Talk:Viet Cong

I would recommend you research the word before you revert. It is a racist phrase, adopted mainly by the American's and Europeans.

The entry clearly states that the phrase was used by the South Vietnamese to describe their political opponents (who were, like them, Vietnamese). Unless you are now going to suggest that there was some kind of relevant racial divide, it thus cannot possibly be a "racist tern". I'm going to remove it again in a moment, and will continue to remove it unless and until there is some reasonable evidence that this usage was indeed racist.

If it were written that the phrase as used by foregners was racist, that would be a different matter. Even this, though, is fraught with difficulty, as we would then have to explain how it is that an American soldier saying "Viet Cong" is being racist, but a South Vietnamese soldier using the same words is not.

I have not the slightest doubt that the entire American & Allied involvement in Indochina was racist in its nature (nor would any other serious historian), but the term "racist" in this particular context makes no sense. Tannin

The Viet Minh soldiers who were trained and armed in the North started a Guerrilla war against the national government of the south. The Americans gave the guerrillas a new name, "Viet Cong." This was a derogatory/racist (perhaps moreso as it (and the war) evolved) and slang term meaning Vietnamese Communist.

Be sure to check the Racial Slur database http://www.rsdb.org/rsdb.csv or http://gyral.blackshell.com/names.html -- search for Viet Cong. For what it is worth (although I wish I could find my source) I have heard it being compared to Westerners use of the word "nigger." In the end, I suppose it depends on how you define racism. BTW, I know nothing of SV calling their own people VC, however, it is well documented that the American's and Europeans used it frequently.

205.162.222.223 06:49, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The term "Viet Cong" lacked racist intent, except as one may view any term used to describe someone in another country as racist. By that light, a French person described someone as anglaise is racist, because that person would describe himself as English, while the generally derogatory term "Russkie" to describe someone from Russia is not ethnocentric, because it is a better transliteration of the Cyrillic than "Russian."

The term "Viet Cong" was used descriptively to designate NLF fighters, as opposed to the ethnically identical Army of North Vietnam, who were called by the acronymn "PAVN." There were racist phrases for Vietnamese, notable "Gook" and "Slope".

BTW, virtually every war is racist, even between combatants who would others would consider ethnically similar.

This article should be moved to NLF. Viet Cong is NOT the name of the movement. // Wellp

