By Dr. LE HONG SON
Ministry of Justice
I. The birth and development of the village conventions :
Village convention is the written rules of the village. It is a cultural outcrop and an instrument for social management within the confines of a village or commune in the Vietnamese countryside over many past centuries. Under the feudal regime, the village convention existed alongside the law of the feudal State, and assumed a certain role in the maintenance of social order and the preservation of the national civilization and identity.
Through the study of annals and a series of social science research works, it has been generally accepted that the village convention came into existence many centuries ago, and began being recorded into written documents around the 15th century under the reign of King Le Thanh Tong. In the 5th year of his reign (1464), King Le Thanh Tong promulgated a royal edict defining the attitude of the court toward the village convention. It amounts to the de facto recognition by the king of the lawful existence of the village convention. This convention was regarded as the "spiritual code" or the "code of conduct". It comprised many clauses defining the principles for the handling of many respects of life in the village, from agricultural production, the protection of the environment, the organizational structure, the social relations, and the safeguarding of security to the wedding and funeral rites, encouragement to education, the organization of worshipping rites...
The village convention was born and developed from the following main causes :
1. To defend and stabilize their personal life and the life of their families and family lines against natural calamities and foreign aggression which occurred frequently in the conditions of a backward and scattered agriculture, the inhabitants of the village had to unite into a community and work out common rules to govern the daily conduct within the community.
2. The austere and brutal feudal rule (and foreign domination in many periods of history) has triggered the natural reaction of the population of the villages and communes. They set up their own institutions and conventions to safeguard their interests and secure their position, as a counterweight to the representatives of the feudal State in the locality. On the one hand, the village continued to accept the administrative apparatus of the feudal State (village chief and his assistants) who ran the village affairs according to the law of the country (the king's decrees). On the other, they consolidated their own autonomous administration (council of village dignitaries and elders) to run the communal affairs according to the village convention. For its part, the feudal State, while restricting and controlling the activities of the autonomous apparatus in the village, made the most of them to facilitate their rule (Generally speaking, all the feudal dynasties in Vietnam granted quite a broad autonomy to the villages and communes).
3. The law of the feudal State concerning the villages often provided regulations for a number of fundamental domains, such as tax and military service, leaving most of the village affairs to the village convention. In reality, the village convention can be compared to a main "source of law" of the villagers in the feudal State. It directly regulated not only almost all the relations among the citizens, among the families and family lines, but also the relations of one community with another, and with the State in general.
The majority of the village conventions were in written form. In some special cases, they were carved on wooden planks or copper plates for better preservation.
Prior to the August Revolution in 1945, nearly all the villages and communes in the plain and midland of North Vietnam and in the northern part of Central Vietnam had their own conventions. The most thriving period of these conventions was in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. After the French completed their conquest of Vietnam, the Vietnamese society changed from a feudal society into a semi-feudal and colonial society. On the one hand, the French continued to keep almost intact the structure of the traditional village of Vietnam, and maintained burdensome customs to contain the countryside and peasants of Vietnam in backwardness. On the other, they sought to readjust the managerial apparatus and customs through the compilation of "model" conventions for the villages. Though they did not succeed completely in their "reforms", the French did achieve their aim of introducing the law of the "protectorate State" into the villages through the existing village conventions which were so modified as to serve their colonialist ends.
II. Contents of the village convention :
The contents of the village conventions were very diversified, and reflected the situation in each locality and each period. However, the following common features can be observed :
1. A summary of the history of the formation and development of the fine traditions of the village.
2. Conventions on geographical boundary and on the norms of the hierarchical order in the village.
In this connection, besides the provisions on the boundary of the village, there are very concrete provisions on the apparatus organization and its principles of operation. For instance, the convention stipulated the organization of the population according to age brackets, family lines and residential groupings (hamlets and alleys), or by the combination of residential grouping with family lines of the male members (genealogical groups), or according to the business lines or crafts (guilds). The convention also provided for the composition of the administrative management apparatus of the village (council of village dignitaries and laymen). There are also conventions on the hierarchy, of which the most important feature was the distinction of rights and interests between the dignitaries and common people, between the elders and the youth, between men and women, between the long-time residents (original inhabitants) and new comers (alien inhabitants)...
3. Conventions on professions, cultural lifestyle, law and order, mutual assistance. Most worthy of note is that nearly all the village conventions encouraged the development and preservation of the traditional crafts, development of culture and education, condemned and cautioned against theft and corruption, the systems of patrol and guard to protect public security, etc.
4. Regulations to ensure the spiritual life of the community.
These are stipulations on religious belief, of which the worshipping of the village titular genie is the main point (the titular genie is credited with great merits in the creation and development of the village). This involves concrete acts, such as setting the calendar for the worship and the rituals in this worship. Besides, the village convention also provided for the rituals related to the practice of handicrafts and agricultural production, such as the ceremony to begin the sowing of rice seeds, the ceremony to begin the field work, the "new rice ceremony" after the harvest, etc.
5. The regulations to ensure the obligations to the State, first of all, the duty to pay tax, including the land tax and poll-tax (which was levied only on male citizens from 18 to 60 years of age). Then there was the military service duty. The village convention stipulated details on this duty as well as the rights and interests of the persons doing their military service duty.
