Protecting the Party’s Ideological Foundation, Fighting to Refute the False and Hostile Views of the Vietnamese Young Intellectuals: Current Situation and Solutions

Overview on the Vietnamese young intellectuals

The contingent of Vietnamese young intellectuals nowadays include those aged from 18 to 40, with high educational qualification (college and universities undergraduates), who are working in the knowledge-based environment, directly create high content intellectual products.

As young intellectuals, they are active, do not like to be bound in stereotypes, even tend to break the boundaries. Currently, there are three main popular lifestyles of the youngsters: 1. Yolo lifestyle (You only live once) which tends to encourage youngsters not to be afraid of difficulties, to dare to be creative, to do what you like with the motto: Live once in your life, so live comfortably, live to the fullest so that every passing moment counts; 2. Green lifestyle, which is environment-friendly living and close to nature. This is a positive lifestyle, with regularly exercising, sports, eating green, living clean to improve health; 3. Minimalism lifestyle, which is a thrifty lifestyle and appreciative of what you have. Live simply and be confident with yourself. Choosing one of the above cultures and lifestyles has both advantages and disadvantages. For example, the Yolo lifestyle may lead youngsters to selfishness, haste and superficiality. An individual of Yolo lifestyle may like only what is beneficial to him, and may not care about the entire society.

Most young intellectuals are active and always seeking for opportunities to assert themselves, have strong desire for prosperity, and live with responsibility through enthusiastically participating in public and social works. They are always creative, love to explore, actively learn new things and are responsive to the development of technology. Many of them are overseas Vietnamese, who have returned to the country and worked in different fields that have contributed to the spread of knowledge, technology, skills, thus, creating valuable and meaningful contributions for the country as well as connecting the country to the world ⁽¹⁾.

Psychosocially, Vietnamese young intellectuals are extrovert and dynamic. It means they are easily to receive new things and absorb foreign influences; at the same times, they like to change and grow. However, in the stage of opening up and integration, many young people in general and young intellectuals in particular have had various unusual, disruptive, deviating, and “shocking” behaviors which are seen to erode traditional cultural values, such as: preferring “stylish”, “hot trend” fashions with two-piece tops, skin heads, tattoos, premarital sex, etc. (in the 1990s - 2000s)⁽²⁾.

Today's Vietnamese young intellectuals are different from previous generations and other labor forces. They are more easily affected by external factors that shape the youth's temperament such as living standards, technology, phenomena of social problems such as the gap between the rich and the poor, etc. Therefore, there are limitations among the young intellectuals, such as the qualification gap between central and local levels and regions. The professional fields of the intelligentsia do not attract young human resources. Many young intellectuals in the public sector move to the private sector or another completely different working environment to earn higher incomes. The qualification level of young intellectuals in many research institutions and universities is still lagging behind the national development requirements and some advanced countries in the region, especially in terms of creative capacity, practical skills, and ability to communicate in foreign languages ​​and use information technology ⁽³⁾. There is a large number of young Vietnamese intellectuals who are not motivated to work and to live. Some of them lack sustainable trust and places to put their trust. They also lack self-confidence and socio-cultural knowledge. Even some highly educated intellectuals are afraid of being blamed for their own views and avoid political issues. Some have degraded professional ethics and sense of responsibility and self-esteem, with manifestation of dishonesty and lack of cooperative spirit. Some are lazy to learn, to explore and to improve their professional skills, lack the will and ambition. Many young intellectuals do not have positive mood, in pursuit for immediate and short-term benefits, lack the will to strive for professional advancement ⁽⁴⁾.

