Brisbane restaurant’s Ho Chi Minh debacle
by Leon Gettler
The insensitive naming of a Brisbane restaurant after Communist dictator Ho Chi Minh has forced Swedish-born restaurateur Anna Demirbek to change the name of the eatery.
Following protests and death threats, the restaurant Uncle Ho closed its doors.
"Over the past 24 hours management have received death threats and threats of burning down the building our business is housed in," director Ms Demirbek wrote on Uncle Ho's Instagram page.
On Monday, she changed the name of the restaurant to Uncle Bia Hoi, in honour of the Vietnamese street food the place sells.
“We are, and have always been, fully conscious that the brand Uncle Ho would be sensitive," the restaurant said in a statement. "We are not communist sympathisers. We have no position on the political or historical landscape of Vietnam."
Obviously Demirbek did not take into account the sensitivities of Australians who had migrated here as refugees fleeing the communists.
Protesters pointed out that hundreds of Australian and New Zealand soldiers died fighting the Ho Chi Minh and thousands of Vietnamese had fled the country to get away from the dictatorship.
As one Instagram user @mrsnataliajinks said: “It is not for you to decide what is and is not offensive to people who have been victims of violence and war (war is never an appropriate theme) and the patrons who haven't taken offence/were not personally affected by said war don't magically make those who have invalid or irrelevant. I'm sure the comparison has already been drawn, but I don't see any Uncle Adolf german restaurants around? Not acceptable,"
It has not been a good start for Ms Demirbek who opened the restaurant in March.
After poaching the general manager from Melbourne, Demirbek had to let him go. This had resulted in protracted negotiations over unpaid wages which were only paid last week.
12th April 2016
