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Nonprofit Talks With Libyan Official As Country Copes With Coronavirus & War

VCU CNS | May 4, 2020

Topics: coronavirus, covid 19, Khalifa Haftar, Libya, Libyan National Army, Mohammed Ali Abdallah, Richmond World Affairs Council, RVA Global, tripoli, United Nations

Last month, the DC-based World Affairs Councils of America spoke to Libyan political official Mohammed Ali Abdallah about the country’s struggle with coronavirus amid a brutal civil war.

Residents of Tripoli, Libya’s capital, are living in the middle of a civil war during a global pandemic.

The World Affairs Councils of America, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit that holds speaker forums to educate the public on international affairs, held a conference call this month with Mohammed Ali Abdallah, political adviser for U.S. affairs to the prime minister of Libya, to discuss the conflict.

In April 2019 Libyan military Commander Khalifa Haftar and his forces launched an attack on Tripoli to overthrow the Government of National Accord, instigating a war that over the past year has killed more than 2,200 people, displaced over 200,000, and made oil-rich Libya the center of an international proxy. 

The battle for Tripoli has been intervened by Russia, Turkey and neighboring countries who have recently pushed for both sides to accept a cease-fire.

GNA combatants in Tripoli, July 2019. By H. Murdock, VOA, Public Domain, via Wikimedia

The Libyan National Army pledged to halt its advance on Tripoli March 21 amid pleas of cease-fire, but within minutes of the army announcing its agreement on Facebook, it attacked the densely populated neighborhood Bab Ben Ghashir, the New York Times reported. Two children were injured. 

Even after the United Nations pleaded with the groups for a “humanitarian pause” to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, both sides seem to be taking advantage of the international focus on the pandemic to gain more territory.

Abdallah said on the call that the fate of Libyan citizens has been disregarded. 

 “It is a missed opportunity,” he said. “Haftar has actually accelerated his military campaign, and he completely disregarded the situation. And he’s continued to bring in fighters from different regions, including virus hot spots.”

New York Times reporter Haley Willis tweeted that Tripoli residents all have the same fear: they’re told to stay home, but residential areas are still being shelled almost every day. 

“So we spoke with them about being caught between the virus and a civil war,” Willis wrote.“They feel there’s nowhere safe to run.”

Oasis in Libya. Photo by Sfivat, Public Domain, via Wikimedia

In April, Libya engaged in a government-imposed lockdown that started Friday, April 17 and lasted for 10 days, according to France24 news. In the wake of the 10-day lockdown, Libya remains on a partial curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. They are allowed to buy their basic needs from small shops during the day, but are quarantined to their homes outside of that timeframe. 

Former U.S. official Megan Doherty told Al Arabiya English that “it will be impossible to contain a coronavirus outbreak in Libya with medical facilities and staff caught in the war’s crossfire.”

As of April 23, Libya had reported 60 cases of coronavirus and two deaths. More than 800 tests have been performed, according to a United Nations report released April 21. 

“From a public awareness standpoint, we’ve been pretty lucky thus far that the number of cases have relatively few, but I think a lot of it is just that fact that we just don’t have the testing, and not a lot of people are coming forward to do the testing,” Abdallah said. 

Mohammed Ali Abdallah. Photo By Navy os11, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia

Hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped in Libya without water and electricity as hospitals are being attacked.

“When I talk to my friends and family in Libya, the topic isn’t about the coronavirus like the rest of the world is talking about, the virus is not the first thing they talk about,” Abdallah said.“They’re like ‘Oh, today we had like 20 rockets fall on us, and I don’t know if my son is going to come back or not.’”

Written by Eric Everington, Capital News Service. Top Photo: Anti-Haftar protest in Berlin, January 2020. Photo by Leonhard Lenz, CC0, via Wikimedia

RVA Global: Going Beyond The Legend In Amsterdam

Chloe Fortin | May 13, 2019

Topics: Amsterdam, bikes, cannabis, Coffee shops, edibles, gouda cheese, patat, RVA Global, stroopwafle, trams

The Dutch city of canals and coffee shops offers plenty of cheese, fries, and other assorted edibles (yeah, you know what we mean). RVA Global correspondent Chloe Fortin brings us an in-depth report.