Gah, the entire article is about the use of the term "Viet Cong" rather than the movement itself. Bad news overall, I think. I'd support having this article at Viet Cong and discussing the use of that term, and then having a separate article on the NLF as such. john 03:32, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Even at Viet Cong, though, it was supposed to be an article about the movement. Either way, the article needs significant work. 172 03:36, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, yes. It would appear that most of the effort put into the article revolved around making sure that the use of the term "Viet Cong" was NPOV, rather than making sure that it was an informative article about the NLF. You do know that RickK listed your move of the article in Wikipedia:Requests for review of admin actions, though, don't you? john 03:45, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, and he put it one requests for review of admin actions as well. Maybe he's constipated or something. 172 04:03, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I think that it is unprofessional to use colloquial terms for things that have proper names. I also think that if there is a question of offensiveness, which there clearly is here, it's better to err on the side of calling a group what they prefer to be called - c.f. the policy on the words "gay" and "homosexual". However Viet Cong should be an article on that term - not a redirect to this article. Snowspinner 19:34, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to note that, as this is still under fairly hot debate, it was probably poor form to move the article without at least a note on the talk pages as to what's going on. Is Viet Cong to be a separate article from NLF? Or what? Snowspinner 23:38, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I would suggest that this article is, very largely, a discussion of the usage of the term "Viet Cong". I think we need to split it up, with that part in an article called Viet Cong, and the stuff on NLF on an article with the official name (and it's not as though "NLF" is some sort of obscure name - it was and is very commonly used). And yes, very poor form VV. john 23:46, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Excuse me? I was moving it back. I don't know whether Snowspinner is referring to the move by 172 or the undoing move in his comment. But, this has been discussed before. Lots. - VV 23:57, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Splitting the article like that isn't totally unreasonable, but it's a major change we should discuss first. Redirecting VC to NLF, however, is far more troublesome. - VV 23:59, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I was mostly noting that I (and some other people) seem to agree that an article on the group should be at NLF, and not here. And that the debate was pretty active right now, and that the move could probably wait until it settled down to consensus. But whatev, largely. Snowspinner 00:04, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Okay.... It's just that John seemed to be citing you as validation for the poor form attribution. - VV 02:43, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes, and Snowspinner was talking about your move - there was no active discussion when 172 moved it. john 02:56, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand this standard. It seems to me that major changes should not be made if it's controversial (whether the controversy was noted before and after the move). Returning to the status quo is the antidote if such controversy erupts. Anyway, I already have a pretty good idea what you think of me; my comments were to Snowspinner. - VV 03:27, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, I mean, I think you shouldn't have moved it until the debate resolved, and that it's poor form to take decisive action like that. (Clarify: When something is under heated debate. Snowspinner 02:59, 19 May 2004 (UTC)) I'm also not upset enough to move it back or take some other heavy action beyond muttering about it on the talk page. I didn't mean "poor form" as any sort of devestating criticism. In any case, let's carry on the debate on this. I agree with Plato/Comrade Nick that we should take a vote. Snowspinner 02:54, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Okay, well it's somewhat clarified. My position remains that a major controversial reorganization should be discussed before being set in stone, and the status quo should default. - VV 03:27, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I think that 172's move was well within the realm of the directive to "be bold." Had I noticed it, it's certainly an edit I could see myself making. In any case, enough of this. Let's figure out where this page should go. :) Snowspinner 03:38, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, call me being bold back. One issue for me is that 172 has a habit of reverting others' changes and insisting on a long process of justification, but doing as he pleases on his own. Further, in this case it's a change that has been proposed and rejected before. Anyway, I agree we should talk about content. I'll flesh out my opinions below. - VV 04:08, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I prefer National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam because "Viet Cong" is more informal word, like the term "VC." However, I suggest we take a vote on the issue--Comrade Nick 02:29, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't see that there's need for a vote unless we find we can't come to a consensus. john 02:56, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to think consensus is possible; most people I've seen on this page seem reasonable. But with 172 at the table it might prove difficult. We need "users" who actually favor consensus. Anyway, I noted my position a bit above. - VV 03:30, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

As I said, the redirect is not so satisfactory, but a two article solution might be a reasonable one. The VC article may degenerate into a purely terminology-oriented one (as it now sort of is), which I don't like since that's not what people who look up VC want to read, but the NLF article could sensibly be the history of that specific organization, which could be helpful in light of the possible ambiguities in VC, if that's really such an issue. - VV 04:11, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, obviously if we go with the two articles, the VC article should containa a prominent link to the NLF article. john 04:45, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Of course. - VV 05:07, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Move

The problem is that we do not have a written history of this specific organization anywhere on Wikipedia, not the recent move.

My move clearly coincides with our policy and naming conventions. "Viet Cong" is not a common name, as Soviet Union is to Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (redirected to Soviet Union), as United States is to United States of America (redirected to United States), and as Bill Clinton is to William Jefferson Clinton (redirected to Bill Clinton). It is a pejorative term widely used among U.S. troops in Vietnam, and later among the U.S. public and media, not one that this specific organization used to identify to itself. In a similar vein, Viet Cong is to the slang "Wobblies" (redirected to IWW) as NLF is to Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Notice that the IWW article is directed to the name of the organization, not the slang.