A contingent of young intellectuals in the work of protecting the Party's ideological foundation, refuting wrong and hostile views

In fact, young intellectuals are targets of hostile and reactionary forces’ sabotage and communication activities, because young intellectuals are those whose awareness is still nascent, easily agitated in their thoughts. Via modern and sophisticated tools and measures, especially focusing on high technology, and via cyberspace, hostile forces use a variety of social network platforms, websites, radio broadcasting stations, programs, newspapers, magazines in Vietnamese languages, etc. to continuously spread fake news and bad, toxic information to distort and sabotage, which exert impacts on the ideology of cadres, Party members and people. They set up many websites and social media accounts impersonating senior leaders from central to local levels, some popular people (KOL), or in the name of “fighting against corruption, negativity”, “environmental protection”, “protection of sea and island sovereignty”, “social criticism”, “consultation for the Party”, and such to quote, comment, distort, discredit the Party and State’s lines. At the same time, they post on the internet and social networks the negative aspects of society, focus on negative, unorthodox and uncertified information to lead and direct public opinion in a negative direction, to confuse readers and to create skepticism and obstruction to the implementation of the Party and State’s guidelines and policies. Consequently, they gradually transform people’s thoughts into wrong, reactionary and hostile views. They also publish publications with bad, toxic content; compiling documents and videos with content that inflates, distorts the truth; distributing leaflets, writing and drawing reactionary content slogans. Hostile forces have continued to compose many documents and “works” in the form of literature in order to make up stories, slander, smear, and abolish the Marxist-Leninist doctrine and the theory of the socialist revolution ⁽⁵⁾.

In response to the above claims and activities of the hostile forces, Vietnamese young intellectuals have reacted quite positively to demonstrate their core cultural values. They constitute an important force in defending the Party's ideological foundation and refuting false and hostile views:

Many young intellectuals have actively and enthusiastically chaired or participated in scientific research works from grassroots level to State level, writing papers for relevant scientific conferences at training institutions such as universities, agencies, etc. Many young intellectuals have won awards for their efforts. For example, in a writing contest on protecting the ideological foundation of the Party in 2022, 20 authors/groups of authors who are Youth Union’s members were awarded prospect prizes for their good quality articles⁽⁶⁾.

Young intellectuals, especially lecturers and students of universities, notably the Academy of Journalism and Communication, have actively created media products to protect the Party’s ideological foundation, via a YouTube channel named Mach Nguon (The vital source) which has nearly 10,000 subscribers and monthly posts political media works that gained a lot of public reacts, such as likes, shares and comments.

Young intellectuals, especially those in the public sector have participated actively and creatively by writing, reading, likes, comments and shares of information related to the protection of the Party’s ideological foundations on social networks, such as via Facebook, Zalo, YouTube, Instagram, and more, with sharp and reasonable understanding and have created good effects on cyberspace.

Many young intellectuals who are in leadership positions have actively consulted leaders of Party and State’s agencies and units on many issues. Some of them have even directed the implementation of the Party's directives and resolutions on protecting the Party's ideological foundation through setting up plans and projects to refute false and hostile allegations, and they have gained significant achievements.

However, there are still some limitations in the behaviors of young intellectuals in the work of protecting the Party’s ideological foundation and fighting against false and hostile views:

Firstly, many young Vietnamese intellectuals tend to prefer the negative side of a chosen lifestyle, namely the Yolo lifestyle (only living once in a lifetime), the minimalism lifestyle. For example, youngsters tend to be pragmatic, sentimental, selfish, or are easily enthusiastic but soon cooled down their enthusiasm, alienated to the times, consequently, did not participate in the work of defending the Party’s ideological foundation, or participated but not in a practical and effective manner.

Secondly, some young intellectuals who are enthusiastic but immature and lack self-restraint, are influenced by negative phenomena in society, thus they unintentionally or intentionally share uncertified information on personal social accounts. They even give negative and contradictory personal viewpoints. These things can affect psychology and political ideology of other individuals in society (their friends on social networks).