Typically, when you tell people that you’re going to Amsterdam, they smile and give you a wink. Because let’s be honest — the first two things that come to mind when thinking of the most famous Dutch city in the world are the coffee shops and the red light district. While these hedonistic attractions are still a BIG reason why Amsterdam is widely known, it’s also important to know other reasons why it’s a bucket-list destination.

Transportation

While the canal system in Amsterdam is really amazing, what got my attention was how bike-friendly this city was. Bike lanes were everywhere and cyclists followed the same lights as cars… or at least, they were supposed to. It was difficult as a pedestrian when trying to cross the street because not only do you need to be aware of cars, but also cautious of non-braking cyclists whizzing past.

To add even more confusion, let’s add the tram. It was always unclear when exactly a tram was going to come, because in some places people were just hanging out in the street unaware that there were track marks underneath them — until they heard the bell from the tram. My advice is to follow all cross signals and yield to all bikers, because in this city, cyclists are number one.

Food

If you are into cheese, then this is the city for you! Just walking along the street, you’ll encounter several “Kaas” shops that carry a variety of cheeses, most notably Gouda, which they create in a bunch of unique flavors and spreads. You of course can’t miss the “Old Amsterdam” cheese shops, as they are everywhere! The Dutch are so into their cheese that if you walk down just the right street, you’ll discover The Amsterdam Cheese Museum, which has even more samples of cheese — including the “Best Gouda Cheese of 2019.”

Not into cheese? Amsterdam offers tasty fried treats you may like. For instance, “Bitterballen,” a tasty little fried ball of a meat ragout, or its brother the “Kroket,” which contains a similar meat ragout. Both wash down well with a pint of beer. You can pretty much order these guys anywhere. If you want to keep it simple, you can try some “Patat,” a thicker version of a French fry, usually topped with mayonnaise, ketchup, or curry and served in a paper cone. I recommend checking out the patat shop called ‘Manneken Pis’ which is the perfect spot when you have the late night munchies.

If you’re looking for something that’s a little more on the sweeter side, hop into a waffle shop and grab yourself a “stroopwafle.” Essentially the Dutch version of a cookie, it at least looks like a waffle. Or perhaps you want something a little more filling — like tiny pancakes called “Poffertjes,” which are super fluffy and served with butter and powdered sugar on top.

Perhaps the experience you want doesn’t have to do so much with taste as much as it does with elevating the mind. You can always hop into a convenience store or bakery and grab yourself a space cake, brownie, lollipop, cookie, or just about any baked good containing a little bit of Amsterdam’s most notable herbal delight. Just be warned that prices for these baked goodies are not the same across the board, so look around — don’t immediately buy at the first little store you see.

Coffee Shops

If all you really want is some coffee, then look for a café, not a coffee shop, because they are two very different places. Selling marijuana in Amsterdam has been legal for almost 40 years, and over the years the city has built up quite a collection of coffee shops and dispensaries that cater to every type of cannabis enthusiast. Whether you’re into a grungy environment or just want to mellow out in a quiet place, there is a coffee shop for you.

Being that Amsterdam is the most notable city of cannabis culture in the world, you can find so many different types of strains that go along with everybody’s wants, needs, and desires. Usually there are three types of strains you’ll come across in these coffee shops: sativa, indica, or hybrids. If you really are not sure what you want, the people who are running these coffee shops are pretty knowledgeable with their products and can help find the right one that suits you.

While smoking in these coffee shops is legal, it is still not legal to smoke on the streets. However, police officers over the years have become a little more relaxed about it. Conversely, it is also not acceptable to smoke straight cigarettes in coffee shops. They prefer a more herbal aroma than that of tobacco — so light your joint, not a cig. In addition, prices and quality do very from place to place. If you are closer to the city center, just like in any other city in this world, expect to pay more. Some notable places you can check out is the OG of dispensaries, The Bulldog The First, which has been selling since before it was legal. Or swing by one of Snoop Dog’s hangs, The Grey Area.

All photos by Chloe Fortin. Read more posts from around the world on Chloe’s blog, Adventure in Travels, where she blogs about her travels abroad.

