Ritual, Power, and Pageantry French Ritual Politics in Monarchical Vietnam

Colonization should be examined not as a one-way process in which the colonizer unequivocally subdues the colonized but as a fluid phenomenon whereby the so-called subjugated peoples selectively adopt and adapt those elements that best fit their sociocultural traditions. Vietnam in the throes of France's nineteenth-century conquest is an illustrative case. This deeply ritualistic monarchical state was profoundly affected by the imposition of French Republican rituals (Fete de l'Empereur, Quatorze Juillet) that effectively desacralized the Son of Heaven, rendering him a mere mortal, a puppet no longer worthy of devotion. However, the Vietnamese state and people did not merely submit to changes imposed by the French but selectively adopted certain features of the new framework while rejecting its political message. They integrated the Western-imported rituals, which were subsequently transformed into newly invented traditions that would aid them in their struggle for independence and nationhood.