National Reunification Festival: Coming Under One Roof

(Baonghean) - The National Reunification Festival is a provincial-level revolutionary festival held at the Hien Luong-Ben Hai Historical Site for the first time on the morning of May 1, 2005, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the complete liberation of the South and the reunification of the country. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the South, we met and talked with writer Xuan Duc, who came up with the idea and organized this meaningful festival...

Hien Luong Bridge.

In a small house at Cua Viet Port, the Lao wind blew open the thin door, writer Xuan Duc confided: “Before talking about the idea of ​​building a revolutionary festival called the Unification Festival of the province, I would like to talk a little about the situation of Quang Tri at that time. After Quang Tri province was re-established, with an almost empty fortune in most aspects, the Party Committee and people of Quang Tri re-determined their starting point and direction in all activities from economy to culture and society. In those first years, with the responsibility of being assigned by the provincial leaders to lead the cultural sector, I thought a lot about the direction and ways to develop the cultural career in my homeland. In my opinion, doing culture requires two major things to be determined. Those are cultural space and cultural environment.

So, what is the cultural space of Quang Tri? The destructive war that passed through the land of Quang Tri left extremely serious consequences for the land and people here, and at the same time left behind unique cultural and historical legacies that are unmatched anywhere else. These are historical relics, earth-shaking landmarks such as Ben Hai-Hien Luong, Khe Sanh - Truong Son, such as Quang Tri Citadel... Someone has not exaggeratedly compared the whole of Quang Tri to a giant museum of revolutionary war history...

The war is over, but the memories of it will never fade. Every year, tens of thousands, millions of people across the country, including soldiers on the other side, often come here to reminisce about the past years, to reflect on the values ​​of peace and reunion. Therefore, a typical cultural space in this land is a space of memories and commemorations. Uncle Ho once affirmed: Vietnam is one, the Vietnamese people are one, rivers can dry up, mountains can wear away, but that truth will never change... perhaps nowhere else is it more passionate and burning than here: "A river away, there is love and here is longing / Only seven bridges of fate are apart / Fight for the country's unification quickly / So that the couple's fate will always be complete." (Vinh Linh folk poetry).

Realizing this, a revolutionary festival on Hien Luong Bridge on Ben Hai River is not only to recall the pain of national division, not only to praise the achievements, although those meanings are also very necessary, but more special, more noble, that is to affirm the aspiration for unification, to praise the spirit of solidarity and harmony of the Vietnamese people, to honor the victory of a nation that overcame the storms of hatred and separation to reach the day of national reunification, bringing the country back together. And in the end, the goal of national reunification, moving towards national reconciliation so that the great Vietnamese family can return to a common home to build a developed Vietnam on par with friends in the world is the most noble goal, the most essential meaning of this life-and-death struggle, not a war for ideology, and certainly not a fratricidal war as many people are currently trying to distort.

The festival began with a reenactment of the North-South reunion scene. It is called a “reenactment” but it is not a dramatization as many places do, but rather real people from history. They were two delegations of cadres and people from Ca Mau and Lang Son provinces. Most of the delegates had never set foot on the Hien Luong River. The two delegations from the North and South banks came together in the middle of the relic bridge. It was an extremely emotional scene for the two delegations and for everyone attending the festival. Next was the ceremony of raising the national flag on the Hien Luong Flagpole.

The national flag on the historic flagpole at the border bridgehead is a source of pride, a symbol of the will that nothing is more precious than independence and freedom, a legend of a strange battle to protect the flag in a war of destruction. During the time of division, the flag on the North bank was the belief and strength for the people on the South bank to fight. There is a story of a mother who traveled all the way from Ca Mau to Hien Luong to see the red flag with a yellow star with her own eyes... The border flagpole has now been restored to become a flagpole, a prominent highlight in the Hien Luong - Ben Hai relic complex. Therefore, the national flag raising ceremony is a major event. For the first time, when the siren sounded, the whole space of Hien Luong seemed to be silent.

The red flag with a yellow star measuring 96 square meters (the largest flag in the history of the border flag) was raised and spread out in the wind, making thousands of people present unable to hold back their tears. Next was the ceremony of receiving two handfuls of soil from the two northernmost regions of the country, in the stirring and heroic singing of the Unification Song. Those two sacred handfuls of soil are still preserved in the museum of Hien Luong - Ben Hai Relic. And the flag-raising ceremony is the official ritual that was determined before all subsequent Unification festivals.

Historical relic site on both banks of Hien Luong - Ben Hai (Quang Tri).

Writer Xuan Duc recounted that the eulogy for the martyrs who fell in the middle of the river and the two banks of Hien Luong - Ben Hai was written by him and read by himself during the ceremony of releasing flower lanterns on the river at sunset that day, before the art program Song of Unification took place. Tens of thousands of compatriots, comrades, and guests crowded both banks of the river, standing densely on the relic bridge, were silent in emotion when hearing the heartfelt words recalling the painful but heroic years of the Hien Luong River border:

“…On the other side of Cat Son, on the other side of Tung Luat, mother carries her child, her heart aching,

That is Vo Xa, this is Hien Luong, wife waiting for husband, waiting with longing.

Take the shirt to the river to wash, the shirt is worn out but the heart is still pure,

Take the net down to the dock to dry, the net is dry and covered in blood...

Love in a letter, a song on Hien Luong wharf,

The two-fingered flag promises the day of unification…”.

Until today, the echoes of that sacrificial song still resound in the hearts of the people of Quang Tri and the guests who attended the ceremony that day.

The victory in the 1975 Spring Campaign was a great victory. But its greatest thing was not only how many enemies we had destroyed and how many lands we had liberated, but its most valuable thing was that it ended the painful years of division of the Vietnamese people. The ultimate goal of the war was not to liberate Saigon, not to completely defeat the US and the puppet regime, but to unify the country, to reunite the country and the Vietnamese people to return to a common home.

Therefore, the National Reunification Festival has the meaning of affirming the most complete victory of the resistance war against the US. On the other hand, with the policy of closing the past, eliminating hatred, national reconciliation, great national unity to rebuild our country to be more beautiful and more dignified as Uncle Ho wished, the National Reunification Festival is also a festival for the will of national unity, national reconciliation and demonstrating the strength of great solidarity to build the country of Vietnam together!

Hoai Quan