Peace Concert Cancellation
From dnfox@u.washington.edu Fri Jul 16 09:05:37 2004
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 10:51:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: dnfox@u.washington.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Peace Concert cancellation??
Hi--
Does anyone out there know why the Peace Concert scheduled for June in Hanoi was cancelled (if indeed it was--I just heard from one source, who didn't have any further info)? It was slated to award prizes to Trinh Cong Son, Joan Baez and others, and have the participation of Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, and others.
Diane
From dduffy@email.unc.edu Fri Jul 16 09:08:24 2004
Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2004 13:44:05 -0400
From: Dan Duffy <dduffy@email.unc.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [VSG] World Peace concert rescheduled
I will be surprised to hear that Joan Baez travelled to Viet Nam and received a prize there. Baez is an early and loud critic of human rights abuses in Viet Nam. After many years' work supprting the right of Vietnamese people to live free of war, she immediately took up the cause of the officials of the old regime as they headed to prison after 1975. She is one of the few anti-war people in the US who both remained interested in Viet Nam after Paris and demanded that the revolutionaries hew to the ideals which they had invoked to win international support.
I will be surprised to hear that Stevie Wonder has travelled to perform in Viet Nam. I don't follow him closely, but I can't remember hearing of him playing a Vietnamese-scale venue since he was a teenager in juke joints. Bob Dylan does play small venues. When I last saw him at the 2,000-seat house in Worcester, Massachusetts, the hall reminded me of the Friendship auditorium in Ha Noi. But the man is skeptical of benefits and prizes, only recently accepting his second honorary doctorate, when he could pick up one every semester if he liked.
I will be delighted to hear that I am wrong about all the above. Sounds like a great show.
Dan Duffy
From sdenney@uclink4.berkeley.edu Fri Jul 16 09:11:20 2004
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 08:30:33 -0700
From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [VSG] World Peace concert rescheduled
At 01:44 PM 7/11/2004 -0400, Dan Duffy wrote:
>I will be surprised to hear that Joan Baez travelled to Viet Nam and
>received a prize there. Baez is an early and loud critic of human rights
>abuses in Viet Nam. After many years' work supprting the right of
>Vietnamese people to live free of war, she immediately took up the cause of
>the officials of the old regime as they headed to prison after 1975. She is
>one of the few anti-war people in the US who both remained interested in
> Viet Nam after Paris and demanded that the revolutionaries hew to the ideals
>which they had invoked to win international support.
I would not say that Joan Baez "immediately took up the cause of the officials of the old regime as they headed to prison after 1975." The first protest among antiwar activists against repression under the new regime in Vietnam took place in late 1976, culminating in an open letter published as a full page ad in the New York Times in Dec. 1976 and a response from some other antiwar activists again as a full page ad in the NYT in Feb. 1977. The protest was initiated by Jim Forest, who had close connections with the monk Thich Nhat Hanh and had received disturbing information from Ven. Nhat Hanh and his assistant Cao Ngoc Phuong (now known as Sr. Chan Khong) on repression of Buddhists and other forms of human rights violations. He then circulated an open letter among activists and prominent liberals,. which was signed by Joan Baez among others and attempted unsuccessfully to present this to the Vietnamese mission office at the UN. Then it was published as a full page ad. It was a subject of bitter debate; for those who might be interested, the letters page of the tiny pacifist WIN magazine carried much of the arguments going on at the time.
In 1979, at the height of the boat people crisis, Joan Baez and the late Ginetta Sagan initiated a second appeal, published in the NYT in May 1979. Others criticized her letter, in ads published in the NYT and The Nation magazine. One of the main thrusts of the counter ads was to attack Doan Van Toai, a former antiwar student activist who had fled Vietnam with some documents and became a source for Joan Baez. (Toai was shot and nearly killed a few years later, apparently by right wing Vietnamese for his advocacy of U.S.-Vietnam normalized relations).
I later worked with Ginetta Sagan in preparing two reports on human rights in Vietnam, published by the Aurora foundation in 1983 and 1997.
