Saigon moment

When what happened and is still unfolding in Kabul appeared on the front page of major newspapers, I was jolted.

Saigon? Haven’t seen the name in the news for decades.

It reappeared once in a while on Broadway play (Miss Saigon – the helicopter and the abandoned mistress with slanted eyes).

But not along side clean-shaven Afghan young men running along, infront, behind the C-17 US Airforce Cargo plane (built for 150, but carrying 640).

There will be plenty of blames to go around.

Failure of execution. Failure of intelligence. Failure of imagination.

Failure. Period. Past. Now, let’s focus on the future.

Nothing we can do with spilled milk.

Will women need a male escort to get groceries…how about Winter clothes for the SIV (Special Immigration Visas) arrivals.

Been there, exact same spot.

I remember my Saigon moment e.g. John, head of Child Welfare Bureau where I worked as a volunteer interpreter. He pooled the office to buy me a Merriam-Webster Collegian Dictionary. Don, whose wife was from Holland, brought me some old winter clothes. What comes around comes around.

Now is the time. To build a future, for us and for those who are in need.

It’s not a Saigon moment in the sense that we are left behind (last chopper).

We are not “abandoned mistresses”. We are masters of our own destiny, and by helping others, we help ourselves.

Meanwhile, the real Saigon is still in lock-down. Time has stopped there as it is in Kabul.

Standing still.

No women seen on the streets of Kabul (a city of 5 million). No one is seen on the streets of today’s Saigon (10 million)

Covid rampant. Vaccines in short supply. Visas in short supply.

Our compassion is also in short-supply.

The most striking image I saw today on facebook, was a photo of a Vietnamese woman, in cone hat, with tattered shirt, strolling Saigon empty streets, normally, would be packed with buses and scooters.

The same happened here in the US last year, when homeless folks – the usual invisibles – all of a sudden, appeared out of nowhere.

Both the pandemic and post-war crisis show our failure of imagination.

Just as we had experienced it prior to 9/11 with stove pipes and inter-agencies wrangling ( and not sharing intelligence).

Those terrorists have won, by the long shot, capitalising on our failure of the imagination.

After all, how can good people envision Evil in others of the same species. Why would someone NOT want to live?

What I have become is what today’s Kabul residents desire. What they will become, depends on our generosity.

Bring those winter clothes out of your closets, open your wallets and chip in. It’s time for relief, not judging and passing blames. We have plenty of time left for it (post-mortem)…

For now, it’s the Saigon moment.