RVA #36 Is On The Streets Now!

RVA Staff | April 1, 2019

Topics: Abigail Larson, art, Chris Visions, Culture, gayrva, Michael Millions, music, RVA 36, RVA Global, rva mag print edition, RVA Magazine

Spring is here, and so is this year’s first issue of RVA Magazine!

This week, RVA Magazine #36 is on the stands all over town, welcoming spring with our first brand-new edition of 2019. It’s chock full of arts, culture, music, politics, news, and more. From across the state to right here at home, RVA #36 brings you the first-rate coverage of central Virginia’s street-level culture that you have come to expect over RVA Mag’s 14 years of existence.

Richmond’s artistic community is drawing a lot of attention this year, and in this issue, we dug into the stories behind the art. From longtime local fave Chris Visions, who has caught the world’s eye with his work on Marvel’s Spider-Verse, to gothic princess Abigail Larson, who is currently involved in the creation of Neil Gaiman’s latest Sandman project, we’ve got some serious heavy hitters to introduce you to in this issue.

Richmonders getting out and exploring the world is also a big theme this issue. From local hip-hop sensation Michael Millions’s improbable experience performing in small-town Kentucky to our own Madelyne Ashworth’s travels around Europe and Asia, we bring the unique perspective of our home city to events all around the world.

There’s a lot more in store as well, from a GayRVA report on the queer resistance movement in rural Appalachia to an exploration of independent filmmaking in the river city with the creators of upcoming feature Last Call, which was filmed on location at Richmond’s own The Answer.

All of that is in store for you when you grab your very own copy of RVA #36, available in all your favorite local businesses around town. Get yours now… they’re going fast!

The Disappeared: A Richmond Rabbi Takes On Human Rights In Guatemala

Rabbi Michael Knopf | February 12, 2019

Topics: government shutdown, Guatemala, income inequality, RVA Global, The Torah

The history of Guatemala’s secret abductions reminds us how important the principle of universal equality really is — and points out how far from that principle the United States has gone.

On a recent trip to Guatemala with rabbinic colleagues from around the country, I learned the story of a boy named Marco Antonio Molina Theissen. Marco Antonio reminded me so much of my own son: He loved to draw and write so much that even when he couldn’t find a pencil or paper, he would draw pictures with his finger in the air; he loved outdoor sports, bike riding, and Star Wars.

Tragically, that’s where Marco Antonio’s story ceased to be normal. In the early 1980’s, at the height of Guatemala’s Internal Armed Conflict (1960-1996), Marco Antonio’s older sister, Emma Guadalupe, became involved in student-led protests for democratic reforms and human rights. One day, she was kidnapped outside of her school by members of the Guatemalan army, presumably as a punishment for her activism. They took her to a military zone, where she was repeatedly tortured and raped. Despite this, after nine days, she managed to escape and return home.

The army set up an intelligence operation to find Emma Guadalupe. Within days, agents had tracked her down. They stormed the family’s house, but Emma wasn’t home. Unwilling to leave empty-handed, the agents took Marco Antonio while his mother looked on, powerless to stop them. He was never heard from again. He was disappeared. He was 14 years old.

Before traveling to Guatemala on a trip organized by American Jewish World Service, I had never heard the terms “to be disappeared” or “to disappear someone.” It was a usage of the verb “disappear” I had simply never encountered. In Guatemala, meeting with human rights advocates and victims of state-sponsored abuses, I heard these terms repeatedly. It turns out that “to be disappeared” or “to disappear someone” is a common term in the world of human rights, although the more proper term is an “enforced disappearance.”

An enforced disappearance is the secret abduction of an individual by the state or its agents. To disappear someone is to make someone vanish indefinitely without a trace, telling no one about where they were taken and what has happened to them. This is different than kidnapping someone, or even imprisoning or murdering them; in those circumstances, the status of the person apprehended is generally known. When someone is disappeared, the objective is the uncertainty; the point is for the victim to go missing and for no one to know what has happened.

