很高，因为数量很少，对国家来说也可能不会太高。我们将把一些具有旅游价值的古迹和景观的开发权和维护义务招标给越南私营公司，并将一些宗教古迹委托给教会。
我们国家地广人稀，所以必须像大城市一样构思和组织起来，即干净、美丽、安全，基础设施、行政、法律、文化、教育机构，医疗保健遍布全境，而不是像今天一样专注于大城市——尤其是河内和西贡，森林被照顾成公园、聚会场所和平等公民的娱乐场所。
要规范并严格执行施工标准，防止不安全施工或乱建破坏景观。旅游业将是一项重要的经济活动，如果我们的国家不美丽，我们很难想象旅游业会成功。
目前无组织的捕捞政策严重减少了我们的海产品资源。我们需要立即制定简单、透明和彻底适用的法规来拯救海洋和海鲜资源。滥砍滥伐和出售木材的运动——仍在继续——有可能使我们国家变得荒芜；这一运动必须立即停止。恢复林木既需要大量资金，也需要定期保护和照料，因此国家预算可能负担不起。有必要研究将每个林区和每片森林承包给越南私营公司进行恢复和开发的解决方案，并有明确的利益和承诺。
在努力发展工业的同时，还必须对如何处理废料有明确的规定。
立即永久暂停中部高地的铝土矿开采项目。
在没有找到安全的废物处理技术并且越南无法确保工厂运营的绝对安全之前，暂停核电站的建设项目。
三、经济措施
在经济上，一个民主政府必须做的首先件事是结束其通过决议、公告、决定和指示的统治，代之以明确、粲然和稳定的法律。一套新的商业法是必不可少的，也是迫不及待的。同时，我们需要将国家努力集中在紧迫的问题上。
甲、剥离大部分国有企业和土地私有化
国家没有生产车辆、销售服装、开办旅行社和食品商店、管理旅馆和迪斯科舞厅的职能。国有公司和国有农场破坏了冒险精神，停滞了主动性，失去了责任感。我们将自营职业视为国民经济的基础，因此剥离国有企业和土地私有化是过渡时期的一项核心政策。市场经济转型国家的经验表明，撤资必须提高警惕，避免投机、分散国家资产、恶化需要撤资的企业。
我们将立即剥离所有可以剥离的国有公司和企业，即在没有国防机密的行业正常运营，为经济注入新的活力。
我们将立即按照将所有权归还给在我们土地上耕种的人的原则推进田地私有化，视情况而定，将国家分配的土地无偿或转售给农民。明确取消国家统一土地管理政策。
国有剥离和土地私有化政策的指导原则是，私人能做的，国家不会做。该政策将在五年后基本完成。
乙、最大限度地鼓励投资含来自国外的投资
逐步废除现行的投资和企业法，因为它们过于束缚，而且由于它们赋予外国人越南人所没有的权利，它们也将国内居民与居住在国外的人区离间起来。未来，外国投资者将拥有他们拥有的所有权利，并将拥有比今天更多的自由，但将无法拥有越南人民没有的权利。完成所有公司设立程序的时间不会超过一周。有必要意识到投资支持法的相对价值。如果特权是短期的，投资法只能吸引表面的投资，如果投资特权是长期的，投资法将倾向于成为常态。此外，投资决策很少取决于激励措施，在很大程度上取决于政治和经济背景。
丙、着力推进两项战略交通工程
在加强和改善基础设施的努力中，我们必须立即开始并必须持续多年、分多个阶段的两个重大工程是按照标准进行现代化和扩建的工程。连接河内和西贡的《跨越高速公路》。这些工程既对经济活动至关重要，又具体化了国家的统一，并在整个领土上创造了许多就业机会。与我国的需求相比，目前对这两个工程的预期仍然很低，但大部分活动都集中在这条交通轴线上。这两个工程的扩建和现代化对于金兰港的建设和运营项目也是必不可少的，这是我们将大力开展多年的重点工程，为国家和中部地区带来经济实力，该国最有前途的地区由于其沿海位置，但目前是最不开放的地区。
凭借我国非常特殊的形状以及最近艰难的历史时期，跨越高速公路必须既是主要的交通轴线，又是一个伟大的景观，是国家良好和可持续统一的象征。
四、复兴努力的资金来源
再谦卑的复兴计划也需要大量的费用。过渡时期的目标也非常雄心勃勃。我们会有很多困难，但我们也会有资金来源。
首先，结束共产党政府造成的浪费，其中最大的浪费是越南共产党自己造成的。目前，数十万人只为共产党的机构工作而获得报酬。数以千计的房屋和房间被非法占用为党的细胞的总部和办公室。腐败的干部和党员利用他们的权力，侵吞了国民总产值的重要组成部分。在共产党必须接受与其他政党平等的正常立足点的未来，国家将节省大量预算，释放大量人力资源并收回大量资产。
第二个资金来源是国家安全预算减少。我们无意征服任何国家，反之亦然，我们不再担心被军事征服。边境、海洋和岛屿的防御也不需要像今天这样庞大的步兵部队，而是一支精锐的机械化部队，主要是空军和海军。共产党国家目前的公安机构——官方和辅佐——可能由超过二百万人组成，但首先是为了保护共产党和压制民主愿望。一个真正的民主制国家不仅可以降低成本的重要组成部分，还可以提高其保卫领土和维护安全秩序的能力。
第三个资金来源是国有企业的剥离。如上所述，四合院政策的主要目的是使经济活动合理化和健康化。然而，剥离计划也将提供重要的资源。
第四个资金来源是在建立真正的民主政权后，海外越南社区更积极地做出贡献，符合海外同胞的深切愿望。拥有超过三百万人口的海外越南人，其中大部分居住在发达国家，年收入超过五百亿美元，每年可节省一百亿美元。但海外越南社区不仅是一个投资来源，而且可以在文化、科学和技术方面做出其他重要贡献。一旦与国家的关系正常化，海外越南社区将成为国家发展的重要杠杆。
但最重要和越来越丰富的资金来源是经济发展本身。目前，许多职业瘫痪，许多人才因被禁止或骚扰而被淘汰。在真正的民主和法治的保障下，将真正的商业自由还给人民，我们已经释放了许多新的活力，可以等待新的贡献。这种正确和诚实的经济政策也将能够调动人民中剩余的财政资源。没有什么力量比我们将通过释放和调动一个近一亿勤劳的民族的活力而拥有的力量更大。我们有权等待迅速和巨大的成就。在过渡期的五年内实现国民总产值翻一番的目标需要每年十五分之百的增长率，但这是一个触手可及的目标，因为我们是一个沿海国家，地理位置优越，人民勤劳，吸引外资的能力很大。这是即使是中国沿海省份在共产党统治下也能达到的比例。而且，我国还有很多未开发的潜力。我们落后不是因为客观困难，而是因为共产党政府的糟糕和腐化。
