Cao Dai diaspora

Cao Đài is a Vietnamese religion that emerged during the French colonial period of the 1920s. Caodaism is famous for its feature of syncretising significant religions’ doctrinal teachings into its plethora of ideas. The beliefs include Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Christianity, and Islam, and claimed of receiving spiritual directions from its prominent figures such as Mary, the biblical Noah, and the Buddha. The religion quickly gained followers by the millions, within a decade of propagation, attracting both the rural peasants and the French-educated urbanites.^[1]

Soon after, Caodaism began to attract attention from various political actors due to its insurgent ideas which eventually saw some of its factions participating in an armed insurgency against the French, the Japanese and the Communists until the 1950s. As a result, the religion was demilitarised, its leaders incarcerated, and followers suppressed under the different political regimes, which attributed to the fall of its influence within society. As the communist forces gained total control after Saigon’s fall in 1975, religious persecution towards the Caodaists intensified, and the religion was officially banned.^[2] As the main Tây Ninh Holy See and other sites were deeply militarised and their external religious practices prohibited, it almost seemed that the religion would disappear with no successive generation of leaders to lead it. Many of its followers went underground to survive, while others sought refuge abroad from religious persecution, thus creating diaspora communities in countries across the world. Following the period of economic reform in the 1990s, Caodaism was able to resurrect its public presence through the reopening of its temples as religious presence regained state legitimacy. However, the controversial seance practice remains prohibited until today.^[3]