Guatemala has a history of extrajudicial forced disappearances. Forced disappearances were a deliberate and systematic government strategy during the period of the Internal Armed Conflict, designed to psychologically torture and terrorize segments of the population into submission. As of 2013, there are 45,000 people who were documented as disappeared during the conflict era. And given the fact that many conflict-era war criminals still populate Guatemala’s ruling and political class and that corruption and repression remains widespread, the tactic continues as a strategy of the security and intelligence services — often with impunity — to this day.

Marco Antonio is one of those 45,000 disappeared Guatemalans. Still today, nearly 40 years after his disappearance, and over 20 years since the end of the Guatemalan Civil War, his family has never been told what happened to him, and no one involved in his disappearance has even been charged with a crime, much less brought to justice.

The establishment of a just society is the indisputable theme of my tradition’s sacred scripture, which Jews call the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). For instance, the Torah demands the death penalty for the perpetrators of crimes like the forced disappearance of Marco Antonio: “He who kidnaps a man — whether he has sold him or is still holding him — shall be put to death” (Exodus 21:16). That law is but one of many expressions of the famous biblical perception of justice: “you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise” (21:23-25).

Contemporary commentators sometimes criticize this biblical approach to justice as brutal, violent, and unnecessarily harsh. The ancient Jewish rabbis, too, were somewhat uncomfortable with the practical application of this biblical law of retaliation, substituting where they could monetary damages: an eye for the monetary equivalent of an eye, a foot for the monetary equivalent of a foot, and so forth. And yet while the rabbis may have been squeamish about actually cutting off the hand of a violent perpetrator, and while they correctly pointed out that, in effect even if not intent, this kind of retaliatory justice can result in injustice, they did not challenge the basic moral assertion embedded in this biblical teaching.

The basic moral assertion of the Torah’s legal system is that all lives have equal value, that everyone must be treated as equals under the law. The life of a noble and the life of a peasant are legally equivalent — their eyes have the same value, their hands have the same value, their feet have the same value, their bodily integrity and dignity are equally worthy.

Astonishingly for a Bronze Age text, the Torah even goes so far as to extend this equality of status to foreigners, people who otherwise in the ancient world would have never been considered social equals with citizens. Yet the Torah says “you shall have one law” for citizen and stranger alike (Leviticus 24:22), that the foreigner is to be considered legally equal to the native-born, and even goes so far as to enshrine special protections to the alien to ensure their fair treatment.

The Torah, while admittedly imperfect, was a revolution of values in its time, and advances a core principle that we have yet to fully realize even in our time. It thus challenges us, in every place and in every age, to advance societies in which all people are considered and treated as equals, in which no life is treated as more important than another, and in which no life is treated as less worthy than another.

When I reflected on what I witnessed and learned while in Guatemala, this was the principle to which I kept returning. Guatemala today remains a country of profound inequality: Nearly 60% of the country is impoverished, and about a quarter of the population lives on less than $1 per day. About half of all Guatemalan children under the age of 5 are chronically malnourished. All of these inequities and more disproportionately impact Guatemala’s large Mayan population, the country’s indigenous inhabitants. Corruption and impunity remain rampant. If you are wealthy or well-connected, if you possess political or economic power or enjoy proximity to the powerful, you benefit from legal and extralegal privileges unimaginable to the poor and weak majority.

There seemed to be a direct line between centuries of colonization and exploitation (including American-orchestrated overthrow of Guatemala’s democratically-elected leader in 1954) and the wholesale slaughter of native communities during the conflict period to the discrimination, poverty, and oppression rampant today. The legacy of considering some Guatemalan lives as more valuable than others keeps a select few wealthy and powerful while preventing the majority of the population from rising.

It is why, for example, whole communities can have their lands confiscated by the state with no just cause or fair compensation, and be forced to live in makeshift tent villages in the wilderness with inadequate access to food, water, and healthcare, while fighting years-long battles in the courts that they are likely to lose. It is why human rights activists and journalists are routinely threatened, harassed, imprisoned, and even murdered or disappeared with impunity by the same people they are protesting or trying to expose as corrupt or criminal. It is why very few perpetrators of atrocities during the conflict era have been prosecuted for their crimes. These were the people I met in Guatemala. This is what a society looks like when the lives of some are considered more valuable than the lives of others.

