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Show People 's war 'democratic' ' ' y - i. - J 1 Robert Scheer, an American, and Vu Thien Dinh, a Vietnamese, discussed the effect of the Vietnam War on their countries before the Contemporary Issues class Thursday night in a joint appearance ap-pearance entitled, "North Vietnam: Threat or Model?" Mr. Scheer, a former editor of "Ramparts" magazine, has traveled extensively in Communist countries. coun-tries. He used this experience as a basis for his talk. He maintained that Vietnam "wants communism." He said that "the thing that scares us about communism is not its totalitarianism or its designs on world conquest, but its morality; it is humanistic." Scheer contrasted the brand of communism of Eastern Europe with that of Asia. The main difference, said Scheer, is that the Asian communist countries got it through a people's war. "When Americans say 'The Vietnamese don't know what communism is,' they don't understand un-derstand the experience of the Vietnamese people," said Scheer. "Almost all Vietnamese people have, at some time in their lives, lived under the influence of the NLF or the Viet Minh. His life is a continual comparative political science course," explained Mr. Scheer. "We have contempt for their ability to make their own decisions." "Most people don't understand the price of choosincj to fight a revolution; it is a frightful and painful cost," explained Mr. Scheer. "A revolution is the slow process of winning the support of the people, of getting the people behind you. It is the ultimate democratic experience." Mr. Scheer also discussed the JiMGWt!'...'" Vietnamese student Vu Thien Dinh (left) and American journalist Robert Scheer discuss the Indochinese war and its effects before the Contemporary Issues class Thursday evening. Photos by Ron Kesler role the war has on our society, saying that "the Vietnamese War is one of those experiences of the American conscience that we will have to deal with whether the war ends or not." He claimed that the effect was much like that of the extermination of the Jews on the conscience of the German people; "they are bored even to talk about it." In the same way, "we are bored with the major moral crisis of our time." "We can talk about slavery, the Indians, the chicanos, they are very similar situations," says Scheer. "We must remember, the Vietnam War was not an accident or a mistake, they knew exactly what they were doing. It was not the work of deranged extremists, rather the product of the best thinking of the 'best' minds that America had to offer." Mr. Vu Thien Dinh, a Vietnamese Viet-namese student studying at Berkeley, emphasized the revolutionary history of Vietnam. "This is not the first fight against foreign invaders; the first was 4000 years ago when the Chinese invaded in-vaded Vietnam and we have been fighting foreign oppressors ever since. The desire to regain independence in-dependence is not new." Mr. Vu stated that "Vietnam is one country, the Vietnamese are one people. But there is oppression; op-pression; the oppression of the U.S. and South Vietnamese administration ad-ministration against the people." Interspersing Vietnamese poems and sayings with his speech, Mr. Vu related that almost "every family in Vietnam has a reason to fight against the U.S. aggressors," because everyone has a relative who has been killed or wounded in the struggle. |