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Phạm Quỳnh, borrowed language, and the ambivalences of colonial discourse
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2020
Abstract
Phạm Quỳnh (1893–1945), twentieth century Vietnamese intellectual and politician, is a contentious figure in Vietnamese colonial history in terms of his collaboration with the French administration. Much of the mixed opinions on his role, though gleaned from his essays and political positions, have not yet been connected to the ambiguities of the colonial reforms concurrent with his budding career. Informed by Homi Bhabha's framework of ‘mimicry’, this study offers a reading of Phạm Quỳnh's attachment to language, both tongue and discourse, to nuance his character and reveal the ambiguous articulations of French colonial policy in Vietnam.
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- Copyright © The National University of Singapore, 2020
References
1 See Thụy Khuê's broadcast on Phạm Quỳnh, featuring his daughter Phạm Thị Ngoạn. Radio France Internationale, 4 Oct. 1992, http://thuykhue.free.fr/rfi/1992-10-04-PhQuynh.mp3; ‘Phụ bản: Phạm Quỳnh và vụ án Nam Phong’, Vietnam Radio France Internationale, 31 May 2011; as well as Ngoạn's, Phạm Thị ‘Introduction au Nam Phong’, Bulletin de la Société des études indochinoises, nouvelle série, 48, 2–3 (1973): 209Google Scholar.
2 Many articles have periodically appeared on Phạm Quỳnh's death in Vietnamese online, some even outlining his final moments, e.g., Xưa Và Nay (i.e. Nhật Hoa Khanh, Oct. 2006), Hồn Việt (i.e. Thái Vũ 27 Apr. 2011), and Báo Mới (Anonymous, 17 Nov. 2009). See also blogs, e.g., Phạm Tôn, ‘Ai đã giết Phạm Quỳnh, Người nặng lòng với nước’ [Who killed Phạm Quỳnh, the Vietnamese patriot?], 18 Sept. 2009, http://sachhiem.net/LICHSU/P/PhamTon04.php (accessed Aug. 2017).
3 Bhabha, Homi, ‘Of mimicry and man’, The location of culture (New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 121–31Google Scholar.
4 Among historians, he has been pigeonholed as a collaborator who even ‘prostituted’ himself for these leveraging relationships with the colonal administration. See Marr, David, Vietnamese tradition on trial (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 153–61Google Scholar, and Lâm's, Trương BửuColonialism experienced: Vietnamese writings on colonialism, 1900–1931 (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2000), p. 292CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Sarah Womack, ‘Colonialism and the collaborationist agenda: Phạm Quỳnh, print culture, and the politics of persuasion in colonial Vietnam’ (PhD diss., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2003), p. 183.
6 Ibid., p. 68.
7 Ibid., p. 2.
8 Sasges, Gerard, ‘Indigenous representation is hostile to all monopolies: Phạm Quỳnh and the end of the alcohol monopoly in colonial Vietnam’, Journal of Vietnamese Studies 5, 1 (2010): 1–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 See also Sasges, Gerard, ‘Drunken poets and new women: Consuming tradition and modernity in colonial Vietnam’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 48, 1 (2017): 6–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 See Marr, Vietnamese tradition on trial, pp. 136–61; and Tai, Hue-Tam Ho, Radicalism and the origins of the Vietnamese Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 51Google Scholar.
11 Martina Nguyen, ‘The Self-Reliant Literary Group (Tự Lực Văn Đoàn): Colonial modernism in Vietnam, 1932–1941’ (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2012), p. 144.
12 The idea of an alliance with local elites to implement French policy more effectively can be traced back to J.L. de Lanessan and his term as governor-general (1891–94) shortly after the Patenôtre Treaty of 1884. Pierre Brocheux and Daniel Hémery trace the period of colonial reformism and official policies of ‘association’ to 1905, under the government of Emile Combes in France and Minister of Colonies Etienne Clémentel. See Indochina: An ambiguous colonization, 1854–1954, trans. Klein, Ly Lan Dill et al. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), pp. 300–301Google Scholar.