More troubling still, I could not help but hear in all of this echoes of my own country’s history and present realities. As I encountered past and present injustice in Guatemala, the longest government shutdown in American history dragged on. Hundreds of thousands of government workers had been furloughed without pay for weeks over a demand, leveled by some of the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful individuals, that we treat some people — namely, asylum seekers and migrants from Central America — as less deserving of dignity and opportunity as others.

The shutdown, of course, merely compounded cruelty upon cruelty. Even without a wall, current immigration policy perfectly illustrates how we today treat some lives as inferior to others. What, after all, was happening at the border over the past year if not the forced disappearances of hundreds of migrant children, some of whom died in our custody? Why are those fleeing violence and poverty from places like Guatemala less worthy of dignity and opportunity than anyone else?

It increasingly dawned on me that, similar to Guatemala, the U.S. was built upon a foundation of plunder, exploitation, and brutality; our history replete with legally ordained inequality and judicially enforced discrimination. One can draw a straight line from those historic injustices to the facts that, today, roughly one in every five American children live in poverty, more than two million Americans are incarcerated, and our rate of income inequality is greater than any other democracy in the developed world. And every single one of those inequities disproportionately impacts Americans of color.

It was painful to consider whether my own society’s injustices were differences of degree, rather than kind; that even in America, in practice if not in theory, some people’s lives matter more than others. What, I wondered, will become of us if we remain on this path?

If all lives have intrinsic and equal value then we yet have considerable work to do at home. And, if we accept this core principle of justice, then the inequities in a faraway place like Guatemala must also concern us. We should care about a foreign government disappearing a child before his parent’s eyes, because if all lives have equal value, no parent anywhere deserves to fear such a horror any more than you or I do. If all lives are equally precious, than the systematic murder of an entire population should matter to us whether it is happening to our own people or to people halfway around the world. The principle is universal. It transcends borders and applies across national, ethnic, and religious divides. And it calls us to attention and to action at home, in Central America, and, indeed, everywhere.

The biblical tradition insists that all lives have equal value. Moreover, it demands not just that we cherish this principle but also that we build a society, and ultimately a world, that enshrines and ensures the equal worth of every human being.

Photos by Christine Han Photography

RVA Global: Harassed And Stranded By Kenyan Police

Wyatt Gordon | January 21, 2019

Topics: corruption, Independent Policing Oversight Authority, IPOA, Kenya, murders by police, Police, RVA Global

Stranded on the side of a highway somewhere in Nairobi, we considered ourselves lucky. My boyfriend and I had just jumped out of our Uber in a panic after being threatened by a police officer. “I will take you both to jail too. I have that power,” still rang in my ears as my breathing gradually came back to normal. Before we had a chance to see anything of one of Africa’s most fascinating countries, our first ride in Kenya had quickly descended into a crash course on corruption and harassment by the police.

Typical first time tourists to Kenya, we hopped in our Uber our first day in Nairobi and headed off to the Giraffe Centre to meet some of Africa’s most charismatic megafauna. Our driver — “Mbugua,” we’ll call him — immediately welcomed us to the country, offered us some bottled water, and informed us with pride that he had recently rigged his car with a mobile hotspot. He beamed as he told us the password was his two daughters’ names because they are the joy of his life. As Mbugua turned off the highway, a police officer stepped in front of the car and waved him to the side of the road. When the officer opened the passenger door and hopped inside our vehicle, my stomach sank. I’d never heard of a country where such behavior was legal, and indeed in Kenya it isn’t.

One doesn’t exactly feel comfortable traveling through Kenya as a same-sex couple in the first place. In a land where any sign of intimacy with your partner could result in five to fourteen years’ imprisonment, one is naturally and constantly on guard. When a law enforcement officer randomly gets in the same vehicle with you without provocation or invitation, that feeling of dread worsens.

The officer asked Mbugua if he knew what he had done wrong. Mbugua said he believed he had committed no offense. When the officer reprimanded Mbugua for making a turn outside the dedicated turning lane, Mbugua pointed out there were cars parked in the turning lane, so he had no choice but to go around them. The officer showed no understanding and informed Mbugua he would be taken to police headquarters and placed in a cell unless he could find a way to make up for his “crime.”