- Steve Denney
From sdenney@uclink4.berkeley.edu Fri Jul 16 09:11:24 2004
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 10:16:08 -0700
From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [VSG] World Peace concert rescheduled
Correction: the second report of the Aurora foundation was published in 1989 not 1997. Sorry.
- Steve Denney
From sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca Fri Jul 16 09:11:37 2004
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 23:25:52 -0600
From: VINH Sinh <sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: World Peace concert rescheduled
I happened to come across the following article, which appears on the_Ngu+o+`i Lao ddo^.ng_ today ( July 14, 2004). The article says that the news about the "rescheduled World Peace Music Award" is "tin vi.t" (tin : news ;vi.t : duck/canard; i.e. canard/false news).
I have not followed the development of this project at all, and have forwarded it to the list because I thought that the news itself might be of some interest to members who have been discussing this topic lately.
VINH Sinh
======
http://www.nld.com.vn/tintuc/van-nghe/95817.asp
From dnfox@u.washington.edu Fri Jul 16 09:11:48 2004
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 21:53:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: dnfox@u.washington.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: World Peace Music Awards--questions
This in from a friend in the Bay Area. Corroboration anyone? Anyway, it's a good idea that others might bring to fruition, perhaps?
Dear chi Diane,
About WPMA ( World Peace Music Award): supposingly organizing a show for a " Peace Music Concert in Vietnam later this month that will include Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul, and Mary), Harry Belafonte, Lionel Ritchie and Bob Dylan....Though the concert itself is free, a portion of what is earned from other sales that night will be given to Agent Orange victims." BEWARE of this dubious group that called itself " World Peace Music Award", led by Matt Taylor from Mountain View, CA. I have tons of info about them being just show-biz guys with dubious purpose. A/ First they claimed to be associted with the United Nations, and go around in Vietnam flashing their business cards with both the UN logo (and saying they are representatives of UN) and their WPMA logo (my friend in Vietnam has seen it himself from Matt Taylor). They also incorporated the UNDP logo on their website. In reality, they have nothing to do with the UN. I check with UNESCO myself, right from the beginning, sometimes in January ,2004, and then again in February when their website was more daring including a huge UN logo on the right side of their home page (see attachment).
B/ Then they claimed that their first concert in 2003 in Bali drew 30,000 spectators, played on satellite TV to 1.5 billion people of some 200 countries, something like that. In reality, their Bali show in 2003 drew only 8,000 people as reproted by a local Indonesian newspaper (2 attachments: WPMA and Bali + Matt Taylor-Thirty Thousand)
C/ Re Vietnam concert: their June concert in Hanoi has been postponed indefinitel, because of some obscure reasons from their part (not from the Vietnam's side for once). (articles from Tuoi Tre and Thanh Nien. Hope you can read them both on line)
http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=37855&ChannelID=58
http://www.thanhnien.com.vn/TinTuc/VanHoa/2004/6/18/20347
From oklahoma@netnam.org.vn Fri Jul 16 09:12:13 2004
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 23:10:58 +0700
From: oklahoma@netnam.org.vn
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: World Peace Music Awards--questions
I don't understand why people could possibly believe what "World Peace Music Award" boasted about their event. How could a one year old, literally unknown award, with no advertising at all have a viewership if 2 billions people, and live! Come on, 2004 Oscar ceremony has about 800 millions people watched, and what is our world population? and among them how many people have access to TV?
and to cancel the concert because of the break of the Internet line was...when they surely had a sense of humor...
they told so many lies...look at their website, a world class event needs a world class website at least, but look at their IP address...a supposed-to-be-free concert has forced people to buy Tshirt at 150,000VND to get the ticket...and how could they shipped all of their equipment from Australia to Vietnam (and get it out of custom) in 7 days?
my friend, who was invited to perform in their concert, told me she did not receive any official invitation, and there was no formal contract, no rehearsal schedule, nothing at all. There were no communications plan, no advertising, no security plan, no ticketing policy a big event like this one can only generate money from corporate sponsorship, and please have a look at who sponsored them. Lonely Planet, Japan Airlines, Vietnam Airlines, Melia Hotel, and very small and last minute Pepsi Vietnam...do you think they could put in couple of hundred thousand dollars for this event? No way...
Nguyen Thanh Son