五、民主制过渡将成功，国家将崛起
我们有希望和乐观的权利。我国虽然跌跌撞撞，但仍有爬起来走过来的能力。
我们不需要期待奇迹或恩典。我们可以为自己创造奇迹，我们可以简单地给自己恩典。
使越南人民之间的关系正常化。郑重确认国家属于每个人，而不是单一政党或主义。承认所有个人和每个人的平等地位。解开仇恨和不容忍的枷锁，像兄弟一样互相凝视。为一个诚实和善良的国家带来乐观和信心。为私有财产权和经营权提供明确、可靠的保障。严格执行诚实讨论和规定的法律。决心铲除正在破坏国家肌体腐败和社会弊端。所有这些我们都可以做到，而且可以马上做到。然后我们会看到这个国家变了，然后我们会看到这个民族站起来征服未来。我们将发现自由、民主、国家和谐等非常简单的价值观的奥秘。即使在困难的技术、文化、社会和人事等条件下，我们也会看到一个成功的法治民主，因为它具有自我调整和改进的能力。国家一定会站起来，挺身而出，非常有力地前进。
玖、分享一个越南梦
如果我们能在建设共同未来的事业中调动所有的心、所有的脑、所有的手，我国就有能力成为一个强大国家。然而，可悲的现实是，今天我们仍在努力争取大多数民族已经拥有的东西：民主制。
这场斗争比我们想象的要长，因为除了已经确定的困难之外，还有一个原因：这是我国历史上一场全新的斗争。到目前为止，我们只有主权国家之间的内战，或者反对外国侵略者的战争，其目的毕竟是用外国奴隶制换取本土奴隶制。我们从来不是一个自由的民族。这一次，我们为开启一个新时代、我国历史的第二个纪元、自由越南人民和民主越南国的纪元而奋斗。
这是一场将越南人民和越南国家从奴隶制和贫困的黑暗中带入自由和繁荣之光的斗争。我们第一次有一场真正值得打的战斗。因此，今天的越南人民需要意识到，他们正面临着创造最大、最光荣的历史事件的机会，这是子孙后代无法拥有的机会。
我们面前的考验是巨大的，但激励我们的希望是更大的，因为这场斗争不仅是值得的和光荣的，而且是必然的。我们被全球民主思潮和一个逐渐从创伤中恢复过来的人民的共同愿望所承载和推动。我们得到了新一代人的支持，他们解放了自己，决心成为自由人。障碍的背后是光明的未来。
我们一定会成功的。越南民族在为仇恨和分裂、对权势的垄断、对暴力的狂热和崇拜付出了沉重的代价后觉醒了。我们用鲜血和泪水理解并接受了简单而神秘的价值观，例如自由、民主、和平、正义、宽容和努力等等。我们在自卑的普遍屈辱中，灌输了民族情怀。我们已经认识到，所有越南人都有着共同的命运。我们拥有自我们老祖宗开国以来最大的民族共识。这种共识将成为帮助我们克服所有障碍的不可战胜的武器。
世界历史最大的教训是，一个民族想要崛起，只需要三个因素：自由的社会、勤奋的人民和民族共识。我们是一个勤奋的民族，已经有了民族共识，即将拥有自由。我们要上去了。我们有权利在通往未来的旅途中保持乐观。
乐观和自豪，因为我们的斗争是纯洁的。它不是为了摧毁或羞辱任何人，而是为了尊重每个人、尊重作为我们人民应得的伟大民族的人权和享受幸福的权利而进行的斗争。
这次独裁制将是越南末后的独裁制。摆脱它，我们将永远进入一个新时代，一个自由、民主、宽容、关怀的时代，一个共同努力、共同成功的光辉时代。
让我们手牵手，举起一个咒愿：
越南将成为一个大国。
到目前为止，做越南人是一种不幸，在不久的将来做越南人将是一种喜悦、一种幸运和一种自豪。
世界已经知道越南是仇恨和分裂的受害者，是对权势的垄断，世界将来必须知道越南是宽容的土地，是成功的典范。从残败和废墟中恢复的兄弟情谊的成功。
那是我们这个时代的理想。那是我们留给后代的遗产。这是我多元民主集合会的志友们今天和明天共同追求并希望与国内外所有越南人民分享的越南梦想。
Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai (tài liệu học tập nội bộ)
Sau khi Nhật bắt tay với Pháp đàn áp phong trào Đông Du do Phan Bội Châu khởi xướng và trục xuất những du học sinh khỏi Nhật, thay vì bỏ cuộc, hàng loạt các du học sinh Việt Nam vẫn tiếp tục con đường cứu nước của mình, người thì qua Trung Quốc, Thái Lan tham gia vào những tổ chức chủ trương cách mạng bạo động để cứu nước, rồi bị mật thám của Pháp bắt cóc và thủ tiêu, người thì về Việt Nam kích động và tham gia vào những cuộc nổi dậy tại quê nhà, nhưng tất cả đều bị Pháp đàn áp một cách dã man. Đó là con đường mà Hoàng Hùng, Đặng Tư Mân, Lương Ngọc Quyến, Đàm Kỳ Sinh, Hoàng Trọng Mậu và rất nhiều những thanh niên thế hệ của họ đã đi. Tinh thần này tiếp tục được tiếp nối bởi Nguyễn Thái Học, Phó Đức Chính và rất nhiều những anh hùng khác trong Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng. Đó cũng là tinh thần chung của các lực lượng quốc gia trong cuộc đấu tranh giành quyền tự chủ cho đất nước cách đây gần một thế kỷ.