13 Womack, ‘Colonialism and the collaborationist agenda’, p. 123.
14 Sarraut writes: ‘La France qui colonise va organiser l'exploitation pour son avantage sans doute, mais aussi pour l'avantage générale du monde, de territoires et de ressources que les races autochtones de ces pays arriérés ne pouvaient à elles seules ou ne savaient mettre en valeur et dont le profit était ainsi perdu pour elles, comme pour la collectivité universelle.’ [French colonisation will no doubt consolidate exploitation for its own benefit, but also for the general benefit of the world, valorising territories and resources that the indigenous people of these backward countries cannot or do not know how to do on their own, risking the loss of such value not only for them but for the universal collective.] Sarraut, Albert, La mise en valeur des colonies (Paris: Payot, 1923), p. 88Google Scholar.
15 Sarraut, Albert, Projet de loi de mise en valeur des colonies françaises, présenté par M. Albert Sarraut, Ministre de Colonies (Paris: Bibliothèque de la Revue indigène, 1921), p. 26Google Scholar; cited in Tai, Radicalism, p. 38.
16 Wilder, The French imperial nation-state, pp. 61–5.
17 See Zinoman, Peter, Vietnamese colonial republican: The political vision of Vũ Trọng Phụng (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), pp. 19–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nguyen, ‘The Self-Reliant Literary Group’, pp. 142–93.
18 Bhabha, ‘Of mimicry and man’, p. 122.
19 Ibid.
20 Goscha, Christopher, ‘The modern barbarian: Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh and the complexity of colonial modernity in Vietnam’, European Journal of East Asian Studies 3, 1 (2004): 139–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
21 Sasges, ‘Drunken poets and new women’, p. 7.
22 The trip was first recorded in Nam Phong (58 Apr. 1922–95 May 1925), and published as a volume: Pháp Du Hành Trình Nhật Ký [Journal of a voyage to France] (Yerres: Ý việt, 1997).
23 The speeches at the different institutions in Paris were published in Nam Phong beginning in issue 66. In 1923, these were collected into a single volume, where the French original is accompanied with page-by-page translations, in Quelques Conférences à Paris, Mai-Juillet 1922 (Hanoi: Imprimerie Tonkinoise, 1923)Google Scholar.
24 Phạm Quỳnh, Quelques Conférences, p. 17.
25 The letter was written by Nguyễn Háo Vĩnh, from Cochinchina, ‘Thư ngỏ chủ-bút Nam Phong’ [Letter to the editor], Nam Phong, 16 Oct. 1918, pp. 198–209. More on this editorial debate can be found in Marr, Vietnamese tradition on trial, pp. 158–61.
26 Marr, Vietnamese tradition on trial, pp. 158–61. See also Phạm Quỳnh, ‘Bàn về sự dùng chữ nho trong văn quốc ngữ’, Nam Phong, 20, 20 Feb. 1919, pp. 83–97.
27 Phạm Quỳnh, ‘Mộng hay mị?’ [Dream or hallucination?], Nam Phong, 7, Jan. 1918, pp. 23–5. In another review of a different work from Tản Đà called ‘Đài Gương’, Phạm Quỳnh ínstead praised the writer's ability to address the moral education of young girls, to have written ‘such a useful book’. ‘Giới thiệu sách mới’ [Introducing new works], Nam Phong, 23, May 1919, p. 423.
28 In a compte rendu for Paul Bourget's novel Le sens de la mort, Phạm Quỳnh writes, ‘Có lắm cái tư-tưởng cảm-giác không tài nào diễn ra tiếng ta cho minh-liệu được. Cho hay cái quốc văn ta mới nở còn non-nớt chưa đủ sức mà ra vẫy-vùng trong bể ngôn-luận. Bởi vậy mà ta phải luyện cho nó có cái tư cách ấy. [There are a lot of thoughts and feelings that cannot be expressed clearly in our language. How can our still-burgeoning national language be flaunted in discussions? This is why we must develop it to reach that capacity.]’ See ‘Một bộ tiểu thuyết mới: Nghĩa cái chết’ [A new set of novels: The meaning of death], Nam Phong 1, 18 July 1917, pp. 20–27.
