Irony and Anticolonialism: The Case of Phan Van Truong

Focusing on Phan Văn Trường (1876-1933), a Vietnamese lawyer who first came to Paris as a student and language teacher in 1908 and went on to play a leading role in the formation of anti-colonial networks between Vietnam, France, and Germany, this paper shows how he and other transnational activists used irony and ridicule to subvert imperial ideology. Based on examples found in the French police archives, the paper demonstrates how, while in Paris, Phan Văn Trường and other anti-colonialists employed the language of irony in their confrontations with the authorities, trying to defend their own dignity by making their opponents look ridiculous. Moreover, as Phan Văn Trường’s memoir Une histoire de conspirateurs annamites à Paris (1928) shows, his time spent in the French metropole allowed him to appropriate for his own purposes the French Enlightenment tradition of political satire. Thus he succeeded in demonstrating his mastery of French culture and language, while simultaneously exposing, through laughter, the fragile foundations of French claims to political and civilizational superiority.