Book Review: The Memory Police and The Rise of The Police State in Vietnam

“The Memory Police,” by Japanese author Yoko Ogawa,  is a fictional work about an island where people’s memories of objects disappear at the order of an elusive yet powerful force called the memory police. While the majority of the people living on the island were able to forget objects as decided by the memory police, there were some people who could not forget. In such cases, the job of the memory police is to “remove” these people by bringing them to “research centers.” No one really knows what happens to them after that, but the subtext seems to imply imprisonment in concentration camps.

Any student of Vietnam’s modern history could immediately draw parallels between Ogawa’s world and the consolidation of the police state in the Communist-led state of Vietnam during and after the Vietnam War, especially with the heightened policing of historical narratives in journalism and publishing, as well as the mass detentions of those working for the former South Vietnamese regime, which resulted in concentration camps.

In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the politics of memory became a long battle in which the Vietnamese government asserted its own official narrative by applying intense censorship on writers and journalists, banning books, and threatening violence against those who failed to comply. In attempting to reshape memories, the government erased the expression of  memories related to its objectively disastrous policies such as Soviet-style central planning, land reform, and widespread and abusive reeducation camps. 

In analyzing the central themes of Ogawa’s novel, this article explores the various connections between the themes of her work and its application to the political reality in modern Vietnam.

“The Memory Police” is a strange piece of speculative fiction that offers a sobering view of authoritarianism.

In the West, stories of dystopia are usually accompanied by strong world-building, in which authors explain the dystopian aspects of the story. For example, in the iconic commentary on a military dictatorship’s reorganization of women’s life, known as “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Margaret Atwood spent pages explaining the inner workings of the Republic of Gilead – including its origin as a military coup in the United States, its system of government, and social hierarchy.

By contrast, in “The Memory Police,” the reader is immediately thrown into the daily life of the main character without much explanation of her dystopia. The main character is  a novelist living on an island where objects – both substantial and trivial – could be erased from people’s memories by a secretive but powerful government entity known as the “memory police.”

Once an object disappears, not only do people begin to completely forget its function, but people are also expected to participate in the physical erasure of these objects. Throughout the novel, there are scenes of bottles of perfume and other beauty products being thrown into a river and books and libraries being burned to erase the past and enforce strict societal rules.

Ogawa gave very little explanation of how the system works in his dystopia or why the memory police destroyed certain objects. One could deduct why they erased objects, such as the ferry, to prevent people from escaping the island. However, it seemed strange when, towards the end of the book, the memory police decided to erase body parts – starting with the left leg all the way to the entire body, leaving only people’s voices by the end. How does one rule a population when everyone is bedridden?

A lot of “The Memory Police” does not make sense, but that seems to be the point: authoritarianism does not make sense. In the guise of prioritizing the collective good, authoritarians usually care more about controlling a population rather than effectively ruling such a population. Such tight controls sometimes come at the expense of a country’s own citizens.

The military junta in Myanmar, for example, introduced legislation last year that effectively bans VPN usage to curb its citizens’ access to information abroad – an action that is probably baffling to even Vietnam, which bans certain websites (including The Vietnamese Magazine) but does not regulate VPN. Open access to information is so crucial to most activities in modern society – studying, researching, gathering information for businesses, etc. – that there is no logical cause for such control except for the government’s insistence on political conformity.

In Vietnam, this was manifested in the post-war concentration camps, where individuals deemed by the state to be “reactionaries” were forced to conform. The policy achieved the opposite of its goal of “rehabilitating” individuals who served under the Saigon regime, for many of these people became even more radicalized towards the end of their confinement. In this way, the decision seemed absurd. But perhaps that is the point – it was not designed to achieve social harmony but to reassert control. 

During many situations in the novel, the reader is left wondering: Where are the other government agencies that can check the power of the police? Surely, the police decision to essentially imprison everyone seems highly objectionable. 

In Ogawa’s novel, there is no mention of any other government entities other than the memory police, which seems to be an intentional choice. In choosing to focus on law enforcement as the sole source of government power, Ogawa’s work illustrates the reality of a police state, in which the only government entity that matters is the police itself.

In modern Vietnamese politics, the police have largely been the most powerful political force (though perhaps the military comes in a very close second).

However, the recent rise of long-time Minister of Public Security To Lam to Communist Party chief has further cemented the political power of the police. At the policy decision-making level, the modern police of Vietnam is inserting itself into policy aspects that are not traditionally under its purview—most notably through competing with the Ministry of Information and Communications on regulating data and censorship and by involving the Ministry of Health in issues related to healthcare data storage to broaden its tight control of citizens’ information.

The MPS argues that these issues are related to national security. However, national security is so broadly defined that the MPS could potentially get involved in just about anything, which might encroach upon the jurisdiction of other government agencies. 

Under the ongoing government streamlining plans, MPS has proposed taking over MobiFone – a major telecommunications company under the Commission for the Management of Capital at Enterprises – which is about to be dissolved. While other companies currently under the Commission’s management are being transferred to the Ministry of Finance, the MPS specifically requested MobiFone as it would give them a foot in the telecoms industry – currently dominated by the military – and give them more access to phone data. It also proposed taking over the database of the legal records of citizens, which is currently under the Ministry of Justice. If granted (which it most certainly will), these requests would significantly expand the already vast power base of the police.

The novel is told from the point of view of the main character – a female novelist – who is aware of the effects of the memory police but does nothing other than help the editor of her novel  (a non-conformist who is the embodiment of a political rebel) hide from the police, and try not to forget what the police wanted her to forget.

If the reader enters this novel expecting a revolutionary narrative similar to “The Hunger Games,” you will be disappointed. To be sure, the small acts of hiding a political rebel and defying the orders of the police are revolutionary themselves. However, unlike other action-packed dystopian novels, readers will not find a revolution in this novel. Towards the end of this book, the main character even succumbs to the brutality of authoritarian rule – passing away as her body parts were “erased” by the memory police.

Choosing this course of action – over a typical revolutionary narrative – seems to be a deliberate choice to highlight how an average person might react to the constraints of authoritarianism. Most people are too consumed with their lives and the lives of their loved ones to think about bringing about large-scale changes. But this does not mean that no resistance ever takes place. In many contexts, such resistance just takes the form of much smaller-scale and cautious actions. 

In Vietnam, resistance against the country’s authoritarianism historically took the form of large-scale protests or social media mobilization. However, the rise of the police and its enhanced grip on power have curbed public actions (which were already never endorsed to begin with). But this does not mean that there is no discontent—it is just now hidden behind individuals writing with a pen name, virtual classrooms discussing political theories, and government officials accessing “anti-state” news through VPNs.