Phan Tân
(Bài đã đăng trên Journal of Social Sciences, ISSN: 2327-5952, Vol.3 No.2, pp. 113-119, 2015) Read more: http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=53933#.VPX8E_nF8cw
Abstract:
The history of Vietnam Country’s formation and defense through thousands of years has been summarized in the modern society’s objective value system that are: independence, freedom, happiness, prosperous people and strong country, democracy, justice, and civilization. The value of democracy is regarded a core value and it has been realistic by applying the mechanism of the fact that the people know, people discuss, people do , and people supervise. The paper looking forward to clarify this mechanism, and, above all, in a certain degree of clarification it is matches with manner forming public opinion and the roles, functions of public opinion.
Keywords:
Public
opinion; Value system; Core value; Regulation of democracy;
Development goals
Rationale
The history of Vietnam Fatherland’s formation and defense through
thousands of years has been summarized in the modern society’s objective value
system that are: independence, freedom, happiness, prosperous people and strong
country, democracy, justice, and civilization. Based on such values system,
every action by humans and the community for social development shall be
evaluated, judged, and supported or rejected by the people. The values are
interrelated in a dialectical way. The value of democracy is regarded a core value
and it has been realistic by applying the mechanism of the fact that the people
know, people discuss, people do , and people supervise - it matches with manner
forming public opinion and the roles, functions of public opinion.
Public opinion is a realistic
spiritual structure, it has existed reflects of
society and has expressed the spirit of social life. Social actions are
determined by values, therefore, they are evaluated and judged by the people
based on values and standards, thence, they orient or adjust social actions
in line with built-up values or gradually change viewpoints on values to make
them relevant with development in social - age perception.Value system is understood as the blend of the community’s life
conception and the luggage that obviously each member takes in life. The value
system orients each member’s thoughts and actions.
Many Vietnamese scientists have
approached values by ethical, cultural, socioeconomic, tangible - intangible
heritage, and tangible - intangible value perspectives, etc.,. There is a study
on Vietnam
Vietnam
During
the long history of Vietnamese nation, with thousands of years under Chinese
domination, dozens of wars against foreign aggression and defending the nation,
countless civil wars, separations, conflicts etc., the will of independence,
freedom and happiness has gone into the subconsciousness - consciousness of
the nation, consciousness of the Vietnamese. Being the Vietnamese, everybody is
proud of nation defending traditions; everybody wishes Vietnam to be peaceful, stable,
prosperous than ever and have equal status in the world.
In
parallel with the long history of gaining and maintaining the national
independence and development through ages; in the integration trend from
primitive to modern ages, the objective intrinsic values for
development, such as: prosperous people, strong country, democracy, justice
and civilization, have also been developed gradually to complete both
theoretically and practically[[i]].
Every
social behaviour and movement are shaped and referred to desired values. Basic value system central
values (Independence
- Freedom - Happiness) and development value system
(Prosperous people - Strong country - Democracy - Justice - Civilization) have
become a pair of value which means to be both tangible and intangible assets.
This pair of value has dominated the entire social behaviour. Whether each
social phenomenon, each event, each social issue happens on behalf of anything,
it cannot go beyond the general reference range of this pair of values. The social behaviour, whether
positive/negative, good/bad, development/anti-development, will be evaluated
and judged by the community itself based on this pair of values.
To
protect the value system of “Independence
- Freedom - Happiness”, Vietnamese has to prioritized solidarity and consensus
first whenever there is invader. It has become a source of internal strength of
the country whose greatest achievements were to prevent from China ’s cultural assimilation and annexation
(when many states, which are now China ’s autonomous regions[[ii]],
could not do). Even more importantly, the defense for territorial integrity -
national independence has been proven throughout the national history, such as:
Southern Han’s domination defeat by Khuc Hao and Ngo Quyen (in 913, 938), Ly
Dynasty’s two victories over Tong’s military (in 981, 1075-1077), Mongolia’s
defeat three times by Tran Dynasty (in 1258, 1285, 1287-1288), Le Loi’s resistance
movement against the Minh Dynasty (1418-1427), following with Quang Trung’s
great victory over Manchu military (1788-1789), etc. They have been major
milestones in the history of defense for national independence and freedom.
