#title A Red Country #author Ngu Thi Yen, Mèo Mun #SORTauthors Ngu Thi Yen, Mèo Mun #SORTtopics Vietnam, state capitalism, state socialism, authoritarian socialism, anarchist, poetry, Fifth Estate, anarchism #date July 2021 #source Retrieved on July 21 2021 from https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/409-summer-2021/ #lang en #pubdate 2021-07-21T10:13:03 #notes Published in Fifth Estate # 409, Summer, 2021 My country’s red, long so I was told Victories, a star glows Flag crimson, glorious so Vanguard leads, the people follow. Red in sight, we have traded lives Beat armies, lay siege to empires. Red in mind, we have triumphed fights Bathed rivals in blood and plight. Why today I see but grey Of skyscrapers in fatal haze Of nostalgia from olden days Of people’s groveling for a pay. Red, they lie, whilst we sell and buy Whilst at sea our people die. Set vanguard on fire, compatriot mine So from black, a rainbow shall rise. ---- *Ngu Thi Yen is a Vietnamese translator and writer working to make anarchist theory more accessible to Vietnamese speakers. He writes to illustrate “the state capitalist reality in Vietnam with a call to action to build a true libertarian society.* *“There is a lack of anarchist voices from Vietnam due to state repression and inaccessibility to primary sources. The most prominent Vietnamese voices in both leftist and anarchist spaces are, alarmingly, pro-authoritarian and state-friendly.* *“As fellow South East Asian anarchists, libertarian communists and principled workers, it is our duty to call out the Vietnamese state’s for-profit, authoritarian capitalist nature and callous disregard for the workers’ lives.”*