Xã hội dân sự Việt Nam đang cởi trói và mạnh lên trong khi lý tưởng cộng sản của bộ máy cai trị ngày càng thu nhỏ và yếu đi. Ảnh minh họa những bàn tay giơ cao của những dân tộc bị áp bức đòi tự do dân chủ
Những con người tham gia vào cuộc đấu tranh này là những con người đáng quý nhất của một dân tộc, thay vì chọn con đường công danh cho mình, họ đã chọn tham gia vào cuộc đấu tranh cho đất nước, dù biết sẽ phải trả giá đắt. Họ có thừa sự dũng cảm và nhiệt huyết, họ sẵn sàng chết cho đất nước và nhiều người thực sự đã chết cho đất nước. Nhưng họ đã thất bại. Tại sao ? Nếu sự dũng cảm và nhiệt huyết không đủ, thì cái gì mới là yếu tố quyết định thành công của một cuộc cách mạng ? Câu trả lời có lẽ là tư tưởng chính trị.
Tư tưởng chính trị
Các cuộc cách mạng, xét cho cùng, cũng có mục đích là đưa xã hội tiến tới một trình độ phát triển mới. Và yếu tố quyết định làm nên bước tiến của một xã hội chính là tư tưởng chính trị. Tư tưởng chính trị là khái niệm đặt ra để trả lời câu hỏi một quốc gia nên được tổ chức và sinh hoạt như thế nào. Nó là yếu tố quyết định sức sống của một quốc gia hay một phong trào, một chế độ chính trị. Nhận định này cho phép chúng ta nhìn rõ tình trạng hiện nay của đất nước và của chế độ cộng sản.
Nhiều người cho rằng chế độ cộng sản Việt Nam cũng như Trung Quốc đã mạnh lên nhiều nhờ những tiến bộ vượt bậc về kinh tế. Nhưng không. Sức mạnh của một chế độ độc tài không đến từ những con số tăng trưởng kinh tế mà đến từ khả năng duy trì được quyền lực tuyệt đối của mình lên xã hội, và khả năng này đến từ tư tưởng nền tảng của chế độ.
Cách đây hơn nửa thế kỷ, xã hội Việt Nam vẫn còn rất yếu, ngay cả những nhu cầu tối thiểu nhất vẫn còn chưa được thoả mãn, những kết hợp dân sự và chính trị đều đã bị nghiền nát bởi chính sách đàn áp của đảng cộng sản. Trong khi đó bộ máy cai trị lại rất mạnh và gắn kết nhờ sự cuồng tín vào lý tưởng cộng sản. Những tội ác đẫm máu như Cải Cách Ruộng Đất cũng không thể làm lung lay được chế độ vì nó được thực hiện nhân danh một lý tưởng quảng đại mà nhiều đảng viên và người dân đều tin là đúng. Một bộ máy cai trị mạnh chỉ phải đối đầu với một xã hội còn rất yếu đã giúp chế độ cộng sản dễ dàng khống chế được cả xã hội miền Bắc, rồi tấn công miền Nam, và áp đặt ách cai trị lên toàn bộ đất nước.
Tình hình ngày nay đã khác hẳn. Xã hội Việt Nam đã mạnh lên nhiều, và sẽ tiếp tục mạnh lên, nhờ sự cải thiện về mức sống, sự tiến bộ về công nghệ và truyền thông, sự gia tăng của thương mại và du lịch, nhiều đòi hỏi, suy tư mới đã xuất hiện. Trong khi đó bộ máy cai trị lại yếu đi nhiều, và ngày một yếu thêm, do các đảng viên đã mất hết niềm tin vào lý tưởng cộng sản, thay vì đoàn kết với nhau trong một lý tưởng chung thì các đảng viên lại quay ra tiêu diệt lẫn nhau để tranh giành quyền lợi và quyền lực. Tương quan sức mạnh giữa bộ máy cai trị và xã hội Việt Nam đã thay đổi hẳn và ngày một nghiêng dần về phía xã hội, tới một lúc nào đó nó sẽ nghiêng hẳn về phía xã hội và sự thay đổi chắc chắn sẽ đến. Vấn đề chỉ là khi nào và như thế nào. Trong chiều sâu, chính việc lý tưởng cộng sản mất hết nội dung đã là nguyên nhân đưa chế độ cộng sản Việt Nam và Trung Quốc đi tới đoạn cuối của tiến trình sụp đổ.
Những bước tiến đầu tiên
Nhưng không chỉ thế, tư tưởng chính trị cũng là yếu tố quyết định sự tiến hoá của một dân tộc. Những bước tiến về tư tưởng chính trị đầu tiên của dân tộc ta có lẽ bắt đầu từ thời Đường (Trung Quốc). Với ảnh hưởng của Phật Giáo, thời Đường được xem là triều đại thịnh vượng nhất của Trung Hoa với sự lên ngôi của hội họa và thi ca. Theo các nhà sử học đây cũng là thời kỳ áp lực hán hoá mạnh nhất, với bộ máy cai trị được tăng cường tới tận các cấp cơ sở, những người di cư từ phương bắc xuống nhiều hơn, kéo theo sự phát triển của giáo dục và văn hoá, mang theo một khối lượng đồ sộ những từ ngữ và khái niệm dùng để chuyên chở tư tưởng và các ý niệm trừu tượng vào tiếng Việt.
