To the naysayers

More than enough people are quick to sneer at India after Vikram's successful soft landing at the Southern Pole of the Moon. On one end, people were quick to say that the whole exercise was a hoax. It is an illusion. Then, others blurted that a country that cannot provide toilets to its citizens and whose population mostly live below the poverty line should not be sending rockets to the Moon (and playing with nuclear bombs). One even threatened to stop monetary 'aid' to India, conveniently forgetting any discussion on repatriation monies after years of looting from India. 

Firstly, everyone knows there is no way for everybody to prosper in sync before society moves up one notch higher. Things happen in tandem. There will be people who will have to do catching up, and there will be those who will lose out in the race for prosperity anyway. The only people who believe that the world needs equity are communists. Again and again, it has been proven that human greed surpasses any attempt at equity and even equality. Four-legged creatures elected to replace their two-legged oppressors will eventually begin standing erect on their hind legs. 

To be fair, India has improved by leaps and bounds since Independence. It has even overtaken its former colonial master as the 5th biggest economy by GDP after being left as the 13th poorest country on the planet when the British left their land. With regards to foreign aid, many quarters deny the usual foreign aid that first-world countries offer to a despotic basket-case government. Monies that trickle into India are investments from which investors hope to draw returns. Some are charity contributions by well-wishers with personal intent, e.g. evangelism and political donations.

With the 'Clean India' campaign in full steam, open defecation is a thing of the past. With many states having 100% access to toilets, open defecation is a thing of the past. 

Paradoxically, the country with the biggest economy must face the same problem. With its chiselled pavements and famous postcode 90120 that it sells to the world, even Los Angeles also has to deal with homelessness, drug addiction and cleaning up the sidewalks littered with human excrement. 

Karma often plays its game most cruelly. The colonisers who robbed their colonies blind now have to be content seeing their descendants being fed by the descendants of their subjects. The innumerable hungry, homeless and impoverished British regularly frequent Sikh soup kitchens for a square meal. 

Our experience from the 1960s space explorations has shown us there are many trickle-down benefits. Besides the numerous improvements in medicine and engineering, it also improves the life of the man on the street. Teflon was discovered. The knowledge to produce heat-resistant garments with adequate cooling technology becomes a game-changer in the day-to-day duties of firemen. Luggage bags with roller wheels have their origin in the space programme. At a time when the younger generation shows scant interest in STEM subjects, these types of ventures will surely rekindle their dwindling keenness. The Industrial Revolution and the subsequent leaps in civilisation did not happen because of economists and linguists but by scientists. Remember the economic opportunities that these ventures that offshoot from space travels. Money spent is not wasted but merely changes hands. Charity and social work can still go on. 

The West cannot handle the paradigm shift in the world order. For more than two centuries, people of the Judeo-Christian traditions held the chalice of power. This century is when the power transfer happens from the West to the East.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

First world problem in the third world!

Credit: weknowmemes.com

Look around us! We are indeed living in a third world, ruled by leaders whose subjects are still caught in the feudal era, at least in their mindsets. Even though they enjoy the benefits of modernity, their subservience is reminiscent of the natives of the bygone era; not of the thinking and curious one reflective of years of education spent on them. Anyway, the learned ones have all left the roost. The ones left to occupy the vacuum are runaway employees, economic refugees, fly-by-night snake-oil salesmen and overstaying sojourners who had been legalised through umpteen amnesties that were carried out to smokescreen the authorities' incompetence, to create economic opportunities and to fish for potential voter bank.

Some of the ones who opted to stay behind or lost out in the chase to scoot off the country when the opportune was ripe are generally too patriotic for their own good or had missed the gravy train.

The other day, I heard an interesting conversation between a few millennials who were, at least from the impression that I had, feeling 'guilty' of being privileged for having the comforts of modernity. They think that they had to pay back to the society. One of them suggested working at a soup kitchen. She related her fulfilling moments serving the needy, reminiscing the glistening of moist eyes of the persons of a full stomach. Another narrated her experience teaching the homeless and the sheer bliss of educating the ignoramus and the joy opening the inner eye of knowledge.

Some of us, the baby boomers and Generation X, who had the privilege (or misfortunate) of growing up through the trying times when the country was jubilant of extricating itself from the colonial yoke, experienced the feelings of underprivileged first hand. We do not have to imagine the hunger pangs and being missed in a conversation or joke that is over our heads. We were there and would like to believe that we had passed that! There is no guilt feeling, and there is no need to 'payback'. We realise our good fortunes, lucky stars and good karma that we give back to society in our own ways.