To
consistently develop with ages, extensively integrate with the world, and
ensure human and ethnic rights, the value of Prosperous people - Strong country
- Democracy - Justice - Civilization is recognized, analyzed, promoted,
inspected, monitored, and opposed by the community and society. Not only local
communities but also international organizations and institutions monitor and
oversee the value’s practices.
As
the prosperity of the country, the rights to live, work and learn in a healthy,
civilized environment have become the ultimate goal to be achieved and
preserved by the whole community. Every social behaviour and action to protect
or infringe that social value will be praised or condemned or judged. This is
the compound of opinions with people’s understanding, participation in
community, responsibilities to preserve the values and individuals’ interests
in the community [7].
2. Value
system and core values in orientation of public opinion in Vietnam
1)
Public opinion is the compound of ideas interacting with one another
through the process of discussion to show awareness, emotion and will of
the social groups. Discussed personal comments become general
opinions and individuals become public opinion carriers.
2)
Public opinion may only be evaluation, judgment, recommendation
or claim, solution. When the public has only evaluated, judged
and not provided recommendation, claim or solution, then the public opinion
conditions are not fulfilled. Public opinion can be different or even contrary,
which form similar or different comments.
4)
Public opinion may be the opinion of majority or minority. That opinion is
debated and consented based on benefits and/or values of their interests.
5)
Only social issues, events, phenomenon related benefits of many people’s
interests are capable of creating public opinion (benefit is the basis
of debate).
6)
Values and standards serve as a basis for public opinion.
So,
how is the value which public opinion discusses, reflects, evaluates,
recommends, claims, solves in Vietnamese’s pair of value shown?
3. Democratic
values in practices - the role and function of public opinion
nowadays
Vietnamese
history also records milestone of representative democratic spirit which took
place under Tran Dynasty. At that time, in order to turn the King and generals’
ideas and will into people’s strength to fight the 2nd Mongol’s
invasion, King Tran Nhan Tong (1258-1308) invited all country’s elders to the
Citadel to attend Dien Hong Conference (1284) to discuss strategies to save the
country. This is a model of democratic activities in asking people's opinions
and creating public opinion and power from people's beliefs. Dien Hong
Conference is considered as the first democratic conference in Vietnamese
history. The elders might have been regarded as
representatives to the people. After the conference, the elders were those
who conveyed the policy of the Royal court to the people.
To
protect and promote values in order to achieve development objectives and be
consistent with the era; simultaneously, to
ensure community benefits, to limit group benefits are the entire community’s
responsibilities. However, the state plays a special important role in
orienting the development, ensuring the preservation of values, promoting
social activities to achieve goals. But the most important thing is giving
people their real rights to mastery to actually
decide all the development, protection and promotion of values.
The
issuance of "Grassroots Democratic Regulations" (1998) by Vietnamese
government was an important step to hand people their real
rights to mastery. People’s rights to decide the development are shown
in 4 action mottos: People know - People discuss - People do - People supervise
[1].
Democratic
regulation at grassroots level shows that the elements of "people know,
people discuss, people do, people monitor" have dialectical relationships.
It begins by providing information and ends by controlling and supervising for
the final conclusion. It is suitable for pathway of forming public opinion and
the role and function of public opinion:
-
People know: publicly and transparently inform all social events and issues
taking place; individuals in social community are exposed, familiar, directly
witness or hear about things, events, phenomena occurring in society.If
you want people to know, you have to provide them information. People have the
right to be provided with information to evaluate the situation and indicate
their attitudes in the process of forming and expressing public opinion.
Information must be honest and timely. "People should be able to know all
country’s matters which are relevant to their interests and the publicity will not
prejudice the national interests" [5]. The
provision of information to people is for implementing the publicity of
"saying the truth". Only by this way, the social evaluation of public
opinion can reflect the social statuses of the problems that create creating a
common concern.
-
People discuss: people openly discuss and exchange their opinions to find
the most common opinion; personal opinions are shared, exchanged and discussed
together in social group.Public
opinion reflects opinion of the majority. Thus, "people’s discussion of
the information they receive is an important factor to multiply the proportion
of the reasonable discussed opinions" [5].
Discussion will retain and emphasize the common and principal, dismiss what is
not fundamental and form a common opinion, express people’s general concern
about phenomena and things.