Ngày nay phần lớn các từ ngữ chính trị của chúng ta là từ Hán Việt, như là di sản của thời kỳ này. Chính sự xuất hiện của các từ ngữ chính trị trong tiếng Việt cùng với những ý niệm mà chúng chuyên chở đã mang lại cho những kết hợp chính trị một nội dung, một khả năng tổ chức, thu hút và động viên mới, giúp những kết hợp chính trị này đủ sức mạnh để đương đầu với những cuộc xâm lăng mới từ phương bắc. Không thể xây dựng ra những kết hợp chính trị nếu không có ngôn ngữ chính trị. Bước tiến đầu tiên về mặt tư tưởng chính trị này, dù chỉ mới ở mức độ sơ khai, kết hợp với những điều kiện có sẵn về địa lý và nhân văn đã đưa lịch sử Việt Nam rẽ vào một khúc quanh mới, từ sau thời Đường, các triều đại của Trung Quốc không còn khả năng để tái lập ách đô hộ tại Việt Nam nữa.
Tuy vậy, ngay sau khi đạt được bước tiến đầu tiên, chúng ta lại dẫm chân tại chỗ trong gần 1000 năm tiếp theo về tư tưởng chính trị, kéo theo đó, đương nhiên, là sự trì trệ của xã hội, sự thay đổi tiếp theo chỉ tới khi chúng ta tiếp xúc với phương Tây. Tại sao ? Có hai nguyên nhân.
Trước hết là do khoảng cách phát triển giữa xã hội Việt Nam và nền văn minh Trung Hoa mà chúng ta hấp thụ. Trước khi tiếp xúc với nền văn minh Trung Hoa, chúng ta mới chỉ phát triển ở một trình độ rất thấp. Một thí dụ là chúng ta vẫn chưa có chữ viết - phương tiện để truyền thông, thống kê, ghi chép và lưu trữ - điều kiện bắt buộc phải có để xây dựng nên những kết hợp của rất nhiều người trên một khu vực rộng lớn như chính quyền hay quốc gia. Có lẽ khi đó chúng ta chỉ mới đạt tới trình độ bộ tộc, có mọi khả năng Văn Lang và Âu Lạc chỉ là liên minh giữa các bộ tộc. Trong khi đó nền văn minh Trung Hoa đã phát triển đầy đủ cả về ngôn ngữ, chữ viết, cũng như cách tổ chức xã hội, tư tưởng chính trị đã đủ mạnh để đặt nền tảng cho một bộ máy cai trị có thể bao phủ trên một khu vực rất rộng lớn từ vùng Hoa Bắc tới miền Bắc Việt Nam, nền văn minh Trung Hoa đã đi trước chúng ta hàng ngàn năm. Chúng ta đã chỉ có khả năng tổ chức ra các chính quyền sau khi du nhập chữ viết và tư tưởng chính trị từ phương bắc.
Với tổ tiên ta lúc đó, nền văn minh Trung Hoa là bước nhảy vọt quá lớn, tới gần 1000 năm sau ông cha ta cũng không thể tiêu hoá nổi bước nhảy vọt này. Một thí dụ là vào thế kỷ 19, sau gần 1000 năm độc lập, nhưng lịch sử được giảng dạy trong các trường học vào đầu thời Nguyễn không phải là sử Việt Nam mà là sử Tàu. Trong chiếu Cần Vương, một văn bản kêu gọi người Việt đứng lên chống ngoại xâm, nhưng lại viết bằng chữ Hán thay vì chữ Nôm vốn đã rất thịnh hành vào thời kỳ đó, trong văn bản này, Hàm Nghi cũng hoàn toàn không nhắc tới những anh hùng dân tộc đã có công chống ngoại xâm như Ngô Quyền, Trần Hưng Đạo, Lê Lợi hay Nguyễn Trãi mà chỉ nhắc tới những nhân vật và điển tích bên Tàu, thời Chu, thời Đường. Sự việc tầng lớp tinh hoa nhất của xã hội Việt Nam học và say mê sử Tàu, bỏ quên sử Việt, cho thấy tinh thần dân tộc của chúng ta rất thấp, nếu không muốn nói là không có gì. Không có gì bất ngờ khi nhà Nguyễn nhanh chóng sụp đổ trước đội quân vài ngàn người của Pháp. Giới trí thức ngày nay vẫn chưa chứng tỏ mình đã đoạn tuyệt được với di sản này. Lòng yêu nước và ý niệm quốc gia vẫn là những khái niệm quá mới.
Một lý do khác xuất phát từ chính nền văn minh Trung Hoa (Khổng giáo) mà chúng ta hấp thụ. Khổng giáo là một nền văn hoá nô lệ, nó nô lệ hoá tầng lớp sĩ - tầng lớp có học nhất của xã hội (1). Những tiến bộ về tư tưởng chính trị chỉ có thể xuất phát từ tầng lớp có khả năng nhất trong xã hội, và như thế, một khi tầng lớp này bị vô hiệu hoá thì đương nhiên xã hội không thể tiến hoá thêm. Nhưng không chỉ thế, Khổng giáo là gì ? Nó là kết tinh của nền văn minh phù sa hình thành trên hai con sông Hoàng Hà và Dương Tử. Nền văn minh nền tảng của Việt Nam là gì ? Cũng là nền văn minh phù sa hình thành cùng với con đê sông Hồng. Chính vì thế mà Khổng giáo đã rất dễ dàng du nhập cũng như ăn sâu bám rễ vào xã hội Việt Nam, những dấu ấn của nền văn minh phù sa lên xã hội như sự bạo ngược, sự thủ cựu, thiển cận, thiếu sáng kiến và thiếu óc mạo hiểm cũng là những giá trị được đề cao trong Khổng giáo. Không chỉ nô lệ hoá tầng lớp sĩ, Khổng giáo kết hợp với di sản của nền văn minh phù sa đã nô lệ hoá cả xã hội Việt Nam.