To the user trying to provoke an edit war, whose name I shall reserve, please find another way to retaliate against me for my involvement on other pages. 172 06:47, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

The NLF article should give an overview of the history of this specific organization and go over the origins of the term "Viet Cong," in the sense that there is a single IWW article that gives an overview of that specific organization and notes the use of the term "Wobblies." 172 06:53, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough, but that's no reason to do cut and paste moves. Furthermore, we seemed to be working towards some sort of consensus on the talk page. Just as it was bad form for VV to move the page back in the middle of discussions aimed at arriving at some kind of consensus, it is very bad form to do cut and paste moves on the page while discussion is ongoing. john 06:54, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but the article itself was in bad form. Either way, it's unfair to expect anyone to leave the article in perfect form after a single edit. This article needs significant work, and that should now commence on this page. 172 07:14, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Since we're getting analogy-happy here, I submit that a better comparison is to the Irish situation. That is, I see Viet Cong as a term used by Americans and the South Vietnam government with little attempt to identify the actual organization(s) covered by the term. A lot of people use Irish Republican Army the same way. Meanwhile, the specific organizations covered in this article, the National Liberation Front and the People's Liberation Armed Forces, can be described as political and military wings of the same movement, corresponding roughly to Sinn Féin and the Provisional Irish Republican Army. I don't necessarily see Viet Cong as equivalent to National Liberation Front, though, in the same way that Wobblies is equivalent to Industrial Workers of the World.

Anyway, while the historical reasons for the terminology are different for the Irish and Vietnamese situations, the practical effects are similar. Check out the Irish situation and you will find that we have separate articles to handle the various organizations involved (and I fervently hope that I haven't simply given people new ideas on where to conduct their edit wars). As a consequence, I support the idea of splitting this into separate pages, each of which should provide appropriate context and prominently link to the others. --Michael Snow 16:26, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I have split the pages, with Viet Cong currently on the version VeryVerily keeps reverting to, and National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam on the version 172 keeps reverting to. Since there's at least some support for the idea of a split, I ask that we treat this as a truce and stop reverting each other. --Michael Snow 21:43, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Viet Cong Derogatory?

The term Viet Cong was not used within the U.S. military as a derogatory term, especially not in a racist sense. It was used in a descriptive sense to distinuish between the guerilla forces and PAVN, who were North Vietnamese regulars. If the term was intended as a slur, all opposing forces would have been Viet Cong. Now someone here claims that the term translates literally to "Vietnamese Commie." Do we have a native Vietnamese speaker who can confirm that? The term (it says right in this article) is derived from Vietnamese: Việt Nam Cộng Sản. This is apparently a currently used phrase. I did a Google search and its had 2100 hits on the phrase, and about 170 primary hits. These appear to all be in Vietnamese language except for this article in Wikipedia and its mirrors. Unless someone can come up with an authorative explanation I'm going to make the opening a little more neutral and accurate. -- Cecropia | Talk 02:18, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

In Vietnamese, the usual (neutral) term for "Vietnamese communist" would be "Cộng sản Việt Nam" and not "Việt Nam cộng sản". "Cộng sản Việt Nam" is used by the both the current government (e.g. "Đảng cộng sản Việt Nam" - Vietnamese Communist Party) and its detractors. Use of the term "Việt Cộng" is restricted to opponents of the communists, while "Việt Nam cộng sản" is really awkward and thus likely a back-formation from the English term Vietcong. While "Việt Cộng" is a derogatory term, it is hardly racist. Ngo Dinh Diem regularly accused his detractors of being Vietcong, but Diem himself was from the north. Vietcong has more to do with ideology, not race. DHN 23:52, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Doubled article

Given that Viet Cong seems to be only a kind of abbreviation westerners made out of Việt Nam Cộng Sản, which apparently translates to something different from the subject described on this page, I think this article should be shortened to an explanation of this fact and direct to National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam. Get-back-world-respect 16:14, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

Because the split was designed to solve a difference of opinion that produced a heated revert war, I would recommend against redirecting. I've rewritten the article a little so that it sounds less like Viet Cong is equivalent to National Liberation Front. --Michael Snow 20:06, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Move this page to National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam that's the proper name ^_^--Gustuv 22:40, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This has been discussed and debated and the current page is the page that follows the naming conventions of Wikipedia. RickK 23:05, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Rick. --mav 03:37, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)