Sweet ironies abound between the Madison left and Vang Pao
Sean Scallon
June 22, 2007
The ironies are sweet, as sweet as candy shop when it comes to Madison, Wisconsin left and Vang Pao. And it’s too sweet to ignore.
They are building a new school in Madison and the school needs a name. So the Madison School Board, in a fit of multiculturalism, decided to reward Madison’s Hmong immigrant community by naming the school after perhaps the most famous Hmong in the world, Vang Pao. The Hmongs in Madison wanted the school to be named after Vang Pao. To them he holds the same status as the Dali Lama holds to Tibetans, someone who is a revered figure, someone who is a freedom fighter and liberator, someone who makes the rest of the world pay attention to their plight and their cause when they normally wouldn’t.
In many ways, Pao is the creator of Hmong people. Before then they were known as the indigenous highland tribesmen of Laos, very much a clan based society. But Pao came down from the hills in the 1960s to be high-ranking officer in the Royal Laotian Armed Forces. Recruited by CIA to lead an army of his fellow highlanders against the incursions of the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong into their highland homes, Pao managed to unite the clans by intermarriage through polygamy and soon created Hmong army that was the U.S.’ ally during the Vietnam War. When Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas seized control of the country in 1975, Pao led the exodus of Hmong to the U.S rather than stay behind and face the genocide unleashed upon the Hmong peoples by the lowland Laotian government and the North Vietnamese army.
Now here is where the ironies come in.
Apparently naming a school after Vang Pao didn’t sit well a few Madison leftists. Madison was a hotbed of opposition to the Vietnam War and few cared to see a school named after a prominent figure of that war. One person, a University of Wisconsin history professor named Alfred McCoy, said that Vang Pao was nothing more than a warlord who executed prisoner, conscripted child soldiers and smuggled opium out of Laos to pay for his army. Others agreed and asked the school board to change the name of the school to someone else, someone less controversial and someone more local.
Here was irony No. 1: Despite celebrating multiculturalism and diversity, which is basically a statement that all cultures and beliefs systems are equal, the white Madison left in their best patronizing and condescending way, decided that some cultures and belief systems were more equal than others and stated the Hmong’s celebrated figures had to meet with their approval. Hmong leaders in Madison didn’t much like having white Madisonian leftists and other such persons telling them who their national heroes ought to be and told them to buzz off. Soon the controversy was on and more fuel to the fire was added when Pao was recently arrested for being part of a plot to overthrow the Laotian government, still run by the Pathet Lao.
Now the ironies came down in torrents.
The U.S government, which for years didn’t mind if Pao was plotting against the Laotian communists, now decided that communism was down on the list of official enemies after Muslim terrorists and Serbs and Russian revanchists, so they nabbed Pao and charged him with violating the Logan Act. Of course the irony there is no one has yet charged Ahmed Chalabi, Farid Ghadry and Reza Shah Palahvi for violating the same Logan Act in trying to use the U.S. as a base for regime change in Iraq, Syria and Iran respectfully. Indeed such persons have been encouraged by elements within the federal government and financed with U.S. taxpayer dollars. Joining in the chorus of Pao-bashing, ironically, was VDARE.com writer Brenda Walker. Hating all things Hmong, Walker found common cause with the white Madison left in attacking Pao. My what strange bedfellows!
The evidence that Pao is a war criminal is weak or strong depending upon who you ask, but let’s assume it’s true that Pao did allow a lot of drug smuggling while he ruled the roost in northern Laos during the 1960s and 70s. Putting an army in the field costs money and the only thing the Hmong’s highland region had that anyone from outside world wanted was opium. Is it Pao’s fault there was such a demand for turning that opium into heroin? He’s not the one that made them into addicts. The irony of the situation is that instead of being social wastes, heroin users and others in Methadone clinics may very well have saved the Hmong people from extinction by shooting up. The money they spent helped pay for the Hmong army which protected the people from the genocide of Vietnamese and the lowland Laotians led by the Pathet Lao. So the next time you put that spike in your vein all you junkies out there, pat yourself on the back. You may very well have saved many, many lives.