Điều này giải thích tại sao những dấu ấn của Khổng giáo lên xã hội Việt Nam lại mạnh mẽ như vậy, cho tới ngày này, sự hiện diện của nó vẫn rất rõ, nhất là tại khu vực nông thôn. Nhận định này cũng giải thích tại sao các nước Đông Á, dù cũng tiếp xúc nhiều với nền văn minh Trung Hoa nhưng lại không bị ảnh hưởng bởi Khổng giáo nặng như Việt Nam, và đã tiến bộ nhanh hơn Việt Nam, vì nền văn hoá nền tảng của họ không phải là nền văn minh phù sa. Một thí dụ là Mông Cổ, với nền văn hoá nền tảng là văn hoá du mục, vốn mang tích chất phóng khoáng hơn nhiều nền văn minh phù sa, nên dù bị ảnh hưởng nhiều bởi Trung Quốc, Khổng giáo cũng không thể bén rễ sâu vào xã hội của họ, ngày nay Mông Cổ là một nước dân chủ, dù bị kẹp giữa bởi hai quốc gia độc tài khổng lồ. Với sự bện chặt giữa nền văn minh phù sa và Khổng giáo khiến xã hội Việt Nam không tiến hoá nổi, cho tới đầu thế kỷ 20, sau hơn 1000 năm kể từ bước tiến về tư tưởng chính trị đầu tiên, chúng ta không sản sinh ra nổi một nhà tư tưởng chính trị nào.
Văn minh phù sa-lúa nước cộng với Khổng giáo đã giam hãm tư tưởng của dân tộc ta suốt chiều dài lịch sử.
Sự thất bại của các lực lượng quốc gia trước và trong Cách Mạng Tháng Tám
Với sự thiếu hụt về tư tưởng quốc gia như vậy, sự thất bại của các lực lượng quốc gia vào đầu thế kỷ 20 là điều không thể tránh được, dù những con người đã tham gia vào cuộc đấu tranh này có thừa sự dũng cảm và nhiệt huyết. Đó là điều tất yếu của lịch sử, mọi cuộc cách mạng là để đưa xã hội tiến tới một trình độ phát triển mới, và muốn vậy, thì các lực lượng cách mạng phải có tư tưởng chính trị, nếu không, chỉ có thể thất bại. Cũng chính khoảng trống về tư tưởng quốc gia này, cùng với sự yếu kém của tinh thần dân tộc, đã cho phép đảng cộng sản, một lực lượng với tư tưởng xây dựng thế giới đại đồng, phủ nhận vai trò của quốc gia, phát triển rồi tận dụng thời cơ để nắm được chính quyền. Thảm kịch nằm ở chỗ tư tưởng cộng sản không phải là một bước tiến mà là một bước lùi so với chế độ thuộc địa. Bước lùi về tư tưởng chính trị này đã đưa Việt Nam từ một trong những nước có tiềm năng vươn lên nhất thành một nước chậm tiến và tụt hậu nhất.
75 năm sau chúng ta vẫn chưa thoát khỏi bước lùi này. Nguyên nhân được nhiều người giải thích là sự yếu kém, chia rẽ của các lực lượng đối lập, nhưng đó cũng là tình trạng mà các lực lượng quốc gia gặp phải trước và sau Cách Mạng tháng Tám, nó là hệ quả tự nhiên của việc thiếu đồng thuận trên một tư tưởng chính trị, không có đồng thuận thì chia rẽ là hiển nhiên. Chúng ta vẫn chưa giải quyết được chế độ này vì chúng ta vẫn chưa vượt lên trên được cái di sản của lịch sử đã đưa chúng ta tới ngày hôm nay.
Bước nhảy vọt tiếp theo về tư tưởng chính trị
May mắn hơn những thế hệ đầu thế kỷ 20 - nhập cuộc mà không có tư tưởng dẫn đường, thế hệ đầu thế kỷ 21 không xuất phát từ con số không. Nhìn thấy nguyên nhân khiến đất nước ta đã phải trải qua hết thảm kịch này tới thảm kịch khác là do sự thiếu hụt về tư tưởng chính trị, thế hệ đi trước đã xây dựng nên một tư tưởng chính trị mới với tham vọng kết hợp những người còn ý chí và niềm tin vào đất nước để thay đổi hướng đi của dân tộc. Tư tưởng chính trị này được trình bày trong Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai, đó là nhiệm vụ là lịch sử của thời đại chúng ta, là bối cảnh thế giới và đất nước cũng như những hi vọng và thử thách, là những giá trị nền tảng và những định hướng lớn cho một nước Việt Nam tương lai, là cách tổ chức xã hội hợp lý cho một nước Việt Nam mới, và chắc chắn không thể thiếu là tiến trình để đánh bại chế độ độc tài và chuyển hoá thành công về dân chủ (2). Với dự án chính trị này chúng ta sẽ không còn phải lần mò trong bóng tối để rồi đi vào tai họa như thế hệ trước đã mắc phải cách đây gần một thế kỷ. Bước nhảy vọt về tư tưởng chính trị này, sớm muộn, cũng dẫn tới một bước tiến lớn cho đất nước.
"Giấc mơ Việt Nam" mới thay thế cho giấc mơ cộng sản (Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai)
Giấc mơ Việt Nam
Nhìn lại thời kỳ "dựng nghiệp" của Đảng cộng sản cho phép chúng ta rút ra một vài kết luận. Trong khi các lực lượng quốc gia đã gục ngã sau cuộc khởi nghĩa Yên Bái năm 1930, thì với đảng cộng sản, dù bị đàn áp dã man sau Xô Viết Nghệ Tĩnh 1930-1931, rồi một lần nữa sau Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa 1940, họ vẫn gượng dậy được, để rồi là lực lượng duy nhất trụ vững tới tháng 8/1945, và sau đó chúng ta đều đã rõ. Tại sao ? Đó là vì họ có một lý tưởng, một giấc mơ cộng sản. Chính vì thế mà dù gặp khó khăn hay thất bại nặng nề tới đâu họ vẫn gượng dậy được. Trần Phú, Lê Hồng Phong, Hà Huy Tập, Nguyễn Văn Cừ… những lãnh đạo cao nhất lần lượt bị sát hại nhưng vẫn không thể đánh gục được đảng cộng sản. Một giấc mơ chung đã mang lại cho đảng cộng sản một khả năng động viên ghê gớm. Và chính nó cũng lý giải thích tình trạng rệu rã của đảng cộng sản hiện nay - họ không còn giấc mơ hay lý tưởng chung gì nữa. Vậy thì đã đến lúc chúng ta cần một giấc mơ mới, một giấc mơ chung để động viên người Việt Nam tham gia vào một dự án xây dựng tương lai mới, thay thế cho dự án cộng sản độc hại và đã phá sản. Đó cũng là nội dung của chương cuối trong Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai, một giấc mơ chung để động viên mọi trái tim, mọi khối óc, mọi bàn tay tham gia vào sự nghiệp xây dựng tương lai chung.
