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.”