Because of Pao’s arrest, his opponents now had an excuse to get the Madison School Board to reverse their decision and find another name for the school which they recently did. But controversy won’t go quietly away because ironies that multiculturalism causes the white Madison Left. Such people were instrumental in having the Hmong immigrate to U.S., to Wisconsin and Madison itself. If they truly believe in multiculturalism, then they should have respected the Hmong community’s wishes to allow the school to be named after Vang Pao regardless of how “controversial” he was. After all, conservatives and others who favor immigration reform have complained for years that elements of traditional Hmong culture, whether its polygamy, arranged marriages, child prostitution, animal sacrifice in the backyard, did not mix well inside current U.S. society, not to mention the gangs that formed and the drug dealing that existed when such societies clashed as they inevitably did. Such persons were called racists and were shouted down. Well who are the racists now? I myself could care less if the Hmong view Vang Pao as a hero, that’s their business. But apparently Alfred McCoy’s and others on the Madison Left couldn’t stand it, because to accept it would challenge their belief systems and experiences in many ways.
If the left truly believes in multiculturalism, then things about other cultures it finds distasteful, whether its female genital mutilation, child slavery, honor killing or homosexual bashing, has to accept if it does not believe in forced assimilation as their progressive forefathers once believed in years ago. It was those progressives that combined with Christian groups to enact Prohibition, regardless if immigrant groups from Europe regularly drank wine and beer. It was there way of assimilating such immigrants into America. Today’s progressives, or at least the one’s who aren’t utter hypocrites like those on Madison left who opposed Vang Pao’s name on the school door, lack such enthusiasm for assimilation because of multiculturalism’s fundamental tenant: All societies and cultures and belief systems are equal. This is why you have someone like “Red” Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, supporting efforts to strip homosexuals from protection in hate crimes legislation because his Muslim supporters do not want to be associated with homosexuals. This is why you have Swedish feminists keeping a code of silence while Swedish women are being raped by Muslim immigrants. This is why you have a German judge excusing a Muslim man for beating his wife because such practices are a part of the Koran.
All these ironies mean the left is going to have its crack-up over immigration and multiculturalism just as the right having theirs right now. You can’t demand unlimited immigration and then deny its affects on the environment. You can’t demand unlimited immigration and then deny its affects on wages or working conditions. You can’t say all belief systems and cultures are equal but pick and choose the ones you find distasteful nor can you champion human rights and equality but turn your back on those cultures which really don’t practice such things. Either multiculturalism really does become the unquestioned dogma of the left or perhaps the left should realize that the global village they wish to create within the borders of the U.S. isn’t worth all those ironies.
After all, too many sweets can be bad for you.
Sean Scallon is a freelance writer and journalist from Arkansaw, Wisconsin
They are building a new school in Madison and the school needs a name. So the Madison School Board, in a fit of multiculturalism, decided to reward Madison’s Hmong immigrant community by naming the school after perhaps the most famous Hmong in the world, Vang Pao. The Hmongs in Madison wanted the school to be named after Vang Pao. To them he holds the same status as the Dali Lama holds to Tibetans, someone who is a revered figure, someone who is a freedom fighter and liberator, someone who makes the rest of the world pay attention to their plight and their cause when they normally wouldn’t.
In many ways, Pao is the creator of Hmong people. Before then they were known as the indigenous highland tribesmen of Laos, very much a clan based society. But Pao came down from the hills in the 1960s to be high-ranking officer in the Royal Laotian Armed Forces. Recruited by CIA to lead an army of his fellow highlanders against the incursions of the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong into their highland homes, Pao managed to unite the clans by intermarriage through polygamy and soon created Hmong army that was the U.S.’ ally during the Vietnam War. When Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas seized control of the country in 1975, Pao led the exodus of Hmong to the U.S rather than stay behind and face the genocide unleashed upon the Hmong peoples by the lowland Laotian government and the North Vietnamese army.
Now here is where the ironies come in.
Apparently naming a school after Vang Pao didn’t sit well a few Madison leftists. Madison was a hotbed of opposition to the Vietnam War and few cared to see a school named after a prominent figure of that war. One person, a University of Wisconsin history professor named Alfred McCoy, said that Vang Pao was nothing more than a warlord who executed prisoner, conscripted child soldiers and smuggled opium out of Laos to pay for his army. Others agreed and asked the school board to change the name of the school to someone else, someone less controversial and someone more local.
Here was irony No. 1: Despite celebrating multiculturalism and diversity, which is basically a statement that all cultures and beliefs systems are equal, the white Madison left in their best patronizing and condescending way, decided that some cultures and belief systems were more equal than others and stated the Hmong’s celebrated figures had to meet with their approval. Hmong leaders in Madison didn’t much like having white Madisonian leftists and other such persons telling them who their national heroes ought to be and told them to buzz off. Soon the controversy was on and more fuel to the fire was added when Pao was recently arrested for being part of a plot to overthrow the Laotian government, still run by the Pathet Lao.