Thirdly, in general, most of young intellectuals are hard-working, however, for certain reasons, during the process of research and work, some of them do perfunctorily, lack of professionalism and enthusiasm. On the other hand, due to their poor expertise, the quality of their works in protecting the Party’s ideological foundation and fighting against wrong and hostile views still remains low. Some works are superficial, with poor content and plagiarism, causing a waste of State resources and making the ideological struggle ineffective.

Fourthly, a political culture, i.e. the sense of actively participating in political activities has not been fully shaped among young intellectuals working in the private sector, thus, they do not actively fight to protect the Party’s ideological foundation and rejecting wrong and hostile views. Some young intellectuals even do not know or do not care about this.

Fifth, young intellectuals’ work of opposing wrong and hostile views has not yet been focused. The number of articles and works that directly refute false and hostile views is scanty; most of the works and activities are indirect. This demonstrates the limited attention and ability of young intellectuals in this field.

Some solutions to improve the behavior culture of Vietnamese young intellectuals in protecting the Party’s ideological foundation and fighting against wrong and hostile views in the coming time

First and foremost, it is important to raise awareness of young intellectuals, which is considered the premise and nucleus factor to build the culture of behavior in protecting the Party's ideological foundation and fighting against wrong hostile views. The awareness raising requires the coordination and participation of the Party and State agencies at all levels and sectors, from central to local (grassroots). Communication work is identified as a breakthrough solution, in which it is necessary to convey to young intellectuals the topicality, role and significance of the ideological struggle via the diversification of communication methods, so that they find attractive and engaging, then gradually understand and get involved in. The characteristic of awareness-raising work is persuasion, not coercion. In addition, it is necessary to diversify forms of education and training in political and ideological theory in particular and the knowledge about politics in general to foster political ideals and political behavior. On that basis, political culture will be formed from schools to working environment, and suitable for each young intellectual.

In addition, leaders at all levels need to take measures to stir up the enthusiasm, passion, and patriotism of young intellectuals so that they can actively participate in the common struggle, contributing to the ideological orientation to correct the youth’s political thought and behavior. For example, leaders should have incentives, mechanisms and policies to encourage and create opportunities and a good environment for young intellectuals to participate; or to improve the operational capacity of mass organizations, such as Trade Union, Youth Union in the places where young intellectuals work to connect and exert more efforts in protecting the Party’s ideological foundation.

Improving the political capacity and mettle for young Vietnamese intellectuals is a way to make them to be firm and consistent with their ideal goals as well as having the right political orientation. When young intellectuals have political mettle, their participation in protecting the ideological foundation of the Party is inevitable.

More attention should be paid to increasing financial resources for fostering and promoting young intellectuals' intelligence in research, production, and publication of good quality scientific works related to the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation, fighting against wrong and hostile views.

It is necessary to replicate effective models such as Youth’s Theoretical Clubs in several provincial youth unions across the country, of which Lang Son Youth Union is an example with 19 clubs and more than 600 members, to maintain the Party’s ideological struggle ⁽⁷⁾.

It is necessary to organize more intellectual games shows, particularly international games shows for Vietnam’s intellectuals to learn, share and implement the protecting of the Party’s ideological foundation. Currently, Vietnam’s Youth Union has been hosting a lot of games, including cooperation activities with more than 300 international organizations of the youth, students, governmental and non-governmental organizations. Particularly, there have been study exchanges between youngsters of regional neighboring countries, progressive and rightist organizations, and effectively participating in the World Federation of Democratic Youth’s activities ⁽⁸⁾. Those are ideal environment for the young intellectuals to nurture their knowledge and to integrate in with the protecting the Party’s ideological foundation and fight against false and hostile viewpoints.

Finally, it is imperative to promote the role of young Vietnamese intellectuals who are living and working in many other countries around the world in protecting the Party’s ideological foundation. This is an abundant, high-quality resource that, if it is promoted, has a very good effect. Vietnam has implemented many policies on promoting the resources of the overseas Vietnamese community as well as overseas Vietnamese young intellectuals, for example, via Global Forum of Vietnamese Young Intellectuals, however, there has not been obvious results in how to integrate the protecting of the Party’s ideological foundation and fighting against hostile wrong views in such forums.

