Talk:Zone 5 Military Museum, Danang

Communist propaganda category

Some examples of display captions in the Museum (all spelling mistakes copied from captions): M48 caption "It was used by the 1st Puppet Army Cavalry Brigade, was chased by the Libration Troops on the way of fleeing..." On bomb display: "this bomb was used in Vietnam aggressive was by America Enpire" On M113: "was used to carry out its international obligation in 1978" T34: "Used to participate in combat and achieve glorious feat of arms in the South Laos Road no 9 campaign." Rocket launcher: "used to annihilate enemies in the Bong Son battle (Binh Dinh Province) with excellent feat of arms in 1972. Steel stake: "used for fencing strategic hamlets to improson Vietnameses people (1955-60)" "Popular tools uses by the US and Puppet Army to repress and torture Vietnamese people in the 5th zone". Handcuff: "this was one of tool used to suppress Viet Nam peoples by Ngo Dinh Diem with U.S." "necklaces, bracelets, combs, sandals of children and a betel grinder of old people are the remains after the US and Puppet Army's murders." "The gun of Kpakolong in Chu Prong District, Gia Lai-Kon Tum Province - used to kill 64 and Puppep troops." "The South Korea's soldiers of fortune units landing in Da Nang on March 1965." "Destroy all, burn all and kill all is the policy of American invaders." "American soldiers exterminated in Palyme Battle in 1965." "Remnant of Tank M113: it was one of twenty-two tank from United States Marine Corp exterminated by 2nd Division 1st Regiment of the Fifth Military Zone in Van Tuong Battle on August 18th 1965." "US soldiers frightened at the high point 875." "The sixth General of Puppert Troops General Staff were killed by Sai Gon-Gia Dinh Liberation Army in 1968." "Weapons and equips from FULRO reactionary forces were fought to annihilated and seized from 1975 to 1985 by the Fifth Military Zone's soldiers." Mztourist (talk) 03:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Mmmm...following you POV, we must label as "X propaganda" (X being communist, fascist, capitalist, nationalist, etc...) every military museum that discredits or claim atrocities by their opponents...Sincerely, that's not a credible argument. I dont want to enter an edit war, but if you maintain that position you leave me with only two options: removing that category or adding a NPOV tag.I hope we can reach an agreement on this.--HCPUNXKID 17:30, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

If you can identify similar bias, such as the repeated use of "puppet", "mercenary", "murders" etc and outrageous claims such as a rifle used to kill 64 soldiers in other museums, then yes, they should be labelled as "X propaganda" too. In relation to your two options, you have a third option, stop picking a fight about the obvious bias of a museum that you haven't visited. Mztourist (talk) 03:19, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

First, the use of terms as "puppet", "mercenary", "murders", etc... on captions have as much to do with communism as with capitalism, that's it, nothing. So if your only argument for adding that category is the use of that terminology on captions, sorry, but you simply dont have any argument. Second, and I repeat it for the second time, it doesnt matter that I dont have visited that museum. Most WP users edit articles about places or events in wich they dont have been present, and obviously that doesnt disqualify them. Finally, it seems to me that you dont want to reach an agreement, as I gave you two options and you reject both, trying instead to impose your POV on this article.--HCPUNXKID 22:22, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Really???? Those words mean nothing? Do you seriously believe that? Repeated use of those terms is clear evidence that the Museum pushes a particular POV. I have only given the English captions, you can assume that the Vietnamese captions are even more biased. All Museums in Vietnam adopt the same propaganda tone because beating the French and the Americans is the sole basis for the Vietnamese Communist Party's legitimacy. English obviously isn't your first language so perhaps where you live these kind of terms are normal, but for a native English speaker they scream out propaganda. Who/what gives you the right to set out options anyway? You need to present a clear argument that the Museum isn't Communist propaganda before you go reverting the category or you can escalate this to another forum, in the meantime leave the category as it is. Mztourist (talk) 03:24, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

