Religion Matters: Reconfiguring the sacred

Reconfiguring the sacred: The politics of socialist rituals in north vietnam, 1955-1975 by Thao Nghiem.

Emerging victorious in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which marked the end of French colonial rule, the Vietnam Workers' Party embarked on an intense and ambitious nation-building project to turn its vision of a communist utopia into reality. In this pursuit, a newfound obsession with science and modernity confronted the Party with complicated and challenging questions: how could they mobilize support and resources from various religious groups to aid in the country's reconstruction and the broader struggle for independence? How could they restructure traditional customs to sever symbolic ties with former ruling classes, thereby redirecting citizens' loyalties to the new regime? How could they drive out “superstitious” practices, perceived as "backward" and thus detrimental to social progress, without jeopardizing the much-needed national unity? This lecture explores these intricate tasks by analyzing the interplay between communist state formation, religion, and modernization in the context of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam during the Second Indochina War (1955-1975).

Drawing on a rich collection of archival materials from the Vietnam National Archives Center III and the National Library in Hanoi, this talk seeks to understand how North Vietnam’s top leaders employed atheist propaganda as a tool for nation-building, and how they navigated the question of religion and the boundaries between religion and superstition in their governance. In so doing, the lecture offers new empirical evidence and theoretical insights to broader debates on the entangled histories of religion, secularism, and the global Cold War.

Thao Nghiem is a PhD researcher in History and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen. Prior to his doctoral studies, Thao was trained in political science at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and in religion in public life at Yale University, USA. He previously held a teaching position at Vietnam National University. His current research focuses on the social history of political secularism in post-colonial Vietnam, with particular emphasis on how the boundaries of religion were shaped, contested, and negotiated between different levels of state and society. Next to his academic endeavors, Thao is passionate about policy advocacy and community engagement that seek to cultivate dialogue and address disparate forms of exclusion across cultural and religious frontiers.

This event is part of the Religion, Culture and Society public lecture series 2024-2025.