Leaders followed, even into abyss

March 2, 2011
By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS

My article last week on the Khmer-Thai border gunfight over the Preah Vihear temple ruins was posted on the Khmer blog KI Media. Expectedly, it brought out a wave of Greek philosopher Plato’s mythical Gyges ring wearers, with noisy anonymous comments that lashed out against the Thai “invaders.”

Unsurprisingly, some placed me on the side of the Khmers’ historical enemy, the Thai “thieves,” because I mentioned the 4.6 square kilometers around the temple as the disputed area. The Khmer wife of an American friend branded me in an e-mail as a “crocodile losing his way in the lake” — I am ungrateful to the land of my birth to side with the enemy.

There’s no disputed area, my critics say, only Khmer land wanted by the Thais — the party line. Premier Hun Sen should be happy; he wants the conflict on the western border to distract the people from the more significant encroachment by the Vietnamese on the eastern flank.

Predisposition

As humans, we are generally predisposed to see things or other people in a certain way, positively or negatively, as our perceptions are affected by information, values, beliefs and experiences, direct and indirect. It’s a mental prejudgment. With it, we stereotype, generalize and oversimplify. A negative predisposition stigmatizes and discriminates.

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