One would think that development, in its NATURAL SENSE, should bequeath the world with spiritual values and attractive and brilliant social formations where there exist only the GOOD in THOUGHT, TRUTH in DEEDS and BEAUTY in ACTION. People live together for mutual love and care. And even more so, such that the past poet Tố Hữu had to sing out when he could not bear containing his pride: “The Party gives us a rich heart/ Straight ahead we march/ Lifting our heads we go.” There, development, in nature, is like the gentle and forbearing mother who has been nourished by ardent and warm human feelings.
However, on careful reflection, when we turn our glance to the past to behold a wider and more far-reaching vista, it dawns on us that: development, as germinated from a human self desiring and thirsting for hedonistic gratification like a bottomless barrel, and as a word, it is “INVENTED” by humans: “PHÁT TRIỂN (development) = To Issue Forth and Expand”, so that humans find the need to justify themselves eloquently by giving themselves golden and diamond-studded decorations and medals with glowing pride, taking off like kites meeting the wind rising from all over the planet, for having now ruled completely the natural world.
A group of people find that they deserve this title and that medal, those things which have been drawn from the “BLOOD OF THE HEART FULL OF COMPASSION” of nature. And so today, forest rains and mountain winds beat down in their craze and threaten humans. They even condemn to death so many innocent souls on all parts of the continents.
Not long ago, the poet Trần Đăng Khoa noted: “Thunder drops in on the front yard with guffaws / The palm tree flail its arms in a swim / The tip of the malabar plant jumps about in a wild arabesque” to describe those moments when human feelings mingle with nature, as thunder laughs, tree tops dance in the music of the rain…
Nowadays, instead of poetic moments like Trần Đăng Khoa’s, we have only calls from that committee and this central station, having been decreed by the powers-that-be, to appeal to us to confront and pit against nature at the appointed hours on the coming of seasons.
Humans choose to give themselves a right to distance themselves from nature, to be indifferent and oblivious to nature.
The young generation regard nature as mindless and insensible things, and each time they come into contact with the natural world, they would cry out: “Ayerr, how… horrible!” These are the NEOGISM exclusive to “barefoot princesses” from the “rural outback” coming to the city while trying hard to learn how to be “SAVVY.”
However, all these emerging events are just temporary and pitiable phenomena.
What needs to be said here is that A GROUP OF PEOPLE who give themselves the status of powerful heroes of the day, who can squeeze blood out of stone, such that they could be considered somewhere as “Entrepreneurs” who make lots of money, pay lots of tax to the state and create lots of jobs for the current generation…
There goes the deadly peril. This single group has “cooked other compatriots, us, in our own juice” – until our hearts run dry and withered. They then trample on and sunder our bodies, turning us into slaves of the government, and ruthlessly discard our values without us having any awareness and knowledge about it.
In other words, must INDUSTRIALIZATION AND MODERNISATION AT ALL COSTS ultimately mean turning oneself into a prostitute for PROGRESS?
To put it plainly, in such a society, there are only ECONOMIC ENTREPRENEURS – those who make a lot of money, pay high taxes, solving many unemployment problems and create an environment that stimulates hedonistic gratification and who are PROUD ABOUT HEDONISM AS A FOOTING OF CIVILISATION, WHERE ONLY THESE ENTREPRENEURS deserve to be praised.
Put it differently, a society that is visually impaired, totally confused about the foundation and the difference between truth and falsehood, a society resembling nothing at all, is the CAUSE of an INSTITUTIONALISED TENDENCY TO MAKE DO. This make-do institution is the CONSEQUENCE of a MOTIVE POWER that is groundless, arrogant, unintelligent, AMORAL and even devoid of a sense of ANCESTRAL origin whereby nature is the mother of humans and all other sentient beings.
“Isn’t it true that whatever the society is, the person is; whatever the person is, likewise the institution; whatever the institution is, the social civilization is; and whatever the social civilization is, culture is?”
In actual fact, Vietnam is a nation that has always been worthy of pride and self-esteem.
It is not too late, because there still exist entire communities, ethnic groups who are born, grow up and are nourished by the spirit of the Fatherland, deep in the forests, and high in the mountains. They are living at one with nature, they listen to nature, study from nature and harmonise with the wishes of nature through customs which are orally transmitted and nurtured by acts of daily interaction with nature. SPERI calls this “CUSTOMARY LAW”, or by another terminology, it is the “traditional institution”.
If the civil society is a traditional one, people will live according to tradition. Living according to tradition, people will base their action on TRUST – the trust between a person and another is of utmost importance. This trust between one person and another is made indispensable through traditional customary institutions – where the spoken words are taken in on faith. The unwritten institutions are the community’s very civilization; this civilization is measured and normalised by an ethics and behavior pattern towards nature. The behavioural ethics towards nature has its own order and completeness. It involves worship and supernatural efficacy, and is the very CULTURAL FOUNDATION of traditional civil society.
Tran thi Lanh
Cao Quang Agro-Forestry and Ecological Service Cooperative 
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