Those are some suggestions with the hope that Vietnam’s young intellectuals are aware of their significance in protecting the Party's ideological foundation and fighting against wrong and hostile views. Along with their youth, enthusiasm, creative dedication, Vietnam’s young intellectuals will show a culture of behavior that enhances their values ​​via practical achievements and products that contribute to the people’s peaceful mind, socio-political stability and the country’s development and prosperity./.

(1) https://hdll.vn/vi/nghien-cuu---trao-doi/xay-dung-doi-ngu-tri-thuc-viet-nam-trong-boi-canh-moi--%E2%80%8B.html

(2) Prof., PhD Tran Ngoc Them (Culture Faculty, HCM University of Social and Sciences) https://edufac.edu.vn/toa-dam-gioi-tre-viet-nam-hien-nay-thuc-trang-nhung-van-de-dat-ra-ve-van-hoa-giao-duc-va-nhung-giai

(3) https://hdll.vn/vi/nghien-cuu---trao-doi/xay-dung-doi-ngu-tri-thuc-viet-nam-trong-boi-canh-moi--%E2%80%8B.html

(4) https://hdll.vn/vi/nghien-cuu---trao-doi/xay-dung-doi-ngu-tri-thuc-viet-nam-trong-boi-canh-moi--%E2%80%8B.html

(5) http://dukcqtw.dcs.vn/bao-ve-nen-tang-tu-tuong-cua-dang-dau-tranh-phan-bac-cac-luan-dieu-xuyen-tac-thu-dich-tren-khong-gian-mang-trach-nhiem-khong-cua-rieng-ai-duk15328.aspx

(6) https://dangcongsan.vn/bao-ve-nen-tang-tu-tuong-cua-dang/trao-giai-lan-thu-hai-cuoc-thi-viet-chinh-luan-bao-ve-nen-tang-tu-tuong-cua-dang-622653.html.

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REFERENCES

1. Communist Party of Vietnam, Document of the 13th Party’s Congress, Volumes 1, 2, Truth National Political Publishing House, 2021

2. Communist Party of Vietnam, Resolution 35-NQ/TW of the Politburo on “Strengthening the protection of the Party's ideological foundation, fighting against wrong and hostile views in the new situation”.

3. Tran Hoai Minh, Improving the efficiency of international cooperation activities of the Youth Union, https://xaydungdang.org.vn/ly-luan-thuc-tien/nang-cao-hieu-qua-hoat-dong -hop-tac-quoc-te-cua-doan-thanh-nien-7597

4. Duong Duyen, Youth promote the role of protecting the ideological foundation of the Party, http://tuyenGialangson.vn/vi/tinh-news/thanh-nien-phat-huy-vai-tro-bao-ve- nen-tang-tu-tuong-cua-dang

5. Bui Van Huyen, Building a team of Vietnamese intellectuals in a new context, https://hdll.vn/en/nghien-cuu---trao-doi/xay-dung-doi-ngu-tri-thuc -viet-nam-trong-boi-canh-moi--%E2%80%8B.html (Central Theoretical Council, Website)

6. https://edufac.edu.vn/toa-dam-gioi-tre-viet-nam-hien-nay-thuc-trang-nhung-van-de-dat-ra-ve-van-hoa-Giao- duc

7. Protecting the Party's ideological foundation, fighting against the distortion and hostile claims on the Party's ideological foundation in cyberspace – a common responsibility, http:/ /dukcqtw.dcs.vn/bao-ve-nen-tang-tu-tuong-cua-dang-dau-tranh-phan-bac-cac-luan-dieu-xuyen-tac-thu-dich-tren-khong-gian -mang-trach-nhiem-khong-cua-rieng-ai-duk15328.aspx (website of the Party Committee of Central Agencies)

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