September, School, And The Politics Of Memory

September is when the school year starts in Vietnam. However, this academic cycle is like no other, as the country is struggling with a deadly virus that claimed more than 10,000 lives last month. [1] How will this pandemic be remembered by those who survive? How will it be taught in schools in the years to come? Who will remember the missteps of the government, and will they demand justice for those whose deaths should have been avoided? We must not forget that a large part of Vietnam’s political landscape is the politics of memory, because as George Orwell once said in 1984, ‘he who controls the past controls the future; he who controls the present controls the past.’ My journey through schools, first in Vietnam and then overseas, illustrates why education and the politics of memory are intimately connected...