Source: Nhan Dan
A meeting on friendship and co-operation for the people of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos opened in Ho Chi Minh City on April 28.
A total of 154 delegates from the three countries, students and officials from Cambodia and Laos who are studying and working in Ho Chi Minh City and former Vietnamese soldiers who fought and worked in the other two countries are attending the four-day event.
Addressing the opening ceremony were Vu Mao, Head of the Vietnamese delegation and President of the Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship Association; Men Sam An, Head of the Cambodian delegation, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Association; and Vilayvong Bouddakham, Head of the Lao delegation, Vice Secretary of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) and Vice President of the Laos-Vietnam Friendship Association. All were in accord that the meeting affirmed the international friendship and special solidarity among Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
The meeting took place on the occasion of Vietnam’s celebration of the 35th anniversary of the liberation of Southern Vietnam and its national reunification.
Head of the Vietnamese delegation Vu Mao reminded attendees of the deep gratitude felt by the Vietnamese Party, State and people towards the Cambodian and Lao people for their sacrifice and valuable assistance to Vietnam’s national liberation.
This is an opportunity for the Cambodian and Lao peoples to celebrate the resplendent, historic milestone of 1975 in the war against US aggressors.
Within the framework of the meeting, the three countries’ delegates will pay courtesy visits to Vietnamese Party and State leaders, attend a seminar, go on a tour featuring Ho Chi Minh City’s socio-economic achievements and attend a meeting to mark the 35th anniversary of the liberation of Southern Vietnam and national reunification. (VNA)
Thierry Roge/Reuters
Websites like Facebook have created a passive sense of advocacy known as "slacktivism."
Though the Internet has long been praised as a boon to social advocacy, observers say we may have reached a tipping point.
That is, it's become so effortless to lend "support" to a cause -- whether forwarding an e-mail petition or using Facebook status-updates as a soapbox -- that meaningful protest is now getting lost in the din of slacktivism.
"We're seeing a proliferation of initiatives and sites that promise connection to a social issue but are ultimately benign," says Martin Laba, director of the School of Communication at B.C.'s Simon Fraser University.
"Without a doubt, it's making the efforts of activism ever more daunting."
The problem isn't that the Internet isn't useful for grassroots lobbying; Laba notes that his students have leveraged online media to mobilize large numbers of people around such issues as AIDS and human trafficking.
The problem is saturation, along with the prevailing attitude that joining a Facebook group called "I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who hate cancer!" is advocacy enough.
"It would be nearsighted of us to extrapolate that all activism that uses digital technology is somehow diminished," says Laba.
"But there's merit to the argument that we're witnessing a decrease in our commitment and capacity to act on social issues because new media requires no effort, and very little thinking."
Some 1.37 million people have used Twibbon.com to overlay their Twitter avatars with an e-ribbon flaunting support of a cause. But how many of those people have donated time or money to their banner issue?
The same question was posed in January, when thousands of women posted their bra colour to Facebook -- a salacious exercise intended to raise awareness for breast cancer but which ultimately shed more light on lingerie preferences.
Sanjeev Anand, a law professor at the University of Alberta, says the sum effect is reduced credibility for Internet protests across the board, whether social, political or judicial.
"It's so easy now to just click your mouse and ‘sign' a petition," says Anand, noting that many people know little or nothing about the issues to which they're lending their name.
To illustrate: In 2009, researchers from Denmark created an online group dedicated to saving a famous fountain from demolition. Though no plan existed to tear down the artifact, some 27,000 people joined the protest in just two weeks.
Legitimate efforts that reach critical mass, however, can still be fruitful.
"The people who work in the justice system are human, and high-profile cases are sometimes treated differently . . . when they know the public is watching," says Anand. "It's the whole physics principle that when you observe something, you actually change its nature."
Justin Arjoon, a student at the University of Toronto, admits that when he joined the online group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, he didn't expect anything to come of it. But when the group's numbers topped 200,000, he realized its capacity to keep the issue in the news was a pretty powerful thing.
The Facebook group has since become a touchstone for political discussions of every stripe, inspiring Arjoon to help create the grassroots organization Canadians Advocating Political Participation using the same acronym.
Being heard will be a continuing challenge for young activists, who share cyberspace with such efforts as the 43,000-strong campaign to make actor William Shatner the next governor general of Canada. But experts say there's encouragement to be found in advocacy whose credibility cuts through the clutter -- such as the "citizens' initiative" to fight harmonized sales tax in British Columbia, which has attracted support from 145,500 Canadians and counting.
"Six previous attempts to use this initiative process have failed," says Norman Ruff, associate professor of political science at the University of Victoria. "But there are indications that the current anti-HST signature campaign may come much, much closer to crossing the threshold."
