Vietnam War

« Welcome to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

This exhibition, which my fellow artists and I have called "the importance of taking sides," is intended to remember those who have fought for peace in their own way. The first work of art is a photo is in black and white and shows a demonstration in Washington in October 1967 against the Vietnam War.

Vietnam is in Southeast Asia.

Once it was ruled by France.

However, in 1954 the soldiers of a communist leader named Ho Chi Minh drove out the French.

Like Korea, Vietnam was then divided in two: communists ruled the North and non-communists the South. Therefore, the Vietnam War took place between 1963 and 1975 and opposed South Vietnam, supported by the United States, to North Vietnam and the independence movements of the South, helped by China and the USSR.

The picture shows the opposition to the Vietnam War is a set of protests that began in 1946 in France to oppose the Indochina War and continued from 1964 with demonstrations against the military involvement of the Americans in Asia.

These demonstrations then turned into a vast social movement, Americans were sick and ashamed of the killing and the destruction.

About a hundred people gathered to do a sit-in.

For most of them, they look young.

In the middle of this group, a man brandished a sign with written on it "get the helicopters out of Vietnam".

It is a play on words with "get the hell out of Vietnam" because helicopters is written with two l.

They were demonstrating for the repatriation of American troops far from Vietnamese territories. But they had to wait until 1973 for all the American soldiers to leave the Vietnamese territory even if the war really ended in 1975 as a frightened Vietnamese supporters of the Americans scrambled for the last places on rescue helicopters, victorious communist tanks rolled into Saigon, the capital city of South Vietnam and they marked their victory by giving the city a new name: Ho Chi Minh City. It is also important to note the impact of the Vietnam War not only in the United States but also throughout the world.

And the movement of opposition to the war spread almost everywhere through politically engaged youth circles.

For example, in Paris, in the Lavoisier, Louis-Le-Grand, Condorcet, Charlemagne and Henri IV high schools, high school Vietnam committees were created to encourage the French government to take a stand in favor of the repatriation of American troops from Vietnam. This exhibition aims to remember all the Americans who did not want this war and did not hesitate to make their discontent heard, even if it meant dying.

We think for example of the young students of Kent State University (...).

In addition, it is not only about the Vietnam War because it is a subject very much in connection with the current events: indeed, following the attack of Russia against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, many Russians went to demonstrate against Putin, the president of Russia, at the origin of the invasion in Ukraine. Moreover, there were about 1800 arrests during these demonstrations.

People are ashamed of their countries and what they do to weaker territories and that is why they demonstrate.. »