#title A Red Country (poem) #author Ngu Thi Yen #SORTauthors Ngu Thi Yen; #date 2021 #source [[https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/409-summer-2021/a-red-country-poem]] #lang en #pubdate 2021-07-18 #notes Fifth Estate #409, Summer, 2021 My country’s red, long so I was told Victories, a star glows Flag crimson, glorious so Vanguard leads, the people follow. . Red in sight, we have traded lives Beat armies, lay siege to empires. Red in mind, we have triumphed fights Bathed rivals in blood and plight. . Why today I see but grey Of skyscrapers in fatal haze Of nostalgia from olden days Of people’s groveling for a pay. . Red, they lie, whilst we sell and buy Whilst at sea our people die. Set vanguard on fire, compatriot mine So from black, a rainbow shall rise. Ngu Thi Yen is a Vietnamese translator and writer working to make anarchist theory more accessible to Vietnamese speakers. He writes to illustrate “the state capitalist reality in Vietnam with a call to action to build a true libertarian society. “There is a lack of anarchist voices from Vietnam due to state repression and inaccessibility to primary sources. The most prominent Vietnamese voices in both leftist and anarchist spaces are, alarmingly, pro-authoritarian and state-friendly. “As fellow South East Asian anarchists, libertarian communists and principled workers, it is our duty to call out the Vietnamese state’s for-profit, authoritarian capitalist nature and callous disregard for the workers’ lives.”