An article by Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth published by the Asian Human Rights Commission
Something is changing within the Khmer nation.
Those storied Khmer characteristics – the broad smile; the gentle, peaceful compassionate nature – and the centuries-old traditions of “korup, bamreur, karpier, smoh trang” — “respect, serve, defend, be loyal (to leaders)” — passed down through generations seem to be taking a new course.
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| Protesters spell the word “Aphivath” or “Development” with their shoes (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post) |
A photo floating on the Internet shows Khmer villagers–from youth to middle age–standing barefoot under the hot sun as their colorful sandals are arranged in an empty lot nearby to make up the Khmer word “Aphivath,” or “Development.” Their symbolic protest is directed at Khmer leaders and at those around the world who are sympathetic to the disenfranchisement of the poor in contemporary Cambodia.
Photos and videos of government abuse of citizens’ rights and of citizens’ responses have inundated the Internet. Some postings inform and educate. I recommend recent postings on the Website of Radio Free Asia (February 1, “More Arrests Follow Land Clash“).
The beatings of women and children by riot police are routine — and are routinely condemned by international and national rights groups. The too common sight of Khmer women with clothes torn or ripped off by police during peaceful protests is now replaced by the sight of women protesters taking off their clothes to highlight their protests as they face the police.
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| Cops ripping off shirt from a Boeung Kak Lake protester |
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Going one step further, RFA posted on its website a photograph of a half-naked Khmer woman protester facing police in full riot gear. Her action was intended to highlight the plight of Cambodian villagers from the Borei Keila community, who were evicted by armed police from their homes, which were dismantled and the co-opted land given to Phan Imex Company for commercial development.
Khmer women taking off their clothes in public to protest against authority is a new phenomenon. But, it shows something else too: Submission to injustice has a limit, and “fear,” a conditioned behavior, is being overcome.
This new behavior takes me back to an e-mail from Phnom Penh from forty-something Sambath, a graduate in political science from a University abroad, who told me unreservedly several months ago that today’s young Cambodians have become “fearless” to confront what they perceive as unjust. Sambath also said something I had not heard before: Cambodians in their mid-fifties and older are too conservative and too prudent to be helpful in the fight against dictatorship.
Sambath’s view was repeated by Teveakor, also in his forties, who holds a master’s degree from a Cambodian university. He sees Cambodians in their mid-fifties and older as a “conservative force” while young democrats need a “push force.” Teveakor claimed that he and colleagues, young democracy advocates, are struggling in the midst of their families’ poor economic situation to work on strategic planning, building and strengthening a leadership circle among younger Cambodians, and spreading political awareness amongst Cambodians they know.
Meanwhile Makara, also in his forties, told me bluntly from Phnom Penh that “writing, speaking, denouncing, suing” don’t bring down the current dictatorship. He presented a rather imaginative Machiavellian “cool technique” he thinks would shake the core of the autocratic rule — “smart thinking” if I may say so, though I will not repeat his ideas here. As Burmese icon Aung San Suu Kyi said, “Action comes out of thought.”
Their emails remind me of a former comrade-in-arms during my service with the Khmer Non-Communist Resistance, a high ranking royalist, who wrote about the “silent majority” that is hard at work.
A reader in Phnom Penh whom I never met, answered my question on the situation in Cambodia as he sees it by sending me the link to the June 2007 Global Witness Report titled, “Cambodia’s Family Trees, Illegal logging and the stripping of public assets by Cambodia’s elite,” and the link to a Human Rights Watch publication on forced evictions, with his own comment: “This says it all.”
A collision course theory
An older Khmer, Lokta Mekso, is concerned that Cambodia is headed toward a “bloody revolution” if there’s no change to the status quo. He theorizes that as Cambodians, “distressed” by the economic situation and the incessant violations of rights and freedom, release their frustrations against the regime in power, the latter will respond with increased repression. The stress-repression process is likely to spiral into an “explosion” a la Arab Spring — with inevitable bloodshed, he believes.
“There would be no change through a peaceful way,” Mekso thinks. He is frustrated that the regime has declined to alter the policies and actions that increasingly stress the population and propel them toward confrontation with authorities.
I have tried to capture the stress-repression spiral Lokta described. I selected photos available in the public domain, made slideshows, and
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