President Ho Chi Minh is a Vietnamese national liberation hero and an outstanding promoter of Vietnamese and world culture. The President embraces, combines, and taps to the fullest cultural quintessence of the nation and the time, the East and the West, the ancient and the contemporary, the bravery and humanity, and the great and the modest. President Ho Chi Minh is an endless source of inspiration for struggles for national liberation, social liberation, class liberation, and human liberation and also an endless source of inspiration for writers, poets, journalists, and artists.
Associate Professor, Doctor Nguyen The Ky wrote that President Ho Chi Minh’s thought on national solidarity, compassion, tolerance, and humanity moves the hearts of peoples of different nationalities, classes, and religions around the world. The name “Ho Chi Minh” is familiar to people in every country. Late Cuban President Fidel Castro said that the eternal glory belongs to President Ho Chi Minh and that he is the greatest example of a great revolutionary who is loved and respected not only by Vietnamese people but the people of many other countries. Former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika called President Ho Chi Minh a source of hope and a torch providing light for other nations in their struggles for a world of peace, equality, freedom, progress, and prosperity.” Late Indian President Ramaswamy Venkataraman said: “Ho Chi Minh was not just an outstanding fighter for national liberation. With his spirit and talent, he led his people liberating them from imperialist oppression to create an immortal image in the minds and hearts of Vietnamese patriots. He also embraces great internationalism spirit devoting to the faith of life of other brotherly nations and to the noble goal of people around the five continents. He is the motivation and aspiration for peace-loving people around the world.” Late Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk wrote: “President Ho Chi Minh entered history of nations in Indochina, Asia, Africa, and Latin America as a symbol for patriotic struggle for national liberation.”
Doctor Modagat Ahmed, former UNESCO Director for the Asia-Pacific Region said: “Only a few characters become a legend when they are alive and President Ho Chi Minh is one of them.”
After the globe-shaking Dien Bien Phu victory in 1954, British songwriter Ewan Maccoll wrote the song “The ballad of Ho Chi Minh” which was translated into many languages and became popular in many countries. President Ho’s poem “Prison Diary” was translated into 35 languages and reprinted several times in many countries. President Ho Chi Minh has been the topic of many world famous writers and poets. Cuban poet Felix Pita Rodriguez wrote: “In President Ho Chi Minh’s works, farmers in Vietnam, Algeria, Tunisia, and Congo and oppressed people in the Antilles islands or in the southern region of the US are all protected by an enthusiast.” Rodriguez has written many poems about President Ho Chi Minh including “Ho Chi Minh, your name is poetical inspiration” and “Hanoi capital is longing for Uncle Ho”.
In Vietnam, since 1945, there have been tens of thousands of literary, musical and art works relating to President Ho Chi Minh - Uncle Ho. Following President Ho Chi Minh’s teachings, Vietnamese journalists, writers and artists have been the vanguards in upholding the right and combating the wrong.
Concluding his article, Mr. Ky wrote that in all stories told at home or overseas, President Ho Chi Minh is always an endless source of inspiration, faith, fire, and strength for nations and each person to overcome difficulties and oppression to liberate their countries and themselves to move toward a life of freedom, democracy, equality, wealth and happiness.