Visibly sweating and shaking now, Mbugua turned to us and began to beg at a whisper for money to pay the officer a bribe. Petrified, my boyfriend and I frantically began to discuss how much cash we had, how much a bribe would cost, and whether getting involved could put us in danger when the officer interrupted us, threatening to drag us off to jail with Mbugua and keep us there. Terrified, we quickly apologized to Mbugua, grabbed our stuff, and jumped out of the car before the officer had the chance to make us his new targets of abuse. Stranded on the side of a massive highway my boyfriend and I just stared at one another with confusion, regret, and rage in our stomachs.

One may hope that our experience with this corrupt officer would be an anomaly; however, police abuse in Kenya is depressingly common, and we were some of the lucky ones who managed to escape real harm.

Just in June of last year Kenya’s Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) finally declared the death of Alexander Monson — a young Brit beaten to death while in police custody in 2012 — a case of police abuse, after years of backing baseless theories that he died of an overdose, and that bruises to his groin were the result of vigorous oral sex. 

The police’s treatment of Kenyans frequently proves worse. Videos of extrajudicial, execution-style killings by police regularly circulate on social media, often posted by bragging officers themselves. In ten days in October, civil society watchdogs like the Mathare Social Justice Center (MSJC) and the Dandora Community Justice Center (DCJC) documented 22 police killings in these two informal settlements of Nairobi alone. Activists claim trigger-happy police simply kill suspects to save themselves the work of actually investigating crimes. Between 2013 and 2015, the MSJC documented 803 police killings in the Mathare neighborhood of Nairobi, collecting interviews with witnesses and victims’ families to be used as evidence, should the IPOA ever investigate.

When police burst into a Kisumu family’s home in a bout of post-election violence in 2017 and struck and killed a six month-old baby, discussion of police abuse once again swept across the country. Despite warnings from police leaders not to harass those they’re intended to protect, corruption and abuse remains rampant. Out of some 9,200 complaints received by the IPOA, they have only managed to secure convictions of officers in two particularly gruesome cases — the murder of a 14 year-old girl in her own home, and the extrajudicial execution of a suspected mobile phone thief.

Convictions remain rare due to three key problems: police obstruction, fear of retribution, and government oversight. Too often witnesses and evidence disappear before the IPOA has a chance to review a claim, and officers face no punishment if they refuse to cooperate in IPOA investigations; thus, there are no incentives or consequences to motivate the police to assist those designated to account for their wrongdoing.

Activists who report police misconduct and key witnesses in cases of police abuse are often threatened and frequently murdered by exactly those officers which they hoped to hold to account. Lastly, the IPOA’s board can hardly claim to be free of political influence, as its members were appointed by a panel hand-picked by President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Furthermore, although international donors have poured millions into the IPOA since its creation in 2011, its funding is controlled by a Parliament dominated by the ruling party, which has no motivation to hold high level officials to account.

The ubiquity of police corruption and abuse in Kenya is not a sickness unto itself. Rather, the criminal and murderous behavior of the country’s police are but a symptom of a culture of flagrant disregard for the rule of law. The development of a more independent judiciary, evinced by waning political involvement in judicial nominations and a string of plucky chief justices in the past years, proves that the spirit of the rule of law in Kenya lives and could one day reign. However, even courts are curtailed by budget cuts and the vilification of impartial judges by politicians. If Kenyans want to live in a country that offers equal protection under the law to all its citizens and visitors, then Kenyans themselves must demand that those who have authority over them are held to account.

Photo via Facebook

RVA Global: With The Bombs Came Bebop

RVA Staff | January 7, 2019

Topics: Banh Minh Jazz Club, Hanoi, jazz, RVA 35, RVA Global, Vietnam

*This article originally appeared in RVA Mag #35, on the streets now at all your favorite spots.

On the edge of Hanoi’s old quarter sits the Hanoi Opera House. A relic of French colonialism and an architectural beauty, it presents and accomplishes a perfect draw for tourists — but locals know better. They know what’s behind it.