29 Phạm Quỳnh, ‘La nouvelle langue annamite’, Nam Phong, 171, Apr. 1932, p. 44.
30 Quỳnh, Phạm, ‘Les trois plans’, Essais Franco-Annamites 1929–1932 (Huế: E´ditions Bùi-Huy-Tin, 1937), pp. 234–44Google Scholar; henceforth Essais.
31 Phạm Quỳnh, ‘L'exemple du Japon’, Essais, pp. 158–65 (also in Nam Phong, 146, Jan. 1930).
32 Phạm Quỳnh, Pháp Du Hành Trình Nhật Ký, pp. 237–40.
33 Goscha, Christopher, Going Indochinese: Contesting concepts of space and place in French Indochina (Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press, 2012), pp. 62–3Google Scholar.
34 Phạm Quỳnh, ‘Politique d’égards’, Essais, pp. 350–58.
35 The use of the familiar ‘tu’ and the formal ‘vous’ forms of address in familial or informal and formal discourse and settings, respectively, indicating also sociological distinctions such as heirarchy and kinship.
36 Phạm Quỳnh, Essais, p. 351.
37 Phạm Quỳnh, ‘Điều ước bảo-hộ năm 1884’ [The Protectorate Treaty of 1884], Nam Phong, 152, July 1930, pp. 5–9.
38 Lanessan, J.L. de, ‘Pacification du delta et des pays annamites’, La colonisation française en Indochine (Paris: F. Alcan, 1895), pp. 6–55Google Scholar.
39 See for example, Phạm Quỳnh, ‘Việc khởi loạn ở Yên Bái’ [On the Yên Bái Uprising], Nam Phong, 146, Jan. 1930, p. 98.
40 Phạm Quỳnh, Essais, p. 409.
41 For two different analyses of these debates, see Lockhart, Bruce, The end of the Vietnamese monarchy (New Haven, NY: Council on Southeast Asian Studies, Yale University, 1993), pp. 51–7Google Scholar, and Goscha, Going Indochinese, pp. 62–8.
42 Goscha, Going Indochinese, pp. 64–6.
43 Phạm Quỳnh, Essais, p. 403; Phạm Quỳnh's emphasis. This is taken from Diguet, Edouard, Annam et Indo-Chine Française: I. Esquisse de l'histoire annamite. II. Rôle de la France en Indo-Chine (Paris: Augustin Challamel, 1908), p. 176Google Scholar.
44 This essay is originally published in both Vietnamese and French in Nam Phong, 152, July 1930.
45 The national congress of the federation took place on 7–9 June 1930. For a full text of Piétri's discourse, see Bulletin officiel de la Fédération Française des Anciens Coloniaux 52, June 1930.
46 Ibid., p. 10.
47 Phạm Quỳnh, ‘Une apologie du régime du protectorat’, Essais, p. 427.
48 Ibid., p. 429; Phạm Quỳnh's emphasis.
49 Ibid., p. 431; Phạm Quỳnh's emphasis.
50 Sasges, ‘Indigenous representation’, p. 16.
51 Sarraut, La mise en valeur, p. 99.
52 Womack, ‘Colonialism and the collaborationist agenda’, pp. 196–8.
53 Bhabha, ‘Of mimicry and man’, p. 86, my emphasis.
54 Phạm Quỳnh tiểu luận-viết bằng tiếng Pháp trong thời gian 1922–1932 [Phạm Quỳnh's essays: Writing in French in the era of 1922–1932] (Hanoi: Nhà Xuấn Bản Trí Thức, 2007); Pháp Du Hành Trình Nhật Ký [Journal of a voyage to France](Hanoi: Nhà xuất bản Hội nhà văn, 2004); and Phạm Quỳnh trong dòng chảy văn hóa dân tộc [Phạm Quỳnh in the currents of Vietnamese culture](Hanoi: Nhà Xuấn Bản Thanh Niên, 2012).