Being engaged in the World (nhập thế) and the secular state in 20th century Vietnam. Approaching two notions through Hòa Hảo Buddhism history

Hòa H?o Buddhism belongs to that traditional lay and frugal buddhism encouraging practicing at home (tu t?i gia) while being engaged with the world (nh?p th?). It appeared in Southern Vietnam at the end of the 1930’s. Obviously, colonial contest and economic depression have played the part of a powerful catalyst in the spread by a young charismatic and reformist character of this millenarianism. Then, during three decades of postcolonial and cold wars (1945–1975), this New Religious movement hardly expressed its Buddhist ethic of social statements in order to lend moral support and material protection to the local peasantry. Eventually, at the end of the war, this autonomous Buddhist community finally tried to morph again into a legal religion at a time when the Vietnamese Communist Party had to urgently impose a new sovereign socialist republic (1976). In other words, the new regime had to reunify the Nation and build a new secular state. In the southern part of the country, the replacement of a former liberal regime (Republic of Vietnam) by a socialist republic (called formerly a Democratic Republic in Northern Vietnam) completely changed the nature of the State-Church relations. Therefore, many religious groups’ agencies suffered a drastic blow as these groups were subordinated to the Patriotic Front and its mass organizations. Nevertheless, in 1991, the reorientation of the religious policy officially reaffirmed the religions’ social utility. Since then, new debates emerged to define the nature of the social actions of religious groups and then to delineate the legal sphere of their activities in this secular state. This essay intends to question how the two notions of being engaged with the world (nh?p th?) and that of the secular state (nhà n??c trung l?p th? t?c) interacted during these last decades. To tackle this pivotal issue, we focused on the specific implementation of Hòa H?o social activism, from 1940’s until now, to underline how this activism evolved under different political regimes and how a new culture of social service has been promoted since the Hòa H?o official church was recognized in 1999 and achieved years later. It questions more generally how religious groups can negotiate with the state for the emergence of a civil society or, at least, for the acceptance of their own tribute to the prosperity of the Nation.

     

LISTINGS

A Basic Work on Judaism in the USSR

The Jewish Religion in the Soviet Union, by Joshua Rothenberg. New York, Ktav (in association with Philip W. Lown Graduate Center for Contemporary Jewish Studies, Brandeis University). 1971. 242 pp.

A Volume of Moscow Sermons

Bameitzar Birchat Hazan. Hadranim Vederashot (From Confinement — Praise to the Provider. Teachings and Sermons), by Zalman Nathan Kiselgof. Jerusalem, Mossad Harav Kook. 1970. 320 pp.

The Mandelstam Memoir and the Russian‐Jewish Intelligentsia

Hope against hope, a memoir, Nadezhda Mandelstam. (Tr. from Russian by Max Hayward.) New York, Atheneum Publishers, and London, Harvill Press Ltd. 1970. xiii, 431 pp. Illus. Index. $10.00; £3.15.

A Yiddish Documentary Novel on Russian Camp Life

In Wieser Farfalenkeit (In White Hopelessness), by Jechiel Hofer. Tel‐Aviv, Hamenora Publishing House. 1969. 423 pp.

Sorsfordulo. Iratok Magyarorszag Felszabadulasanak Tortenetehez. 1944 September, 1945 Aprilis (The Turn of Fates. Documents on the History of Hungary's Liberation. September 1944‐April 1945), by Elek Karsai and Magda Solymar (eds). Introduction by Magda Solymar, notes and information by Elek Karsai. Budapest. 1970. Two volumes. 1, 144 pp.     

A Question of Genesis: An Analysis of the Determinants of Public Authorities

One of the central questions in the study of special purposegovernments is how to explain their proliferation over the pastfifty years. Of particular concern to scholars has been therise of a hidden government that is not highly accountable throughregular democratic processes. This article looks specificallyat one form of special purpose government, known as a "publicauthority," and amends the conventional explanation that localgovernments principally create public authorities to addresspublic finance concerns. First, I argue that full "service publicauthorities," which administer and make policy about a particularservice arena, raise different concerns about democratic accountabilityfrom a "conduit authority" and are a nonparsimonious solutionto a public finance problem. Second, drawing on an archivalsurvey of the institutional choices of county governments indealing with solid waste policymaking in New York State, I findthat while public finance is a driver in the choice to createa service public authority, equally, if not more important,are the needs of local government to resolve a policy problemin a politically competitive environment.