6. Regulations on reward and penalties in the implementation of the village convention.
The most popular form of reward was reward in money or in kind. The person with meritorious conduct might also be rewarded by an upgrading of his position in the village hierarchy, or reduction of his contributions or obligations toward the village.
The most popular form of penalty was fines in money or in kind, compensations for damages, whipping with a rod or a stick, or lowering of his position in the village hierarchy, or isolation of the offender by discrediting him in the eyes of the villagers.
The highest form of penalty was expulsion from the village of those who committed serious violations of the village convention, and this punishment was immediately announced by the council of village dignitaries, or otherwise, through a campaign of public censure which caused shame and self-depreciation for the offender.
7. Regulations on the compilation, amendments and maintenance of the village convention :
In the early 20s of this century, the French undertook a reform of the administrative apparatus at the villages and communes, including the introduction of the socalled "model village convention". This model comprised two parts : the political convention defining the principles for organization of the administrative apparatus, and the convention on customs and habits defining the prescribed customs and habits, the maintenance of order and security, the safeguard of the freedom of religious belief...
III. The restitution of the village convention, and the role of the new village convention in the management of the Vietnamese countryside at present :
Following the August Revolution in 1945, the old structure of the villages and communes was dismantled and replaced by the managerial mechanism of the agricultural cooperatives. In practice, the old village convention had no more place in the running of the affairs and daily life in the village.
With the system of quota-based allocation of land to the farmers introduced in 1989, the political situation witnessed many important changes, the role of the village was considerably heightened, and a tendency to restore the "small farmers village" soon gained strength. In many villages in North Vietnam and Northern Central Vietnam, people began drafting new village conventions to regulate the different aspects of community life.
In 1993, responding to the requirements of many localities, and aware of the importance of the village convention, the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (7th Congress) in its resolution encouraged the creation of new village conventions, with the aim of restoring and developing the fine cultural traditions of the nation, the tradition of solidarity and mutual assistance, the sense of community and respect for State law and the new and civilized lifestyle, in order to help the local administration in the discharge of its function of State management. The movement of building up new village conventions is gaining momentum in nearly all the delta and midland provinces of North Vietnam and Northern Central Vietnam. Some provinces in South Vietnam have also elaborated their own village conventions following the example of North and Central Vietnam. The village conventions differ from one region to another and from one village to another, but generally speaking they try to combine the traditional customs and habits with the regulations of the laws in force.
A new village convention often has the following main contents :
1. A summary of the history and fine traditions of the village, and the aim and significance of the new village convention.
2. Regulations on the cultural life, including provisions on the responsibility to protect historic relics, the funeral and wedding rites, the right to found associations, the norms in communal life, encouragement to education and development of the traditional crafts.
3. Regulations on the holding of rural festival and the practice of religious belief.
4. Regulations on the defense of security and public order, the fight against gambling, theft, preservation and protection of public constructions...
5. Regulations on rewards and penalties.
Most of the new village conventions are called "conventions of the cultured village", or "village convention", or "new life style convention", or "communal convention".
Generally speaking, the new village conventions are a concretization of the regulations of the law in force as well as a reaffirmation of the fine customs and habits in the communal life. However, due to the still low cultural standard and in some cases where the local administration is weak and the general intellectual level is backward, the village conventions include many points not consistent with, and even contrary to, the State law and the fine customs and habits, and tend to restore many superstitious practices. Some village conventions infringe upon, or run counter to, the Land Law, the Law on Marriage and the Family, the Administrative Law, the Penal Code... Moreover, most conventions tend to be written in the same pattern, and fail to bring out the characteristics and strengths of each village, hence they threaten to negate the diversity of the customs and habits, and the specific lifestyle of each locality.
IV. Some suggestions :
In our view, for the time being and for a long time to come, there will exist the objective necessity to regulate the social relations within a village or a commune through the village convention. Concretely speaking :
1. In view of the need to develop the fine customs and habits and preserve the traditional culture, and maintain the community life in the village or commune along the line of renovation and socio-economic development in the Vietnamese countryside, we should regard the village convention as a necessary instrument to effectively manage a society where more than 80% of the population live in villages or communes.
2. For a long time to come, the State law cannot yet be perfected and create a legal platform to regulate the community life at the micro level. In many kinds of social relations, however perfect, the legal system cannot regulate them all, such as the traditional festivals, the wedding and funeral rites, the accepted hierarchy in the village... On the one hand the State should speedily build up a unified and comprehensive legal system to serve as the basis for the State and social management. On the other, the State should use the village convention as a instrument to complement the law, in order to preserve and develop the fine customs and habits, uphold the moral principles of the nation in the community life in the countryside. In the new village convention, there must be a harmonious combination between the current law and the customs and habits, between the managerial measures by law and the measures of autonomous management, according to the traditional political and social institutions which have been built up and perfected over centuries in the countryside.
To build village conventions in a way conformable with the traditional customs and habits and the present socio-economic situation and the current law, requires that we study and work out appropriate measures for State management of the villages.
This is a natural and indispensable part in the overall great work of building and perfecting a State apparatus and mechanism governed by law.-