Revy Hamilton Hao Lo Prison

By Revy Hamilton

Last week we visited the Hoa Lo Prison Museum, which is a museum memorialising the prison built in the centre of Ha Noi during French colonial occupation, and functioned as a prison up until the early 1990’s, during which most of the site was demolished for an apartment development, leaving a section dedicated as a museum site. It is also well known for housing American Airforce prisoners during the Vietnam war, and explores all periods of the prisons history up to its destruction.

I subscribe to the idea that historical narratives swing like a pendulum as time passes after the event. A western colonial/imperialist narrative, for example, can be seen to go through highs of pride (as conqueror), then shame (as an oppressor), then eventually (far into the future from now, probably) neither as the history becomes too annotated and antiquated to have a central perspective theme. Alexander the Great was recorded as a great conqueror hero, then a power hungry tyrant who made a wasteland and called it peace. And then again, with historical perspective and emotional distance, he is credited with the spread of Hellenism across Europe and greatly influencing the progression of western civilisation, as well as all of the above. At this period of time, the story of the “Vietnam War” and “the American War” are at times irreconcilable.

Because of its tumultuous history leading right up to contemporary times, as well as it’s connection with two Vietnamese wars, the museum is in a unique position where the living memory and cultural impact of the events it represents are still developing in the surrounding community and the wider world. There is no room for generalised dry history here, the way that one might read about the wars of ancient empires. The Hoa Lo Prison museum still has living survivors that meet and have a close relationship to the museum, treating it as a second home and influencing decisions that the museum makes. The way that the events that happened in and around the prison are represented will have a profound emotional effect on the surrounding community and cultural identity of Vietnam.

So, how does a museum navigate the challenges of such a fresh and powerful history? This is a rhetorical question, I’m not quite sure.

The Director told us that the majority of American visitors to the museum don’t believe that American prisoners of war were treated humanely during their time in Hoa Lo, even when they haven’t heard a contradicting story – it’s a knee jerk assumption that is almost impossible to combat. The strained aftermath of a war, even in times of peace. Us and them. Sometimes the western perception of the outside world is like seeing through a funhouse mirror, even when it really shouldn’t be. I was reminded of this by a throwaway comment Graeme said, small but telling, where he referred to the memorial honouring those that died in the prison as an “altar.” The concept of a war memorial is not unfamiliar to someone from the UK or Australia, and yet it was immediately distanced in his interpretation as something other, unique, comprehendible but not relatable. How can you combat that sort of ingrained segregation even found in museum professionals? And still maintain a national narrative that shares Vietnam’s unique perspective, essential to create an eventual homogenised global history?