Quyen Van Minh, a Vietnam War survivor and renowned jazz musician, opened the Binh Minh jazz club in 1997. Although it has relocated twice since its debut, the club found a permanent home on Trang Tien, a small V-shaped alley behind the old opera house and the bustling Hang Ma intersection. The club is well guarded by palm trees, smog-stained neon signs, and a lofty fence line.

“Mr. Minh is known as the ‘Godfather of Jazz’ in Vietnam, simply because of the role he played in pioneering jazz as a respected genre of music in Vietnam under socialist rule, and developing Vietnamese jazz as a genre in its own right,” said Stan BH Tan-Tangbau. Tangbau is an ethnographic researcher, and is completing a book on Minh and the history of jazz in Vietnam.

Minh’s club is reminiscent of a neon-saturated Bossa Nova bar. Framed photos and abstract paintings adorn the walls, while the bar still sells Marlboro Lights — Minh’s favorite. The only sounds to compete with the drone of motorbikes outside are the appreciative murmur of the crowd, and the smoky-horn melodies of the band on stage.

The band is a six-piece ensemble, but usually only four of them stay through the whole set; a five-piece drum set and bass backs the baby grand in front, while the center players do a number on the clarinet and saxophone. The audience is an older crowd. Many have been here  before, and are fine with paying the higher rates the bar charges for drinks and smokes as there is no entrance fee.

Minh is easy to spot: His black-and-silver ponytail, jazzman’s goatee, and the cigar clutched between his lips are iconic. He drifts around the room, saying hello to old comrades and bar regulars, his aura cool and cordial. After a few songs, he grabs a saxophone, one of three in rotation, as his piece of choice for the evening.

Minh is Vietnam’s first jazz star, and today one of the most eminent musicians in Hanoi. His grainy, nostalgic cool is a relic of what fell out of favor in American jazz circles decades ago, with the advent of rock and roll music. Jazz in Vietnam today is at the forefront of the live music circuit, with venues located in every major city in the country. Yet until recent years, Vietnam’s relationship with jazz was more complicated than its seventh-chord harmonies.

“Of course, we had jazz in Hanoi from the 1920’s,” said Nguyen Manh, a pianist and professor of Jazz at the Vietnam National Academy of Music. “It was in metropolitan hotels, and back when people watched Charlie Chaplin movies in the theatre. It started in French Hanoi, with French music, but of course it’s not 100 percent jazz.”

While the French first introduced Vietnam to jazz, Manh insists it wasn’t until the Vietnam War that the country saw the introduction of rock-time, brass band jazz. In Vietnam, this conflict is known as the “War of American Aggression,” in which America’s desperate and futile crusade against Communism erupted in senseless genocide. From 1955 to 1975, Vietnam was America’s playground for airstrikes and chemical warfare, creating a strained relationship between Vietnam’s people and American jazz.

“Louis Armstrong soundtracks were always being put on Good Morning Vietnam,” Manh said.

The period brought many firsts to Vietnam, such as shopping malls and saloon life for stationed soldiers, the first inclusion of the press on the frontlines, and the expansion of AFVN (Armed Forces Vietnam Network) radio, boasting they would play “all the hits from back home.” According to historians, B-52 pilots would cut through the air and listen to Bebop jazz while dropping millions of tons of napalm on anything from Viet Cong command posts to villages of women and children.

“Minh’s encounter with jazz and attempt to play began in the late 1960’s, when he first heard jazz on the radio,” Tangbau said. “[He’d] chanced upon an overseas channel, most likely Voice of America’s jazz hour program.”

 

Minh had his own transistor radio. It was Chinese, one of the thousands sent down by Vietnam’s Communist comrades to the north. He used it to listen to the BBC and American broadcasting stations. He was 12, sitting in secrecy, enjoying jazz hits outside his father’s earshot.

Already adept with the guitar and clarinet, Minh was entranced by the new form of music. “It was something new, strange and mesmerizing for him,” Tangbau said. “He has never heard it before. This is because jazz has simply disappeared from northern Vietnam after the end of the First Indochina War in 1954, [when] the new government set the country on the path of socialist revolution.”

