Several Issues on Democracy in the History of Vietnamese Thought

Abstract

In this paper the author wants to consider the democratic elements in the feudalism of Vietnam through written materials remained. Although in common sense, democracy and feudalism is not suitable for each other, there still appeared and developed some democratic factors. The author mentions the thought on ‘people as the root of the country’ (民本). In Vietnamese Confucian scholars’ viewpoint, people’s will is the Heaven’s will. Since the King is a Heaven’s son, everything he does must follow Heaven’s will whereas people’s will is Heaven’s will. Therefore, the King must listen to and conduct his action in accordance with people’s will. Nation’s fate is associated with people’s will. Victory is due to people’s will, failure is due to losing people’s will. With that awareness, the rulers must love people and make people trust them, in order to make the political circumstance stable. People’s trust is the foundation of the nation’s stability and development. And loving people is not only the King’s responsibility, but also the subjects’ obligation. To love people and make them trust in the King, the rulers must consider reassuring people (安民) the important political target. Reassuring is keeping people wealthy, peaceful, stable, unworried about everything, helping people to have chance to develop them and implementing obligations, responsibility with communes and society. The author also puts forward some ways for implementing the conception of ‘people as root’: the government establishes the mechanism for reflecting people’s will, controls the power by implementing laws and reducing the corruption etc, and renovates the administrative structure. With the people, the government tries to improve people’s livelihood, balances people’s strength and public jobs etc. This kind of democracy in Vietnamese feudalism brings about some reflections. Traditional Vietnamese political system tends to be under control/order instead of being freedom. In fact, both freedom and order have not been limited in political term. Indeed, in Confucian traditional, there is no ‘by the people’ like in the statement of Lincoln, only ‘of the people and for the people’. In this paper, the author also mentions some aspects of Vietnamese village democracy as the specific way of democratic practice by habilitations in Vietnamese rural areas.