After fleeing
Vietnam by boat and spending five days at sea, Nam Tran lived in a Malaysian
refugee camp for four months before he immigrated to Canada in 1980 at age
25.
After fleeing
Vietnam by boat and spending five days at sea, Nam Tran lived in a Malaysian
refugee camp for four months before he immigrated to Canada in 1980 at age
25.
When
Tran finally arrived in Canada, he settled in Sundre and, in 1984, he proudly
hung the yellow-and-red-striped flag of the defunct Republic of Vietnam,
commonly known as South Vietnam, on an empty flagpole alongside other
international flags in the town.
Known
as the Vietnamese Heritage and Freedom Flag, despite not being the country's
official flag, the banner quietly flew in Sundre, about 130 kilometres northwest
of Calgary, until 2007 when it became the source of international
controversy.
"This
one issue over this flag created so much international interest . . . It's the
biggest thing that happened that I was part of during my time as mayor," said
Roy Cummings, who served as mayor of Sundre from 2004 to
2010.
A
documentary film crew from Washington, D.C., travelled to the town of 2,500 on
Saturday to interview Tran, Cummings and others involved with the 2007 flag
flap.
The
film crew is travelling to locations around the world to piece together the
history of the flag before and after 1975, the year the Vietnam War
ended.
When
the flag was first displayed in 1984, the small town of Sundre became the first
place in the world, outside of Vietnam, to fly the flag 365 days a
year.
The
flag needed to be flown because it represented a key part of Sundre's history,
said Cummings.
He
noted that people in Sundre opened their homes to those who fled South Vietnam
during the war.
However,
it's not proper protocol to fly a flag that isn't recognized as a country's
official flag. When these concerns were raised, town council decided to remove
the flag in 2007, said Cummings.
Removing
the flag angered many.
After
hearing from several Vietnamese-Canadians who saw the flag as a symbol of their
heritage and freedom, town council decided to start flying the old flag again in
August 2007, despite criticism from The Embassy of the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam.
"Even
though it was controversial, we chose, as a town, to put that flag back up,"
Cummings said.
Cummings
said he still stands by the decision to fly the flag, which is an important
symbol.
"We're
not trying to create some political nightmare here . . . Just look at this flag
as something that represents freedom for all," he said.
Nearly
three decades after Tran first put up the flag, it continues to fly in
Sundre.
"I
feel very peaceful when I see it," said Tran, who today lives in Calgary and
purchases a new flag for the town annually.
In
separate interviews, Cummings and Tran told the film crew about the flag's
history in Sundre, as part of a documentary that Tran said will be released
later this year by a company called the Vietnam Film Club.
Tran
said he's pleased the American documentary will include the small town of Sundre
in the story of the flag's history.
"I
feel very happy. I'm really proud for my people," Tran
said.
Bill Bell chyển
No comments:
Post a Comment