The Napalm Girl

Do you remember the girl in the picture below? The girl who is running naked and crying out in utter helplessness? 

She is Kim Phuc. Many of you will recall this picture easily because it is a classic photo that played a role in putting an end to the prolonged Vietnam War (1955-1975). That war remains in human history as one of the most controversial and traumatic conflicts. A futile war in the name of an ideology: communism. Communists and Anti-Communists killed each other with the noble purpose of saving humanity from evils.

Like most wars, this one was too a clash of egos. The ego of the capitalist USA versus the ego of the Communist USSR. Capitalism won in the end, they say. But at the cost of millions of lives. Innocent lives. Like what has been happening in Ukraine for nearly three years. In Gaza for over a year. Have you seen little children dying painfully in those countries for no mistake of theirs?  

Kim Phuc was one such child in Vietnam. She was nine years old when America dropped the napalm bomb on her land. To save her from Communism. Napalm burns like petrol, sticking to substances with an intensity that is as incomprehensible as an alien monster’s fury. It clings like molten fire, adhering to skin, clothes, and surfaces. It consumes everything it touches in searing, agonising heat. Nine-year-old little Kim Phuc’s clothes burnt away. Her skin burnt. Her soul… Where did that belong: to Communism or Capitalism?

Nick Ut, a photographer working for the American Associated Press, captured the picture of the burning little girl. He didn’t stop with that, of course. Nick Ut was not American at heart. He rushed little Kim Phuc as well as the other children in the picture by his car to a hospital and saved them from death. Doctors didn't believe that Kim Phuc would survive. But she did.

Nick Ut’s photograph won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. American President, Richard Nixon, on seeing that photograph which would have moved anyone to tears, raised his eyebrows and asked, “Is it real?” He shrugged his shoulder when he was told the answer.

That’s the Capitalist response to human tragedy. 

Nick Ut

Where is Kim Phuc today? Where is Nick Ut?

61-year-old Kim Phuc lives in Canada now with her husband. 73-year-old Nick Ut lives in Los Angeles. They talk to each other by phone frequently and maintain an enduring friendship. 

I remembered Kim Phuc now when I read an article in a Malayalam weekly which mentioned that the Vietnamese government refused to allow her to visit her native country because she was perceived as a traitor. She had fled Vietnam during a stopover in Canada while on a government-organized goodwill tour to Cuba. After defecting, she settled in Canada with her husband and later became a Canadian citizen. During the years following her defection, the Vietnamese government viewed her departure as politically sensitive and blocked her from returning.

Was she a traitor? Did she have a choice? What was she supposed to choose at a young age when both Communism and Anti-Communism had conspired to burn her alive? 

Kim Phuc

By sheer coincidence, I recently used the above photo of Kim Phuc for an online class of mine. The topic was smart learning. 'Strategies for remembering things' was part of the lesson.

I asked my students to read the following slide.

Then I asked them to tell me what they could remember from what they read. They remembered a few things. Then I showed them Kim Phuc’s photo and told them her story. And then I showed the text-slide again to repeat the exercise. Now my students could recall the points better. A picture is worth a thousand words, I said. Associate ideas with some picture. That’s one of the many strategies for boosting your memory.

Kim Phuc has remained in my memory, as in the memory of millions of others, for decades. The Napalm Girl.

She is a question mark on human civilisation.

I present her today to my compatriots who are fighting on behalf of their gods now. Gods are like napalm: an entity that leaves nothing unscarred. 

PS. This post has been edited after receiving the comment from erudite Yamini MacLean. Thanks Yam for the correction.