Another Vietnam (1965 - 1975)

Unseen images of the war from the winning side
by Alex Q. Arbuckle

1972
Activists meet in the Nam Can Forest, wearing masks to hide their identities from one another in a case of capture and interrogation. From here in the mangrove swamps of the Mekong Delta, forwarding images to the North was difficult. "Sometimes the photos were lost or confiscated on the way," said the photographer.

IMAGE: VO ANH KHANH/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

UPDATE, Feb. 10, 2016, 9:30 a.m.: Based on serial numbers visible on the tail fins, readers have deduced that the crashed aircraft in the sixth photo is AJ 310, piloted by Lt. Stephen Owen Musselman, which was downed near Hanoi on Sept. 10, 1972.

For much of the world, the visual history of the Vietnam War has been defined by a handful of iconic photographs: Eddie Adams’ image of a Viet Cong fighter being executed, Nick Ut’s picture of nine-year-old Kim Phúc fleeing a napalm strike, Malcolm Browne’s photo of Thích Quang Duc self-immolating in a Saigon intersection. 

Many famous images of the war were taken by Western photographers and news agencies, working alongside American or South Vietnamese troops. 

But the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had hundreds of photographers of their own, who documented every facet of the war under the most dangerous conditions. 

Almost all were self-taught and worked for the Vietnam News Agency, the National Liberation Front, the North Vietnamese Army or various newspapers. Many sent in their film anonymously or under a nom de guerre, viewing themselves as a humble part of a larger struggle.

We had to be extremely careful because we had limited amounts of film that had been distributed to us by our paper. For us, one photo was like a bullet. 

NGUYEN DINH UU

July 1967
New recruits undergo physical examinations in Haiphong. The North's volunteer system was transformed into a mandatory system in 1973 when all able-bodied males were drafted. From a corps of around 35,000 men in 1950, the NVA grew to over half a million men by the mid-'70s, a force the U.S. military conceded was one of the finest in the world.

IMAGE: BAO HANH/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

Equipment and supplies were precious. Processing chemicals were mixed in tea saucers with stream water, and exposed film was developed under the stars. One photographer, Tram Am, only had a single roll of film, 70 frames, for the duration of the war.

Faced with the constant threat of death by bombing, gunfire or the environment, these photographers documented combat, civilian life, troops on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, resistance movements in the Mekong Delta, and the bloody impact of the war on the innocent.

Some were photographing to document history, while others strove to use their cameras as weapons in the propaganda war. Shooting clandestinely in the South, Vo Anh Khanh could never get his photos to Hanoi but exhibited them in the mangrove swamps of the Mekong Delta to inspire resistance.

Many of these photographs have rarely been seen in Vietnam, let alone in the rest of the world. In the early 1990s, photojournalists Tim Page and Doug Niven started tracking down surviving photographers. One had a dusty bag of never-printed negatives, and another had his stashed under the bathroom sink. Vo Anh Khanh still kept his pristine negatives in a U.S. ammunition case, with a bed of rice as a desiccant.

One hundred eighty of these unseen photos and the stories of the courageous men who made them are collected in the book Another Vietnam: Pictures of the War from the Other Side.

1973

A Viet Cong guerrilla stands guard in the Mekong Delta. "You could find women like her almost everywhere during the war," said the photographer. "She was only 24 years old but had been widowed twice. Both her husbands were soldiers. I saw her as the embodiment of the ideal guerrilla woman, who'd made great sacrifices for her country."

IMAGE: LE MINH TRUONG/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

1970

A guerrilla in the Mekong Delta paddles through a mangrove forest defoliated by Agent Orange. The Americans denuded the landscape with chemicals to deny cover to the Viet Cong. The photographer was sickened by what he saw, since the Vietnamese regard mangrove forests as bountiful areas for agriculture and fishing.

IMAGE: LE MINH TRUONG/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

The vast dark forest was my giant darkroom. In the morning I’d rinse the prints in a stream and then hang them from trees to dry. In the afternoon I’d cut them to size and do the captions. I’d wrap the prints and negatives in paper and put them in a plastic bag, which I kept close to my body. That way the photos would stay dry and could be easily found if I got killed.
LAM TAN TAI

1974
Women haul in heavy fishing nets on the upper branch of the Mekong River, taking over a job usually done exclusively by men.
IMAGE: LE MINH TRUONG/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