"Nước Việt Nam sẽ là một nước lớn.
Làm người Việt Nam cho tới nay đã là một điều bất hạnh thì làm người Việt Nam trong một tương lai gần sẽ phải là một niềm vui, một may mắn và một nguồn hãnh diện.
Thế giới đã biết đến Việt Nam như là nạn nhân của hận thù và chia rẽ, của óc độc quyền lẽ phải thì thế giới sẽ phải biết đến Việt Nam sau này như là vùng đất của sự bao dung, như là một mẫu mực thành công của tình anh em tìm lại, của sự hồi sinh từ điêu tàn và đổ nát" (2).
Với giấc mơ này chúng ta sẽ dân chủ hóa đất nước.
"Rồi chúng ta sẽ thấy đất nước này thay da đổi thịt, rồi chúng ta sẽ thấy dân tộc này vùng dậy chồm tới chinh phục tương lai. Chúng ta sẽ khám phá ra sự mầu nhiệm của những giá trị rất đơn giản như tự do dân chủ, hòa hợp dân tộc. Chúng ta sẽ thấy là một chế độ dân chủ pháp trị thành công ngay cả trong những điều kiện kỹ thuật, văn hóa, xã hội và nhân sự khó khăn vì có khả năng tự điều chỉnh và cải tiến. Đất nước nhất định sẽ đứng dậy, đi tới và tiến lên rất mạnh mẽ" (2).
Trần Hùng
(02/09/2020)
1. Các độc giả có thể tìm hiểu kỹ hơn về Khổng giáo cũng như nền văn minh phù sa trong cuốn Tổ Quốc Ăn Năn của tác giả Nguyễn Gia Kiểng.
Tập Hợp Dân Chủ Đa Nguyên (Tập Hợp) ra đời đến nay vừa tròn 30 năm. Trong suy nghĩ của người dân Việt Nam và một số người tranh đấu thì Tập Hợp có lẽ là một tổ chức chính trị không giống ai và nhất là không giống với các tổ chức từng có và từng được biết đến của người Việt.
Buổi ra mắt Dự án chính trị dân chủ đa nguyên Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai tại Paris ngày 6/6/2015
Có ý kiến cho rằng không thấy Tập Hợp làm gì ngoài việc… viết và nói. Một việc làm có vẻ kỳ cục nữa là Tập Hợp đã dành nhiều thời gian để viết, cập nhật và nói đi nói lại về cái gọi là Dự Án Chính Trị của mình đến lần thứ… 5 với tên gọi là Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai. Nhiều người không hiểu "dự án chính trị" là cái gì và để làm gì ?...
Tập Hợp cũng là tổ chức chưa từng kêu gọi bất cứ một cuộc biểu tình nào từ trước đến nay tại Việt Nam. Tập Hợp cũng là tổ chức đối lập chưa bao giờ kêu gọi lật đổ chế độ cộng sản bằng bạo lực….
Tập Hợp cũng là tổ chức không thấy công khai lực lượng trong cũng như ngoài nước. Tổ chức của Tập Hợp có vẻ lỏng lẻo, không có cấp bậc và ban bệ rõ ràng, Tập Hợp giống một câu lạc bộ hơn là một tổ chức chính trị…
Tập Hợp cũng là tổ chức nói nhiều về tầm quan trọng của tổ chức trong lúc nhiều người vẫn tranh đấu mà không cần có tổ chức.
Tổ chức là cái gì và nó có thật sự cần thiết và quan trọng không ?
Có lẽ các ý kiến đều có phần đúng nhưng đó chỉ là bề nổi. Bản chất của sự việc khác hoàn toàn.
Có một sự thật là suốt trong dòng lịch sử của dân tộc, người dân Việt Nam chưa bao giờ thành lập và xây dựng được cho mình một tổ chức chính trị đúng nghĩa vì vậy đại đa số vẫn chưa hiểu thế nào là một tổ chức chính trị và đấu tranh chính trị là như thế nào ?
Đảng cộng sản Việt Nam không phải là một tổ chức chính trị đúng nghĩa vì nó ra đời như là một phân bộ của Quốc tế cộng sản 3 do Liên xô đứng đầu. Đảng cộng sản Việt Nam tồn tại dựa trên dối trá và bạo lực với một hệ tư tưởng độc hại là chủ nghĩa Mác-Lênin. Mô hình nhà nước xã hội chủ nghĩa đã sụp đổ trên toàn thế giới.
Trước hết thế nào là một đảng chính trị ?
Theo định nghĩa của chúng tôi, thì "một chính đảng đúng nghĩa được quan niệm như là một dụng cụ để thể hiện một tư tưởng chính trị nghiêm túc và để thực hiện một dự án chính trị đúng đắn".
Như vậy "một đảng (hay một tổ chức) chính trị là tập hợp của những người cùng chia sẻ một lý tưởng chính trị với mong muốn tham gia vào chính trường, được nắm quyền để thay đổi xã hội theo những giá trị mà tổ chức đó đề nghị và theo đuổi".
Một tổ chức chính trị mà không có tham vọng và cố gắng để trở thành đảng cầm quyền không phải là một chính đảng thực sự. Những người tranh đấu mà không có tham vọng tham gia vào chính trường trong tương lai cũng không phải là các chính trị gia thật sự mà chỉ là các nhà hoạt động xã hội dân sự.