Now the ironies came down in torrents.
The U.S government, which for years didn’t mind if Pao was plotting against the Laotian communists, now decided that communism was down on the list of official enemies after Muslim terrorists and Serbs and Russian revanchists, so they nabbed Pao and charged him with violating the Logan Act. Of course the irony there is no one has yet charged Ahmed Chalabi, Farid Ghadry and Reza Shah Palahvi for violating the same Logan Act in trying to use the U.S. as a base for regime change in Iraq, Syria and Iran respectfully. Indeed such persons have been encouraged by elements within the federal government and financed with U.S. taxpayer dollars. Joining in the chorus of Pao-bashing, ironically, was VDARE.com writer Brenda Walker. Hating all things Hmong, Walker found common cause with the white Madison left in attacking Pao. My what strange bedfellows!
The evidence that Pao is a war criminal is weak or strong depending upon who you ask, but let’s assume it’s true that Pao did allow a lot of drug smuggling while he ruled the roost in northern Laos during the 1960s and 70s. Putting an army in the field costs money and the only thing the Hmong’s highland region had that anyone from outside world wanted was opium. Is it Pao’s fault there was such a demand for turning that opium into heroin? He’s not the one that made them into addicts. The irony of the situation is that instead of being social wastes, heroin users and others in Methadone clinics may very well have saved the Hmong people from extinction by shooting up. The money they spent helped pay for the Hmong army which protected the people from the genocide of Vietnamese and the lowland Laotians led by the Pathet Lao. So the next time you put that spike in your vein all you junkies out there, pat yourself on the back. You may very well have saved many, many lives.
Because of Pao’s arrest, his opponents now had an excuse to get the Madison School Board to reverse their decision and find another name for the school which they recently did. But controversy won’t go quietly away because ironies that multiculturalism causes the white Madison Left. Such people were instrumental in having the Hmong immigrate to U.S., to Wisconsin and Madison itself. If they truly believe in multiculturalism, then they should have respected the Hmong community’s wishes to allow the school to be named after Vang Pao regardless of how “controversial” he was. After all, conservatives and others who favor immigration reform have complained for years that elements of traditional Hmong culture, whether its polygamy, arranged marriages, child prostitution, animal sacrifice in the backyard, did not mix well inside current U.S. society, not to mention the gangs that formed and the drug dealing that existed when such societies clashed as they inevitably did. Such persons were called racists and were shouted down. Well who are the racists now? I myself could care less if the Hmong view Vang Pao as a hero, that’s their business. But apparently Alfred McCoy’s and others on the Madison Left couldn’t stand it, because to accept it would challenge their belief systems and experiences in many ways.
If the left truly believes in multiculturalism, then things about other cultures it finds distasteful, whether its female genital mutilation, child slavery, honor killing or homosexual bashing, has to accept if it does not believe in forced assimilation as their progressive forefathers once believed in years ago. It was those progressives that combined with Christian groups to enact Prohibition, regardless if immigrant groups from Europe regularly drank wine and beer. It was there way of assimilating such immigrants into America. Today’s progressives, or at least the one’s who aren’t utter hypocrites like those on Madison left who opposed Vang Pao’s name on the school door, lack such enthusiasm for assimilation because of multiculturalism’s fundamental tenant: All societies and cultures and belief systems are equal. This is why you have someone like “Red” Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, supporting efforts to strip homosexuals from protection in hate crimes legislation because his Muslim supporters do not want to be associated with homosexuals. This is why you have Swedish feminists keeping a code of silence while Swedish women are being raped by Muslim immigrants. This is why you have a German judge excusing a Muslim man for beating his wife because such practices are a part of the Koran.
All these ironies mean the left is going to have its crack-up over immigration and multiculturalism just as the right having theirs right now. You can’t demand unlimited immigration and then deny its affects on the environment. You can’t demand unlimited immigration and then deny its affects on wages or working conditions. You can’t say all belief systems and cultures are equal but pick and choose the ones you find distasteful nor can you champion human rights and equality but turn your back on those cultures which really don’t practice such things. Either multiculturalism really does become the unquestioned dogma of the left or perhaps the left should realize that the global village they wish to create within the borders of the U.S. isn’t worth all those ironies.
After all, too many sweets can be bad for you.
Sean Scallon is a freelance writer and journalist from Arkansaw, Wisconsin
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