September 1972
Militia members sort through the wreckage of a downed US Navy plane on the outskirts of Hanoi. This is likely the debris of the A-7C Corsair II flown by Lt. Stephen Owen Musselman, which was hit by SAMs just south of Hanoi while supporting a B-52 bombing mission on September 10, 1972. Lt. Musselman ejected from his aircraft before it crashed. He was MIA until March 1, 1978, when the Secretary of the Navy approved a Presumptive Finding of Death. On July 7, 1981, remains which were confirmed to be his were returned to the United States by the government of Vietnam.
IMAGE: DOAN CONG TINH/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

During the American bombing, I took my most memorable photos. I actually shot a photo of Senator John McCain’s plane falling out of the sky over Hanoi. I was proud of that photo and wanted it to convey a message of patriotism in the face of foreign invasion.
VU BA

1972
Guerillas guard an outpost on the Vietnam-Cambodia border protected by poisoned bamboo punji stakes. Sharpened then hardened with fire, punji stakes were often hidden where enemy soldiers would step on them. Such booby traps were meant to wound, not kill because wounded soldiers slowed down their unit, and medevacs gave away its position.
IMAGE: LE MINH TRUONG/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

Date unknown
Viet Cong meet the enemy face-to-face, most likely in the Mekong Delta or Plain of Reeds. This rare image shows both sides in combat, ARVN soldiers at the top and Viet Cong in the foreground. The VC have flanked the enemy at left and right, which likely meant the ARVN unit was wiped out.
IMAGE: HOANG MAI/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

September 1965
Using overhead targets, a militia company practices firing ahead of speeding aircraft in Thanh Tri. Even using antiquated WWII rifles such as these, the Vietnamese were able to cripple or down many U.S. aircraft. This militia group, Company #6 of the Yen My Commune, earned the title of "Excellent Militia" three years in a row.
IMAGE: MINH DAO/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

We even came up with a new form of flash photography to illuminate our fighters and villagers who were living in bomb shelters and tunnels. We emptied gunpowder from rifle cartridges onto a small handheld device and then lit the gunpowder with a match. The burning powder provided all the light we needed.
MAI NAM

1973

Construction workers discuss repairs of the bombed out Ham Rong Bridge, in central North Vietnam. The only route across the Ma River for heavy trucks and machinery, the bridge was heavily defended, and several U.S. planes were shot down nearby. An American MIA search team found pilot remains there.
IMAGE: UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

1966

Troops walk the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the Truong Son Mountains, which form the 750-mile-long spine of Vietnam, stretching along much of the country's western border. To the soldiers of the North, the Ho Chi Minh Trail was known as the Truong Son Road.
IMAGE: LE MINH TRUONG/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

I was certainly not taking photos for their aesthetic appeal. I was not thinking of beauty. Burned and shattered homes and dead bodies are not pretty. Any pretence of aesthetics was replaced by our purpose of recording the war.
DUONG THANH PHONG

March 1971

Laotian guerrillas haul supplies by elephant and foot to NVA troops near Route 9 in southern Laos during South Vietnam's attempted interdiction of the trail. The invasion, Operation Lam Son 719, was intended to test ARVN's ability as U.S. support was winding down. It proved disastrous, with Southern troops fleeing in panic.
IMAGE: DOAN CONG TINH/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

Sept. 15, 1970

A victim of American bombing, ethnic Cambodian guerrilla Danh Son Huol is carried to an improvised operating room in a mangrove swamp on the Ca Mau Peninsula. This scene was an actual medical situation, not a publicity setup. The photographer, however, considered the image unexceptional and never printed it.
IMAGE: VO ANH KHANH/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

We were more alive in wartime, working on the border between life and death. 

NGUYEN DINH UU

1972

NVA soldiers dash across the open ground near strategic Highway 9 in southern Laos during Operation Lam Son 719, the South's failed attempt to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
IMAGE: NGUYEN DINH UU/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

April 30, 1975
Combat boots litter the road on the outskirts of Saigon, abandoned by ARVN soldiers who shed their uniforms to hide their status. "I'll never forget the shoes and the loud 'thump, thump, thump' sound as we drove over them," recalled the photographer. "Decades of war were over and we finally had peace."
IMAGE: DUONG THANH PHONG/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

The survivors are called witnesses of history. I don't know if we ourselves are witnesses, but our photographs certainly are. They paid the price with blood.
DOAN CONG TINH

May 1975
Elders from North and South embrace, having lived to see Vietnam reunited and unoccupied by foreign powers.
IMAGE: VO ANH KHANH/ANOTHER VIETNAM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS

Curation: Alex Q. Arbuckle
Images: Another Vietnam
Special thanks: Doug Niven