Living in peacetime in Việt Nam is a blessing, but that peace is often beautiful only until you touch the cracks hidden beneath its glossy surface. How ironic that I, once a dyed-in-the-wool “little commie,” would one day become the target of a “denunciation.”
I belong to Gen Z, growing up in a remote border region long after the sound of bombs had faded. For most of my peers, history was just a list of dry numbers skimmed over in class, but I was different. As the secretary of my class’s Youth Union chapter and a member of the high school executive committee, I was steeped in revolutionary spirit and Hồ Chí Minh Thought.
I carried a fierce love of history and absolute faith in the communist ideal: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” I dreamed of a great “socialist” society in Việt Nam that would wipe away every injustice.
The first cracks appeared within my own family. My grandparents, who lived under the old regime—the former Republic of Vietnam—watched news channels that the state labeled “reactionary” and reminisced about the former government’s free education programs. Back then, my ideals were so extreme that I was ready to shout at my own relatives, sneering that they were ignorant about the very history they had lived through.
At university, I remained a model Youth Union secretary. Armed with a superficial mastery of philosophy, I tirelessly “preached” on forums like BBC News Vietnamese and RFA Vietnamese to defend the official line. Anyone who disagreed was a “reactionary.” Anyone who mocked me was cursed as “ba que”—a slur for supporters of the old southern regime, named for the three red stripes on its yellow flag. I said this slur with all the pride of someone who held “the truth.” By then, my own relatives even started calling me a “little communist.”
My turning point arrived during the COVID-19 lockdown. With more free time, I turned to Wikipedia with the intention of “correcting” articles I believed were wrong, but it became the door that led me to question myself. Reading entries on the “Land Reform in North Vietnam” and the “Chương Dương Bridge case,” my iron faith wavered and shattered.
I went to Reuters and AP to verify the facts and was stunned to realize that the truth I had defended was only a carefully trimmed piece of the picture. The international press reported on these incidents the same way, but the language barrier had effectively kept people inside the country from seeing other perspectives.
As my views became more balanced, I eventually faced problems online. Recently, someone commented, “Dictatorship or multiparty, it doesn’t matter, as long as the people are prosperous, the country is strong, and society is democratic and fair.” I simply replied: “If it’s a dictatorship, how can there be democracy?”
Immediately, fake accounts with locked personal profiles branded me a “3 que” and a “reactionary.” Ironically, the one who used to be called “little commie” was now branded a “reactionary.”
But the insults weren’t what petrified me. It was one cold message: “Hey kid, you go to … school, right? Think I won’t report you to your school?”
I froze. A creeping fear set in as I remembered a classmate who had once been “denounced” for saying that they “love the country but not the Party.” Back then, I had looked at that classmate with contempt and disgust. Going from someone who wielded the club of “morality” to standing in that same club’s line of fire is brutal. In the world I once worshipped, questioning is not considered a tool for finding the truth—it is betrayal.
When people cannot use reason to answer a logical question like “How can there be democracy under dictatorship?”, they reach for the ultimate weapon of the intellectually weak: intimidation. They don’t want to debate; they want to destroy. They would rather not understand; they want submission.
Scrolling through my old posts that night, I saw myself in my attackers. I wondered how many of them were just like I had been: aggressive, arrogant, and certain they were on the side of justice. The threat to “report you to your school” reflected a painful truth: even when your mind is free, you can still be chained by your background record and your future. The shadow of “denunciation” is people’s willingness to use someone’s livelihood and career to force them into silence.
Looking back on my time as a Youth Union secretary, I don’t regret having once loved those ideals. But it pains me that I was once so intolerant. I now understand that true “enlightenment” is accepting that the world is full of colors, not just black and white.
I do not wish to leave this country; I still love it deeply—perhaps even more so now. My love no longer rests purely on the ideals of my youth. It is now the love of someone who has seen its darkness and scars yet still wants it to be better.
Yet the price of waking up feels impossibly high. I am at a crossroads: should I continue to speak the truth and face rejection, or should I put the “model member” mask back on so that I can live in peace like everyone else?
In a place where questioning is treated as a crime, silence is sometimes the only way to survive.
Myka283 wrote this op-ed article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on April 24, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine translated it into English. The Vietnamese Magazine’s op-ed articles do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of its editorial board.
