Taking advantage of literature and art to sabotage the country

Literature and art are essential needs in the spiritual life of people, literature and art can penetrate deep into the soul of each person. If they are good messages, they will inspire and make life better, but if literary and artistic works are "tainted" with politics, "injected" with reactionary ideas, they will "pollute" the spiritual life of society. And because of that, literature and art become one of the fields that hostile forces exploit to sabotage the country.

Call for the establishment of the so-called "Independent Writers Association"

According to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security, currently, there are about 50 radio and television stations abroad with Vietnamese language programs, more than 430 newspapers, magazines and over 40 publishing houses that regularly publish anti-Vietnam propaganda content. Every year, nearly 3,000 psychological warfare documents are brought into Vietnam in various forms. Recently, a number of artists and intellectuals have been exploited and lured to flee abroad, committing acts of betrayal of the Fatherland, writing many publications, books and newspapers that defame and slander the regime. In addition, there are a number of writers and poets who, due to their unstable character, have self-evolved, self-transformed, and created literary and artistic works that are heavily influenced by personal views.

PhD in literature Nguyen Toan Thang. Photo: People's Public Security

Doctor of Literature Nguyen Toan Thang believes that, stemming from the characteristics of intellectuals and artists, the struggle to protect the Party's ideological foundation in the fields of literature and art is taking place very fiercely and complicatedly.

“The strong point of intellectuals and artists is their imagination, but this is also their weak point. They are easily swayed, and their spiritual life is easily disturbed. This characteristic makes them easy to be exploited and manipulated. The struggle in this field is extremely difficult.”

Recently, some artists and intellectuals have called for and supported the movement to establish the so-called “Independent Writers Association”. Under the name of reviving the country’s literature, this organization wants to carry out a very clear political intention to oppose the socialist regime in Vietnam, forming an illegal organization in opposition to the State organizations to gather artists and writers with extremist, dissatisfied, and anti-regime ideologies.

Therefore, the struggle in the field of literature and art is not simply about identifying right and wrong, but the most important issue is to orient the masses to see clearly right and wrong. This is the viewpoint of Professor, Doctor Dinh Xuan Dung - former Vice Chairman of the Central Council for Theory and Criticism of Literature and Art.

“We must identify correctly and strike accurately. The struggle in the ideological field is not like a military struggle, but the ultimate goal of this struggle is to convince and attract the masses to our side,” said Mr. Dung.

Intentionally using literature and art to sabotage: Need to be handled

Recently, when social networks exploded and became popular, many artists used zalo and facebook accounts to comment on the country's issues using literary language with one-sided, biased, and extreme perspectives.

On Facebook, some artists and intellectuals have also posted statuses, poems and prose excerpts to express their personal feelings and opinions on some domestic incidents in a critical and condemning direction towards the government. The poems and paragraphs are written with flowery language, but are "embedded" and linked with reactionary viewpoints. Therefore, to identify wrong viewpoints and ideas in literary and artistic works, we need to have a reference system as a standard for recognition and evaluation.

Associate Professor, Doctor Nguyen Ngoc Thien - Editor-in-Chief of Vietnam Literature and Arts Forum Magazine said: "To criticize and fight against wrongdoings and hostility, we must have a standard. The standard here is the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint applied creatively, the standard here is the Party's cultural and artistic guidelines expressed in the Party's official documents."

Major General Nguyen Van Tin - former Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department, Ministry of National Defense. Photo: Thi Uyen

The boundary between black and white, right and wrong in the field of literature and art is very difficult to distinguish, and sometimes the public does not necessarily realize that it is hostile and reactionary. Therefore, according to Major General Nguyen Van Tin, former Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department, when discovering that there are deviant views and ideologies embedded in literary and artistic works, the authorities and state management agencies need to be proactive in exchanging and meeting with the authors to find a common voice and orient their perception, and should not accuse and isolate them.

“There are many authors that we really liked when we were students, even knowing every sentence and every word of those works and poems. But now they have turned around and have these opinions and that. If we group them into a certain group, it might become a problem. Therefore, it requires a very flexible method. The point of view is to attract people to our side, not push them away.

Associate Professor, Dr. Hoang Minh Luong - Academy of Journalism and Communication. Photo: AJC Times

Associate Professor, Dr. Hoang Minh Luong - Academy of Journalism and Propaganda, said that mistakes and deviations in the creation of literary and artistic works can be met and discussed for guidance, but those who deliberately take advantage of literature and art to distort leaders, defame the country's image, speak ill of the regime, insult and defame ancestors need to be strictly punished.

The causes of the recent deviations and wrongdoings in the field of culture and art not only stem from the wrong perceptions and stubbornness of some artists who are dissatisfied with the regime, but also from the connections and enticements of hostile forces at home and abroad towards some artists. Therefore, for culture to truly become the spiritual foundation of society, it is necessary to identify and fight against the wrongdoings and wrongdoings in the field of culture in general and literature and art in particular. That is the way to make literature and art increasingly ingrained and rooted in the spiritual life of the people and become an endogenous strength, a soft power in the socio-economic development of the country./.