No man, its you who have to undisputedly prove that the whole museum is "Communist propaganda", that's a severe accusation to label a whole museum, or in your case all the museums in Vietnam!?!. Again, most if not all military museums in the world would (more or less) discredit the enemies, so thats a very, very weak argument to make. Also, about "so perhaps where you live these kind of terms are normal, but for a native English speaker they scream out propaganda", Wikipedia (doesnt matter if its english version or other) aint made for english, spanish or vietnamese speakers, but for ALL people, despite the language they speak, the ideology they have or the country they came from. And finally, Who/what gives you the right to add unilaterally dubious POV-driven categories anyway? Making the majority of the article doesnt give you extra rights to decide about it, dude. Unless you gave serious proof of what you claim, I will delete that unjustified category, as it seems you added because of your political views, and that's not what Wikipedia is about...--HCPUNXKID 23:16, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

And what in your POV amounts to serious proof? I have referred this to Dispute Resolution Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Talk:Zone 5 Military Museum, Danang and note the previous warnings and blocks on your user pageMztourist (talk) 03:47, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

It seems the simplest way to support using the tag would be to find a reliable source that describes the museum or those captions as propaganda. If you have that, then there is no dispute. Cannolis (talk) 23:57, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes that would be ideal, but the museum is little known and the only sources are Vietnamese, which have the same POV or at least wouldn't questions the Museum's POV.Mztourist (talk) 05:21, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

It's inappropriate to categorize anything as "Communist propaganda" without an external reliable source. Having visited any number of military museums in my life, it's not uncommon to find "jingoistic" captions and such; they may not necessarily "glorify" war, but they certainly may portray a certain war in a different light than historical consensus. (For example, there aren't many military museums in the U.S. that tell you the Spanish-American War was essentially ginned up by nationalist propaganda in an effort to seize an American colonial empire. But we don't label those museums in the "capitalist propaganda" category.

If you go to a museum about the antebellum Southern U.S., you might find shackles used on African slaves — labeled as the torture devices they really were. Is it really "Communist propaganda," then, to label handcuffs used by the inarguably-repressive Ngo Dinh Diem puppet regime as such?

Given that the category is obviously contentious, I have removed it until reliable sources are provided. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:48, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your views, as noted above there are minimal external sources for this museum. I note your comments regarding nationalist perspective and the repressive nature of the Diem regime, however I think you would agree that the captions I have quoted above go far beyond mere jingoism. There is a propaganda line in all Vietnamese museums which is essentially unchanged since the Vietnam War and that is to delegitimise South Vietnam and all who supported it, accusing them of war crimes, while ignoring their own actions - a real case of history being written by the victors. This approach is also evident in the War Remnants Museum although there it has been somewhat softened to avoid alienating visitors. In any event the category should stay until dispute resolution and follow-up steps have been finalised.Mztourist (talk) 13:52, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

This museum, along with other museums in VN involving Vietnamese history, politics, military, are heavily biased and propagandistic in glorifying the Communists and demonizing political opponents ie former Republic of Vietnam, the US etc. Not just in museums, but even in the education system, state-controlled media etc. Exaggeration/distortion of facts and actual events are common, and sometimes they would go as far as fabricating things just to advance their POV eg. blaming South Vietnamese troops of genital mutilation of female prisoners, when they themselves killed the wife of one of my relatives, who was an ARVN colonel, in Da Lat and stabbed her genitals); claiming Ho Chi Minh was a celibate when he produced 2 lovechilds and had numerous affairs etc. On the other hand, these museums make absolutely no mention about their own atrocities and crimes, such as the 4000 massacred at the Hue Massacre, 300 aborigines killed in the Dak Son massacre, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians killed by daily VC rockets and road-side bombs in residential and commercial areas, 172,000 North Vietnamese killed in their land reform, the 1 million people sent to gulags after the war and the Boat people exodus, just to name a few. If you understand Vietnamese and go into these museums and actually read their descriptions, you'll clearly see the heavy bias and propaganda right away, and often they're more heavy-dosed in Vietnamese than the English translations. They repeatedly use propagandist terminology such as puppet, reactionary, criminal, oppressor, and dictatorship to describe South Vietnam, and militarist, aggressor, imperialist, colonialist, expansionist to describe the US. They use terms such as liberation, revolutionary, and "people's" to refer to themselves. There's no reason why the Communist Propaganda tag should be removed considering the museums does amount to propaganda and are being used as a propaganda tool to portray the Communist Party in a positive manner and legitimize themselves on historical grounds, to cling onto power. Would anyone not consider history/war museums in China or North Korea to be propaganda? Nguyễn Quốc Việt (talk) 01:02, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Similarly, it was not until quite recently that some American museums and historical sites began owning up to our illegal imprisonment and confiscation of property of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans. Are we to tag Bunker Hill Monument as "American propaganda" due to its unmistakable pro-American, anti-British bias when it comes to discussing the Revolutionary War? I doubt you will find much in American war museums that discusses the Philippine-American War, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos at the hands of American troops. What you are complaining about is, at worst, the standard tendency of a nation's own war museums to emphasize their opponents' atrocities and downplay their own culpability.