Đấu tranh dân chủ là gì ? Đâu là bản chất và nguyên tắc đấu tranh của một tổ chức dân chủ ?
Theo chúng tôi thì bản chất của cuộc đấu tranh dân chủ là : "Mỗi một tổ chức chính trị sẽ đưa ra một ‘giải pháp chính trị’ mới, với những khác biệt so với chính sách hiện hành của đảng cầm quyền, thuyết phục người dân để tạo ra sự đồng thuận, sau đó là vận động tranh cử và cố gắng dành chiến thắng trong các cuộc bầu cử tự do để trở thành đảng cầm quyền. Cuối cùng là thực thi những giải pháp đã đề nghị".
Nguyên tắc và luật chơi của dân chủ là như vậy, tuy nhiên ở Việt Nam thì khó khăn hơn vì quá trình này bị một lực lượng phản dân chủ là Đảng cộng sản Việt Nam cấm đoán, bắt bớ và đàn áp. Việc giới thiệu, thuyết phục và giải thích các ‘giải pháp chính trị’ của các tổ chức dân chủ đến người dân Việt Nam gặp rất nhiều khó khăn. Hơn nữa sự cản trở đến từ văn hóa bảo thủ và cam chịu của Khổng giáo cũng ảnh hưởng rất lớn cho quá trình thuyết phục người dân thay đổi. Cho dù như vậy thì ‘nguyên tắc và bản chất’ của cuộc đấu tranh dân chủ là không thay đổi. Hầu hết những tổ chức dân chủ và những người đang đấu tranh cho dân chủ không hiểu điều này.
Cứu cánh (mục đích cuối cùng) duy nhất của Tập Hợp là "xây dựng một nền dân chủ thật sự cho Việt Nam". Đảng cộng sản là lực lượng cản đường nên phải "đánh bại độc tài" thì mới xây dựng được dân chủ cho Việt Nam. Tập Hợp cho rằng không thể và không nên theo đuổi một cuộc cách mạng đường phố bằng lật đổ và bạo loạn, đập phá đi tất cả những gì liên quan đến cộng sản…
Tập Hợp đề nghị và theo đuổi một cuộc cách mạng "dân chủ đa nguyên" bằng phương pháp "bất bạo động", trên tinh thần "hòa giải và hòa hợp dân tộc". Đối lập dân chủ sẽ buộc Đảng cộng sản Việt Nam ngồi vào bàn đàm phán và chuyển giao quyền lực trong hòa bình và ôn hòa. Đối lập dân chủ sẽ "kế thừa" những di sản, cả xấu lẫn tốt của chế độ cộng sản chứ không mong muốn xóa đi tất cả để làm lại từ đầu. Bộ máy hành chính nhà nước với hệ thống nhân sự của nó vẫn giữ nguyên, mọi thay đổi chỉ đơn thuần mang tính kỹ thuật. Chúng ta chỉ cần thay đổi hệ tư tưởng cộng sản lỗi thời và bất lực.
Muốn làm được điều đó thì Phong trào dân chủ Việt Nam phải có lực lượng và phải được quần chúng ủng hộ.
Muốn được quần chúng ủng hộ thì các tổ chức đối lập dân chủ phải có ít nhất hai điều kiện căn bản :
Một là phải có một lực lượng cán bộ nòng cốt, là những người đã thống nhất và đồng thuận với nhau trên những lập trường và quan điểm chung cơ bản của tổ chức.
Thứ hai là tổ chức đó phải có những đề nghị và giải pháp rõ ràng và cụ thể cho lộ trình tranh đấu, trong hiện tại lẫn tương lai.
Tập Hợp đã có cả hai yếu tố đó. Giải pháp thay thế và đề nghị của chúng tôi được trình bày rõ ràng và cụ thể trong Dự án chính trị Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai.
Người lãnh đạo cũng như một tổ chức có tham vọng lãnh đạo phải là người dẫn đường, là người lựa chọn giữa các sáng kiến và ý kiến, là người đưa ra các quyết định cuối cùng để đưa tổ chức đi đến thắng lợi cuối cùng.
Ai cũng có thể nói và bàn luận về chính trị nhưng không phải ai cũng đưa ra được những quyết định, giải pháp và lựa chọn tốt nhất trong chính trị. Phải có tầm nhìn và kiến thức sâu rộng về chính trị thì mới có thể làm được việc đó. Nếu ai cũng làm được thì đâu còn nước nghèo, nước giàu, nước phát triển và nước kém phát triển ?
Làm chính trị là để thay đổi xã hội theo hướng tích cực và tốt đẹp hơn chứ không phải để "vinh thân phì gia". Làm chính trị cũng là để cống hiến và phục vụ cho người dân thông qua một tư tưởng và một số giá trị quảng đại.
Chúng tôi cho rằng dân chủ hóa đất nước là bổn phận của tất cả mọi người Việt Nam yêu nước. Mỗi người làm mỗi việc, mỗi người góp một tay cho phong trào chung. Đất nước không phải là phần thưởng hay chiến lợi phẩm để chia chác hay ban phát cho bất cứ ai vì vậy không ai có quyền và có thể ‘tranh dành’ ở đây. Chúng tôi tin rằng, trong một chế độ dân chủ mọi người Việt Nam đều có một vị trí và một công việc phù hợp với khả năng của từng người. Thật lòng là chúng tôi lo lắng khi đất nước có dân chủ thì sẽ thiếu người có năng lực để làm việc thay vì phải ‘mua bán’ hay tranh dành như hiện nay.
Tập Hợp đang làm một cuộc cách mạng dân chủ "bất bạo động" nên nó sẽ không giống với bất cứ cuộc cách mạng nào trước đây.
