Was it ‘fall’ or ‘liberation’ of Saigon?

In April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese tanks crashed into the palace in the city, then called Saigon, and the South Vietnamese regime collapsed. The communist government branded this day the “Day of Liberating the South”.”
But was this really a “liberation”? Didn’t many people flee the country because they did not want to be governed by the North? Weren’t many people unable to find a job because they were government officials or involved in services for South Vietnam? Weren’t many people sent to re-education camps?
As I did not feel comfortable using the word “liberation”, I instead referred to it as the “Fall of Saigon” in my report, as this expression sounded relatively neutral to me. Learning about my usage of this term, my senior at the university told me: “‘Fall’ is an expression from the South’s point of view. From the North, it was a ‘liberation’. Do you take the South’s position?”
When I wrote the report, the Cold War was still ongoing. Bipartisan thinking remained strong: “Right or left”, “Good or evil”. Use of the terms “liberation” or “fall” was a sort of litmus test for students learning about Vietnam.
The mutual killing commonly known as “war” had ended. National division tears apart the lives of people and creates many tragedies. In this sense, the unification of North Vietnam and South Vietnam was a welcome development. Since then, however, based on my intention of withholding judgement on whether it was a “liberation”, I have continued to use quotation marks around the phrase “Liberation of the South” when writing about Vietnam.
Twenty-eight years have passed since these events. However, my feelings remain unchanged.
Certainly, Vietnam has changed dramatically. The Doi Moi reform policy that started in 1986 has got on track, and the country boasts some of the greatest levels of economic growth in Asia. Ho Chi Minh City is vibrant, with people on the street often appearing predominantly cheerful. It seems that the prosperity brought about by the communist regime is being enjoyed by the people.
The traffic of people between the North and the South has increased, as many from the North have relocated to the South. Residents of Ho Chi Minh say they now rarely hear the derogatory terms once often used by people from the South to refer to those from the North. It is undeniable that the gap between the North and the South has narrowed over time. But even so, I cannot bring myself to abandon the quotation marks.
Since the 1976 unification, no one from the South has been elected to the post of general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Is this a simple coincidence? Increasing disparity and rampant corruption are adverse effects of one-party rule. Control of the media is strong. In the 2016 World Press Free Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, Vietnam ranked sixth from the bottom. The detention of activists for criticizing the government is a never-ending reality.
Vietnam has a national slogan of “independence, freedom, happiness”, always seen in the nation’s official documents. I have long thought that the three terms should be interpreted in parallel.
However, an elderly Communist Party member I met recently taught me how to read the slogans with a self-mocking smile: “When there is independence, there is freedom. Then when there are independence and freedom, finally there will be happiness.”
The 42nd anniversary of the “Day of Liberating the South” will soon arrive. Have “liberated people” in the South become happy? Have the Vietnamese people become happy? This day will be an occasion to think again about the meaning of “liberation”.

The writer is Yomiuri Shimbun’s Hanoi Bureau chief