The fact remains that we have no reliable sources which describe this museum as "Communist propaganda." Absent a consensus among reliable sources that this is the case, it is personal opinion and original research, and has no place in Wikipedia. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:45, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I haven't been to the Bunker Hill Museum, does it refer to the British as murderers? Are there weapons claimed to have been used by American patriots to kill incredible numbers of British troops? Omission of unpleasant facts is one part of manipulating history, while demonising your opponents is another, both are practiced wholesale in Vietnamese history musems. Nguyễn Quốc Việt confirms my suspicion that the Vietnamese texts in these museums are even more outrageously biased than the English versions. As noted above I have referred this to dispute resolution and so the category should stay until dispute resolution and follow-up steps have been finalisedMztourist (talk) 04:51, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, no. The category is not going to stay. There is no reliable source to support categorizing this museum thusly and fundamental Wikipedia policy prohibits us from inserting unsourced information.

Categorization of articles must be verifiable. It should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories. It is not verifiable from any reliable source that this museum is considered to be "Communist propaganda." Ergo, categorizing it thusly is a violation of several core Wikipedia policies. What you are doing is inserting your personal opinion about the museum in the article, which is impermissible and not what Wikipedia is about. If there is no consensus of reliable sources that this museum is "Communist propaganda," we cannot categorize it as such. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:59, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

There is a WP dispute resolution procedure which I am following. Let it take its course and when resolution is acheived the category will be retained or removed. Mztourist (talk) 05:08, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Or how about uploading images of the exhibit captions, if you're okay with it? Just make sure there's no personal info in them ie. no name, no date, no people in the photos etc. Readers who are intelligent enough can judge for themselves. Anyways, why is it so difficult for some to draw connections between North/South Vietnam and the VN war, with other reminiscent situations like North/South Korea and the Korean War, or East/West Germany, or Taiwan ROC/Communist Mainland China? Nguyễn Quốc Việt (talk) 18:00, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Images would be absolutely fine, and I fully support allowing people to draw their own conclusions about them. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:19, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Its nice to see such a lively discussion about the categorization of this museum, however some points need to be considered. Firstly, it has been ascertained that any contentious edit has to be supported by reliable, verifiable third party sources to ensure neutrality of the article (WP:RELIABLE, WP:VERIFY and WP:NEUTRAL). There seems to be no dispute about this. So moving on to the next issue. It has been suggested that photographs with captions be uploaded that support assertions about Communits Propoganda. Here, I must warn that this would either fall under the category of Original Research (WP:OR) or Synthesis (WP:SYNTH) depending on whom you ask. It would never be a good idea to publish your own concerns and ideas about a topic as article content no matter how strongly you feel it to be true. In case this raises concerns about obvious conclusions not being published on time, please understand that on Wikipedia there are no deadlines (WP:DEADLINE) and articles can evolve over decades, if not years. As and when reliable sources about this museum being propaganda are published, they will be updated by future editors. Till then lets try and stick to encyclopedic content.--Wikishagnik (talk) 14:06, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I did not mean to state that I would support any conclusions or assertions being drawn from the photos, quite the opposite. But photos of the exhibits that happen to show the captions would simply neutrally present those exhibits and captions, and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 14:15, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, the captions referred to in the suggestion to upload the images are the captions provided by the museum itself, which would avoid OR/synth. That would seem fine to me. Cannolis (talk) 05:46, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes they are the Museum's captions. I will try to upload the photos in the next few days. Mztourist (talk) 06:53, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Continuing the thread posted earlier, please understand the wording or (WP:RELIABLE) which states ... we publish the opinions only of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves. Please also understand that a WP:PRIMARY... are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved and Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. Please understand that publishing such conclusions without reliable tertiary sources would seriously challenge the neutrality of the article. --Wikishagnik (talk) 17:49, 13 October 2014 (UTC)