Nói ngắn gọn thì Tập Hợp đã đưa ra một giải pháp toàn diện và tổng thể cho Việt Nam mà nội dung của nó đã được trình bày đầy đủ trong dự án chính trị Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai. Giải pháp này sẽ thay thế cho giải pháp cộng sản đã thực thi suốt 70 năm qua và đã phá sản trên thực tế. Tiếp theo sẽ là thuyết phục, giải thích cho người dân Việt Nam hiểu rõ về giải pháp đó. Khi nào người dân Việt Nam đồng ý vì thấy "giải pháp thay thế" của Tập Hợp là đúng đắn và hợp lý thì khi đó người dân sẽ ủng hộ cho Tập Hợp. Khi đã có được một sự đồng thuận lớn trong dân chúng thì Tập Hợp sẽ kêu gọi và tổ chức một cuộc biểu tình đòi tổng tuyển cử tự do trên toàn quốc. Tập Hợp sẽ cố gắng cùng với các "đồng minh" chiến thắng trong cuộc tổng tuyển cử này để trở thành đảng cầm quyền và cuối cùng là thực thi những gì đã đề nghị trước đó trong Dự án chính trị Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai.
Tập Hợp không muốn "cầm tay chỉ việc" hay đốt cháy giai đoạn bằng cách xách động quần chúng biểu tình khi chưa có được sự đồng thuận mà chỉ muốn thuyết phục người dân bằng một con đường, một giải pháp hợp lý và khả quan cho tất cả mọi người. Chúng tôi tin rằng với sự kiên nhẫn và bao dung thì đến một lúc nào đó người dân sẽ nhận ra rằng Tập Hợp chính là một giải pháp cho đất nước. Khi đó tự người dân sẽ yêu cầu Tập Hợp ‘phất cờ khởi nghĩa’ và Tập Hợp sẵn sàng nhận lãnh trách nhiệm đó.
Hiện tại người dân vẫn còn phân vân, tuy không còn hy vọng hay trông chờ gì vào sự thay đổi của đảng cộng sản nữa nhưng mọi người lại chưa sẵn sàng ủng hộ cho một tổ chức chính trị mới như Tập Hợp. Dù cũng rất sốt ruột nhưng chúng tôi cũng không thể nhảy khi chưa có nhạc. Muốn hay không thì cũng phải kiên nhẫn thuyết phục người dân trước đã. Giữa việc chán ngán cộng sản và việc ủng hộ cho một tổ chức chính trị mới là một đoạn đường dài.
Sở dĩ Tập Hợp không thành lập ra các ban bệ với các chức vụ này khác vì nó chưa cần thiết. Cũng giống như việc chuẩn bị xây một ngôi nhà, trước hết phải có bản vẽ, vật liệu và nhân lực… Khi đã có tất cả các yếu tố đó rồi thì bắt đầu phân công công việc cũng không muộn. Hiện tại Tập Hợp đang tìm kiếm và xây dựng lực lượng cán bộ nòng cốt, là những người hiểu rõ lộ trình tranh đấu của tổ chức và có kiến thức thực sự về chính trị.
Công việc chính hiện tại của Tập Hợp là truyền thông, cho nên việc đặt ra các chức vụ là không cần thiết. Việc công khai lực lượng cũng vậy, ở trong nước Tập Hợp chỉ có các thân hữu, khi thời cơ đến thì do nắm vững được tư tưởng và đường lối đã ghi trong Khai Sáng Kỷ Nguyên Thứ Hai, họ dễ dàng và nhanh chóng trở thành các thành viên chính thức. Khả năng của một vị tướng là biết trao dồi kiến thức, xây dựng lực lượng và tổ chức cách điều hành và chỉ huy trong mọi tình huống.
Nói, viết, thảo luận và đưa ra các ý kiến về các vấn đề quan trọng của cuộc sống... là biểu hiện cho sự sống của một tổ chức chính trị. Đảng cộng sản Việt Nam coi như đã chết vì họ không còn gì để thảo luận với nhau và không còn gì để nói với quần chúng ngoài chuyện đàn áp. Trong khi đó Tập Hợp vẫn nói, vẫn viết, vẫn thảo luận công khai với người dân mỗi ngày. Có thể nói Tập Hợp gần như là người phát ngôn kiên trì của phong trào dân chủ Việt Nam.
Một lý do khiến Tập Hợp vẫn chưa nhận được sự ủng hộ cần có của người dân Việt Nam là vì ảnh hưởng của văn hóa. Cuộc đổi đời mà Tập Hợp đang cố gắng xây dựng và thực hiện là văn hóa. Thể chế chính trị xét cho cùng cũng là sự thể hiện văn hóa của mỗi quốc gia. Chúng ta đã quen với văn hóa tôn sùng bạo lực, thù hận, nóng vội, hời hợt và chia rẽ trong khi đó văn hóa hòa giải, bao dung, kiên nhẫn, viễn kiến và cách làm việc có tổ chức... vẫn còn rất mới lạ. Tuy nhiên dù khó khăn đến đâu Tập Hợp cũng sẽ cố gắng và kiên nhẫn thuyết phục người dân Việt Nam vì thứ văn hóa mới đó là cần thiết cho chúng ta, nó sẽ đưa chúng ta tới dân chủ và phồn vinh.
Muốn xây dựng được nền văn hóa mới thì phải xây dựng một tư tưởng chính trị để thay đổi nền văn hóa cũ, thay đổi cách suy nghĩ và hành động của mọi người, dẫn tới thay đổi văn hóa của cả dân tộc. Cuộc vận động tư tưởng phải luôn đi trước để dẫn đường cho một cuộc thay đổi toàn diện. Đây là phương pháp mà Tập Hợp đang cổ xướng và theo đuổi.
Anh em Tập Hợp tin rằng, người dân Việt Nam sẽ sớm nhận ra được tầm nhìn đầy viễn kiến của những người đã khai sinh ra Tập Hợp và đang được tiếp nối bởi sự cố gắng không mệt mỏi của các trí thức chính trị trẻ đầy nhiệt huyết và có trách nhiệm trong sứ mệnh dân chủ hóa Việt Nam. Hãy tìm hiểu và ủng hộ cho chúng tôi.
Việt Hoàng
(15/10/2018)