The
criticism activity that we are expecting in the socio-political organizations
with Vietnam Fatherland Front to be the central institution is the official
form of public discussion. It has some certain effects, contributes in
creating social consensus, gathers common will of society, and creates the
necessary actions for the development. However, the expansion and promotion of
democracy in social criticism, in order to avoid consenting and forcing forms,
"people must have real voice" and this voice firstly is the voice of
the intellectual elite and elders. If this voice is spoken strongly, there will
be a large force to supervise and prevent negative social behaviours by public
authorities as well as individuals and other social organizations.
Thus,
people can discuss solutions in many different forms and by many different
communication channels; they can experience, exchange, consider sides,
advantages and disadvantages, pros and cons, new and old, good and bad with the
trend of compliment or criticism, support or opposition, acceptance or reject.
Everyone change their thoughts and personal opinions by accepting and sharing
the best and most reasonable solution amongst workarounds suggested.
-
People do: overall public evaluation (opinion) is the basis for practical
action of the masses.In
terms of awareness, public opinion is a mental - realistic structure, it is not
only socially conscious, reflects social shortcomings but also through social
evaluation of the phenomena and events, it becomes the premise for practical
actions to promote or restrict a certain social phenomenon or event in a
direction consistent with the majority’s interests.
“People
do” is a step to express the evaluation of public opinion in practice.
“People do” is an expression of the social action of the population group,
social classes on the basis that they are all provided with information and
evaluate social situation, phenomenon, and issue through collective discussion.
In
here, the issue of "words go with actions" is very important. If the
guidelines and policies set forth are true but not applicable in practice,
specifics task and actions which are consistent with it are not passed, i.e.
"just say without action" or "speak one way and act
another", then desirable social effects cannot be made.
-
People supervise: results of public opinion along with practical action
Public
opinion is formed officially and/or unofficially. Supervising activities in relation
to public opinion also take place according to this mechanism. Because public
opinion is formed under the domination of the social values and norms, when
being formed, public opinion turns to affect social values and norms. Public
opinion also controls and inspects the apparatus State and leading officials unofficially to see
whether their activities are in accordance with the collective interests or
not. It is necessary to detect problems to help judicial authorities and law
enforcements to execute their tasks well.
Control
function of public opinion has a positive meaning in this activity. Any social
action is checked, monitored until there is a final result. Public opinion
gives praise and support to behaviours that deems to be in accordance with
standards, correct and condemn acts of violating norms.
4. Ensuring
values, aiming to develop - orient healthy public opinion
In
living activities, all individuals and groups must learn social values and
norms in order to survive. The values are recognized as the importance for the
group or community. However, when complying with values, members sometimes do
not follow the rules to meet the expectations of the group or community. The
specific values such as career, money, power... have always been seen as
being limited or scarce which make them into objects for competition and
conflict. So, in order to stabilize society, there should be a mechanism to
control and adjust members to comply with group values.
One
of the causes of social conflict is differences in awareness, protection of value and benefits. Conflicts
usually derive from a normal phenomenon at the beginning, and then arise due to
differences of opinion of value and benefit, due to the enjoyment of value and
benefit. The role and function of public opinion towards life is undeniable,
and public opinion covers all social areas and relationships. Public opinion
participates in discussions, judgment and evaluation; and is turned into the public's practical action in all activities in order
to protect the personal and social value and benefit.
Currently,
we are facing the conflicting problem of this pair of values: 1) Extreme,
nationalist notion of independence, limiting external cooperation which
conflicts with notion of expansion, integration, development, recognizing soft
borders. 2) Notion of absolute freedom conflicts with notion of freedom within
legal framework in order to keep the stability. 3) Notion of achieving national
prosperity by prioritizing rapid growth conflicts with notion of sustainable
development harmonizing between growth and sustainable development. 4) Notion
of gradually practice democracy, stability, controlled democracy that conflicts
with democracy on all sides, especially freedom of speech.
The
issue here is the need to reconcile these contradictions when it comes to
settling the benefits to individuals, groups and communities. Public opinion
orientation is to gradually regulate conflicts, reconcile notions towards
solution of "Reconcile” all opposites in a contradiction.
Recognizing
the role of public opinion, the Vietnam Communist Party has considered
capturing people's heart (people’s thought, desire and will) to be one of the
important works right from its inception in order to propose revolution
guideline which are appropriate to
people.
