11-14-19
SUBMITTED TO: Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian Committee
FROM: The Socialist Republic of Vietnam
TOPIC: Combatting Racism and Xenophobia
Although Vietnam may not experience the traditional racism and xenophobia that a majority of other nations must endure, there are still ethnic and religious boundaries that we as a nation face. For example, as a primarily communist nation, we believe that religion and communism are incompatible with each other, and therefore, in order to maintain our principles, we must at least attempt to shut down any organized religion in our country. However, we do recognize that we will not, and cannot, shut down any organization outright. Nevertheless, that does not stop local governments from confiscating religious property, and unfortunately, does not prevent Vietnamese citizens from being harassed by their fellow citizens for their beliefs.
That being said, if we are to look back onto the history of Vietnam, there have been many accounts of death and destruction in the name of war, racism, and xenophobia, with the majority of these instances coming from the United States. Women from our nation have been raped, and the villages and homes of innocent families have been brought to the ground for convoluted reasons. Thankfully, the US did put a considerable amount of funds towards helping those affected by the tragedies the war brought, and has since improved their relations with our nation. However, the Vietnamese people still suffer from anti-Vietnamese sentiments, and violent xenophobia from other countries, and many other nations suffer from similar plights that we hope to end in the near future.
How do we work towards solving a problem like this, especially when referring to nations like Vietnam who experience smaller amounts of non-traditional racism and xenophobia (i.e. negative sentiment, racial discriminiation in tourism, racist and xenophobic propoganda, etc.) and have only had major accounts of violence, racism, and xenophobia from other countries? A good resolution will address this, and Vietnam would look favorably towards the condemnation of countries who have committed acts of racism and xenophobia in other countries and have gone unpunished, as well as working towards solving the problem of internal racism within countries. We look forward to solving these worldwide issues and hopefully we can reduce and even eradicate these issues in the near and distant future.
- Jack Rossbach