After the U.S. exited Vietnam in 1975, jazz was placed on a nationwide ban by the Vietnamese government, who failed to lift the outdated policy until the installation of the “Doi Moi” economic reforms in 1986. Listening to jazz during this ten-year period was considered subversive to the standing government — a simple playback could mean prison.

“All cultural artifacts associated with the capitalist enemy were banned,” Tangbau said. “There was some jazz that came into Vietnam under French colonial rule, mainly in the European style hotels and lounges. A little bit of jazz was broadcast on radio, and perhaps a little bit of gospel in the churches in the first half of the 20th century. All these disappeared in the north after 1954.” Things were a bit different in the south, at least while the United States occupied that part of the country.

“In the south, under American influence, there was some jazz, although rock’n roll was the more popular genre of the time,” Tangbau said. “There was even a small group of Vietnamese musicians who played jazz in the south. After reunification in 1975, all these disappeared.”

For a few years, jazz all but disappeared from public consciousness in Vietnam. “Those who had the chance to study in Eastern Europe were aware of jazz, but there was just no cultural space for it in Vietnam,” Tangbau said. “It was risky to even try play jazz or bring the genre back.”

However, Minh’s desire to continue playing the music he loved outlasted the government’s restrictions. As the Soviet Union began to crumble in the late 1980’s, Minh and other artists were able to play Western music without fear of censorship.

According to Tangbau, the previously negative perception of jazz shifted when the Vietnam Association of Musicians endorsed two concerts in 1988 and 89, orchestrated almost entirely by Minh. “The 1988 and 1989 concerts really turned things around,” Tangbau said. “Jazz was endorsed by the official musician circle. After 1989, Minh was even invited to teach saxophone and jazz music at the national conservatory.”

The music you hear in Vietnam today differs between North and South Vietnam. Whereas in the South, Ho Chi Minh City embraced American culture with fast-paced Bebop and the swell of jazz bars on every block, northern cities like Hanoi took much longer to embrace anything outside old traditions. “Vietnamese jazz is still on the way to developing its own identity, by combining that with our ‘root’ traditional music,” Manh said. “Many Vietnamese folk songs have been rearranged, also many new compositions using our pentatonic scale.”

Minh was able to transform a prohibited practice, one many associated with pain and suffering, into a new method of healing and growth. His dedication and passion for jazz brought a new, younger wave of jazz musicians in Vietnam, including his own son. The multiple generations of jazz musicians were able to create a sense of community that combines jazz with Vietnamese culture, rather than being pushed to the fringes.

Vietnam’s new push for cross-border education is sending some students to Europe for their educations while bringing foreign instructors to teach at the National Academy of Music in Hanoi. However, according to Manh, as their curriculum catches up with France and America, most students are opting to remain in Vietnam. The Academy began teaching jazz as part of their available curriculum in 1991. According to Manh, jazz curriculum gained significant popularity in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.

“So this is one of the biggest schools we have here for jazz — we are the pioneers in the country,” he said. He collaborates with world-class artists and invites many of them to Hanoi for lectures and demonstrations.

“In our [playing] style, we go back to our roots, one that combines western and eastern jazz,” Manh explained. “But for teaching, we try to keep to classical jazz. American jazz has the basics for every student.”

According to Manh, Vietnamese artists wish to explore foreign styles of jazz, a movement which the country has encouraged. In 2005, Vietnam hosted the European Jazz Festival, while in 2017, the San Francisco Jazz Orchestra visited Vietnam to mark the 10th anniversary of Vietnamese and American diplomatic ties.

That same year, under a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, and the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City, Grammy Award winner Herbie Hancock visited Vietnam with an eclectic ensemble of legendary jazz artists and musicians from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at the University of Southern California. In addition to their performance, the artists spent the following weekend conducting workshops and seminars at the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City conservatories.

Back in Binh Minh, time stands still. Alongside young, curious locals and wandering tourists, Minh and his group of wartime survivors sit close to the stage each night at 9 p.m. sharp, drinking Hanoi beer.

There are no revolutions, no seminars or symposiums, no fear of survival, no culture wars, no airstrikes, no bombs: There are simply good people, good cigars, and good music.

“Jazz is a universal language,” Manh said. “It’s more than the war.”

Words and Photos by Madelyne Ashworth and John Donegan

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