IN 2009, as I was planning my return home from Hanoi, I told a group of friends I wanted to become active in politics, maybe eventually contest elections. I had to be part of the system if I wanted to change it, I said. From that group, my dearest friend Duc was the most upset to hear this. On my last night in Hanoi, Duc handed me a typewritten note, listing 20 terrible things about politicians.

“Politicians think big because they’re small,” it said. Another was: “Politicians put monks and writers in jail.” Also, “Politicians cheat, lie, steal and they like doing those things.” And the one that mattered most: “Politicians don’t like journalists.”

We agreed and not just because we were both journalists, albeit limited in our practice of it in Vietnam, which, in 2009, ranked 166 in the World Press Index, the bottom 10. Pakistan ranked 159. Last year, Vietnam ranked 174 and Pakistan 150.

Duc and I knew the system in our respective countries and how to work in it, when to push, when to retreat. Duc knew more about survival than I ever will.

There are many examples of solo acts of defiance.

His life changed overnight when the Tet offensive began in 1968 and his father was captured by the Viet Cong and imprisoned for over a decade. His mother was barred from teaching and had to sell noodles on the street. Duc escaped to the US as a teenager. He wrote his family’s story of loss and reunion and longing for his homeland in his memoir Where the Ashes Are. He returned to Vietnam in 2006 and opened Tadioto, a bar, cafe and art space which became a refuge for nomads and creatives. It was a vibrant space where people could express themselves openly, which caused some discomfort in some quarters.

I saw Duc get angry about the harassment and intimidation he faced but it never deterred him from continuing his mission. He often told me I needed to get angry. Anger, he said, was a catalyst for change.

He spoke about how the anger fuelled him to write. He was 17 years when he arrived in the US and was on the radio by age 21. “I was angry, because people didn’t understand what we Vietnamese, what we immigrants were about,” he said in a Ted Talk. “We needed to tell our stories ... by telling it, I was getting my own independence, and my own happiness ... for being able to tell that story because nobody else was going to tell that story for me.”

This is why he didn’t want me to join politics; he wanted me to write stories, especially about people affected by conflict and war. Tell stories about how politicians destroyed generations so that it causes anger and gets people to change, he wrote in an email to me in 2020.

I have been thinking of anger as an agent for change since hearing the news of Duc’s passing from cancer in Hanoi a few days ago. I’m not talking about politicians stoking voters’ anger — a good electoral strategy but bad for the country’s stability. I’m not talking about the country uniting in anger against an enemy either. I’m talking about the anger that has the power to create a ripple effect. And, it can come from just one person.

Take Sheema Kermani, who shouted “ceasefire now” at an event held at the British High Commission in Karachi recently and then walked out. There was no ripple effect but I believe her solo act made a compelling statement about protest and spoke volumes about why no one joined her. She is part of the new Palestine Solidarity Committee which is planning a protest tomorrow.

There are many other examples of solo acts of defiance. A young Afghan girl stood outside Kabul University last year protesting against the Taliban’s ban on education. Greta Thunberg started her climate justice movement as a solo protester when she was 15. Malala Yousafzai began her activism with her father’s support. Remember the image of the still unknown man who stood in front of tanks in Tianmen Square in 1989? Solo protesters are fuelled by courage and conviction.

Today I’m seeing more of that conviction in people’s support for Palestine.

We’re seeing people face consequences for tweeting their support and no one is spared — be it Susan Sarandon, editors or university students. But something has shifted and people are undeterred this time because, I believe, they are fed up; they are keeping up the momentum.

The former US official caught on camera spewing vitriol at a halal street food vendor in New York City has been arrested. People flocked to that vendor to buy his food as a show of support. Anger led to action. But there are so many people whose stories of bravery don’t get told. In Duc’s honour, I’m more committed to telling them.

The writer is a journalism instructor.

X: @LedeingLady

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2023