A LOT of my fellow anarchists, maybe even most, really don't like that I've lived in Vietnam for nearly a decade, including through all of COVID, and I don't find it to be an authoritarian hellworld - on the contrary, I feel more free here than anywhere else I've lived.

I wish Vietnam would move towards ancom. Probably not gonna happen. In the meantime it's still the best place I've found to live, and it's my home, it's where my life and my partner are. And they do a lot of things very, very right.

I'm sad that this seems to upset anarchists. But I won't apologize for speaking the truth of my experiences here. I have PLENTY of criticism of the government of Vietnam but I see so much misinformation that I feel that must be the priority for my communication about this place.

I try very hard to have nuance about Vietnam. I've made a lot of assumptions about this place that turned out to be wrong. I made a lot of a priori judgments about Vietnam that turned out to be wrong. It's a complex place. And as it turns out, Viet folks aren't mindless drones.

It's not perfect ancom heaven but they have a lot of things American leftists only dream about. Mandatory unions at every company, active encouragement and support for cooperative businesses, 90% healthcare and home ownership rates, TOTAL CONTAINMENT OF COVID.

People want me to just label this entire nation as "TANKIE AUTHORITARIAN SHITWORLD" and it's just... not? It just really is not.

There are so many things I wish they did differently but overall I feel like there is a great deal of legitimate hope and opportunity here.

Plenty of threats, as well, but "tankies?" Not so much. I worry about the opposite: that capitalism will grow stronger and neoliberal elements already in the National Assembly will grow stronger. I worry about environmental destruction. Those are the big problems as I see them.

This is a long thread, just getting shit off my chest really, but last words: if you're going to discuss Vietnam, do it out of genuine respect and concern for the wonderful people here. Don't use them as pawns to win debates or score points. They've been through enough of that.