There was something exhilarating about being in Hanoi in the days before Vietnam celebrated the 80^th anniversary of its independence. It is hard to overstate the magnitude of the victory this poor, largely peasant country achieved over first French, then American imperialism. The latter triumph coming thirty years after the Americans had been decisive in defeating the Germans in western Europe and beaten Japan in the Pacific. A peasant army managed to do what two advanced capitalist countries couldn’t.

Vietnam seems to have produced enough patriotic bunting to reach to the nearest galaxy. Virtually every shop, café and public building has it strung up. There are images of Ho Chi Minh everywhere. My knowledge of the language isn’t great, but there didn’t seem to be any mention of him killing virtually all the country’s Trotskyists and you could be forgiven for thinking that the liberation was achieved by him singlehandedly.

There is a massive contrast between the British manifestation of patriotism and how they do it in Vietnam. As we have been seeing over the last few weeks, British patriots organise intimidating protests directed against refugees and asylum seekers. They obsess with a war that ended in 1945 and enjoy a bit of hardcore Islamophobia. The summer fashion has been to drape flags from lampposts to mark territory. It is intentionally hostile, angry and designed to exclude.

Vietnamese patriotism is manifested very differently. Last Sunday night I went along to a rehearsal for a military parade. People had been camping out since morning to get a good view of the troops, and when they did eventually pass by there was unforced, exuberant cheering for every unit. This was not a population that had been rounded up by the commissars. They were undeniably proud of the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the women and men who had defeated the French and Americans and were now the country’s army. For all my own reservations about Stalinism and the country’s anti-democratic capitalist economy, it felt like the next best thing to watching a victory parade after the Americans were driven out of the country.

Even its biggest fans must admit that there is an undercurrent of racism in a lot of British patriotism. At the military parade I looked pretty similar to the Europeans and Americans who had killed about 1.5 million Vietnamese civilians and combatants, to say nothing of the slaughter the Americans committed in Laos and Cambodia. There was absolutely no animosity. Nor was there any drunken chauvinism or threat of violence. Contrast that to a gathering of patriots outside your nearest hotel with asylum seekers.

Monday of this week seems to have been set aside for women to celebrate. The city was full of all female groups elegantly dressed, posing for photos at morally uplifting sites and having fun.

The generations that defeated the Americans and French are dying off now, but what struck me was that there was none of the innumerable memorials to individuals that clutter the streets of Republican areas in the north of Ireland. There you are never more than fifty metres away from a reminder of a dead person. The Vietnamese approach is much healthier. It is as if they are saying “we know the sacrifices our families made and we don’t need to be reminded of them every time we leave the house. The future is what matters”.

For internationalists national patriotism is impermissible. However, if ever a country’s citizens earned the right to a bit of feelgood flag waving it is the people of Vietnam.