Many
documents and decisions of the Party leadership authorities have confirmed the
role of public opinion study. As early as 1982, the Secretariat decided to
establish the Institute for Public Opinion under the Party Central Department
of Propaganda and Education, which contains provisions on the responsibilities
and authorities, "Institute for Public Opinion is responsible for
organizing the study of public opinion on basic problems of the country and the
important issues typically in Marxist - Leninist standpoint; synthesizing,
analyzing public opinion to report to the Party and State authorities;
organizing, training and retraining of informants and collaborators of the
Institute theoretically and professionally. The Institute is allowed to
directly relate to the Party committees, agencies and mass organizations to
organize public opinion study" [9]. Also in
some hubs such as institutes for social study directly under the Vietnam
Academy of Social Sciences, universities have established departments,
disciplines of public opinion but are still fragmentary.
In
early years of renewing (from 1986) and especially recently, the Vietnam
Communist Party have continued to strengthen the leadership of sociological
investigation, capture public opinion, such as: Documents of 3rd
plenum by 7th Central Executive Committee on innovation and
regulation of the Party has mentioned the tasks for ideological work: "To
improve the quality of internal information and propaganda, to value measures
of public opinion surveys" [10]. In the 8th
plenum by the 7th Party Central Executive Committee on building
and perfecting the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
On
the Vietnam Government side, in 2005, in information development strategy until
2010, the Government also issued Decision No. 219/2005/QĐ-TTg of the Prime
Minister, one of the strategies mentioned was "To complete coordination method and mechanism to efficiently
handle the feedbacks which people contribute, reflect to the Party and the
State; to improve the quality of public opinion surveys; to strengthen external
information systems, to actively fight wrong and hostile notions" [8].Thus,
the study and capture of public opinion are more or less guaranteed by the
ruling party’s pathway and policy. In the role of public opinion, the institutional
problems in protecting and promoting values, promoting social activities to
achieve goals are enhanced. However, in reality, the legitimacy of the State’s
study and capture of public opinion still have many problems. Individuals in
the community are afraid of public opinion, highly appreciate or aware its
power, and many public officials avoid public opinion. But in fact, public
opinion does not really come to life in order to promote effective
implementation of function and role since on the state side, we have not really
had institutions which prescribe results of the study and capture of public
opinion. Therefore, an important issue is the need to have a complete legal
system with the main law namely the Law on Referendum. Law on Referendum is the
legal basis for public opinion study; moreover, it is necessary to assert the
right to approve of the entire population (all citizens) in the Constitution as
the general fundamental law of the law system and as the civil society
indenture.
Public
opinion evaluates, protects and develops value; public opinion’s evaluation,
protection and guarantee of justice in benefits are expectations of all those
who know, understand, study, capture and orient public opinion. It does not
matter what, in Vietnam
society today, in order to ensure a healthy social environment in which public
opinion is actually promoting its role and function, there are some key issues
which should be noted:
1)
To determine the limit, principles , rules, relations between the state and
people; with particular focus on clarify and publicizing administrative
procedures, mechanisms and policies in general; to create effective mechanisms
for people to participate in State and social management, and monitor the
State’s activities; freedom of speech under the law and in respect of public
opinion.
2)
Scientific and social criticism should become regular activities; there should
be mechanisms for all people, of all social organizations involved in building
decisions, especially when it directly relates to the benefits of their lives.
3)
To build civil society, to create opportunities for these organizations to
independently supervise independent state; to organize discussion forums and
public opinion surveys, referendums on sensitive and important issues which are
affecting people’s legitimate and legal interests.
4)
To ensure mechanisms for mass media in the formation, expressing public opinion
and impact mechanism of "people know, people discuss, people do and people
monitor" through public opinion. Mass media is not only the voice of the
ruling party and the state, but also is the people's forum, expressing feelings
and aspirations of the masses; including proposition of the matters which
should be done, the matters which should be supplemented and completed.
5)
To have the direction for periodic study on public opinion in terms of
these values annually and must be conducted on a large scale, to find
out evaluation of public opinion toward the goal of values.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Vietnam
National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) [grant
number I3.4-2011.09].
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[[i]]
In Ho Chi Minh era (from the beginning era of Vietnam, from 1945 to the present
provisionally), every value of “Independence - Freedom - Happiness”and “Prosperous people - Strong country - Democracy - Justice – Civilization”, every new development
goal is gradually developed theoretically and recognized its legitimacy.
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