When “fighting” is a positive word

These days, as countries around the world struggle to contain Covid-19, I just noticed that the word “fighting” appears much more regularly in the press. It seems to me that by now, people and nations across all continents accept the fact that we need to “fight” Covid-19, and not just “handle” it. Fighting, in this case, is the deliberate choice, and it has a positive meaning.

It just dawns on me that for us Vietnamese, “fighting” - in many cases in our history and our lifetime - has been the deliberate choice, and does have a positive meaning. We fought invaders; we fight against hunger and poverty. President Ho Chi Minh even called “illiteracy” an "enemy" and asked Vietnamese people to “fight/eradicate the enemy of illiteracy”. And Vietnam News recently had an op-ed about how our country deployed wartime strategy to fight Covid-19. 

I think somehow the Vietnamese people have been able to be ready to “fight” when necessary, but not to become violent or aggressive; be ready to accept the sacrifices resulted from these needed fights, but not become fatalistic. Once a war/the fighting is over, then it is over, we just get back to business as usual. 45 years after the “Vietnam/US war”, this year we are celebrating 25 years of relationship between the 2 countries, and I proudly call an US university my alma mater. 

Being trained as a linguist, from my interactions with people in other cultures, for whom wars and the need to fight for life were not such a prominent feature of their national history, I suspect that the word  “war/fighting" has different connotations to them. Children in these cultures might be taught to think “fighting” is the last resort to a problem; “fighters” like in “firefighters” are specialized forces in the society and not the business of other people. Even the younger generations of Vietnam, for whom “war” is a rather abstract word, might think about “fighting” in a different way than my generation (who grew up during the “Vietnam/US War, 1955-1975) do. 

I’m curious to know what your emotions are towards this particular word “fighting”? Do you generally think it is “mostly positive”, or a “mostly negative’ word? What are some of the more interesting connotations to the word “fighting” in your native language? Please share with me, the linguist in me is yearning to learn about them!