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Posted by: | Posted on: March 9, 2009

CAMBODIA: MEMORY, ATROCITY AND AFFECT

POLS 703

CAMBODIA: MEMORY, ATROCITY AND AFFECT

by Alvin Lim

In 2005, just as America was reeling from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, I embarked on a line
of flight from a quotidian life in Singapore, arriving in Phnom Penh to begin a new career as a
philosophy lecturer at Pannasastra University. Several months earlier I had resigned from my
excruciating human resources job at Singapore Airlines. So, it was as a Singaporean suffering
from ennui that I encountered several sites of memory of atrocity in Cambodia, some of which I
shall discuss in this essay. The organization of this paper is not what Gilles Deleuze and Félix
Guattari (1987) would describe as aborescent, but is instead rhizomatic – its nodes crystallize
encounters I have and have not had with collective memories of atrocity (p. 21). This exploration
transverses time and space, and explores the political significance of sensory affects ranging
from the visual to the gustatory.

A Visit to Tuol Sleng

Under Pol Pot, the Tuol Svay Prey High School was transformed into S-21, the core of
Democratic Kampuchea’s internal surveillance and disciplinary apparatus. The former high
school’s classrooms were crudely transformed and deployed as prison cells and torture
chambers. During the Vietnamese occupation, S-21 was transformed into a genocide museum,
which has since become one of Phnom Penh’s most popular tourist destinations.
Any visit to a memory site of atrocity raises the question of visitor’s ambiguous identity as a
witness to the past or as a voyeur of the other’s pain. Philip Gourevitch (1998) confronted this
dilemma when he visited Rwanda’s Nyarubuye genocide memorial, where the murdered victims
were left unburied as a potent means of commemoration of their atrocious ends:

The dead at Nyarubuye were, I’m afraid, beautiful. There was no getting around it. The
skeleton is a beautiful thing. The randomness of the fallen forms, the strange tranquility
of their rude exposure, the skull here, the arm bent in some uninterpretable gesture there
– these things were beautiful, and their beauty only added to the affront of the place. I
couldn’t settle on any meaningful response: revulsion, alarm, sorrow, grief, shame,
incomprehension, sure, but nothing truly meaningful. I just looked, and I took
photographs, because I wondered whether I could really see what I was seeing while I
saw it, and I wanted also an excuse to look a bit more closely (p. 19).
Sven Lindqvist (1992), another explorer of historical pain, connects memory sites of atrocity to
the European project of colonialism. Noting that the Victorian liberal theorist Herbert Spenser
had applauded the extermination of those troublesome human populations that stood in the way
of the civilizing projects of Western colonialism (pp. 8-9), Lindqvist observes that:
The idea of extermination lies no farther from the heart of humanism than Buchenwald
lies from the Goethehaus in Weimar. That insight has been completely repressed, even by
Germans, who have been made sole scapegoats for ideas of extermination that are
actually a common European heritage (p. 9).
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Posted by: | Posted on: November 24, 2008

Cambodia’s New Intellectuals

by Geoffrey Cain

After France granted Cambodia independence in 1953, an impassioned renaissance swept Phnom Penh in the 1960s, a resurgent Angkorian nationalism alongside a potpourri of foreign influences tha included Beatlemania and existentialism. Many saw the city— once called the “Pearl of Asia”—a neutral safe haven from the havoc that rocked neighboring Vietnam and Thailand. Artists, writers and scholars frequented Phnom Penh’s beautified universities and cafés, discussing the great works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Picasso, while musicians and dancers revived traditional Khmer styles from the country’s Angkor-era height. Even then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the movement’s figurehead, was a filmmaker and singer who led a jazz band.

Fast forward a few years. Bombing campaigns, military coups and civil war rip the country apart. Intellectuals are targeted and wiped out under the Maoist Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-79 and their works​​​ destroyed. A former Khmer Rouge cadre named Hun Sen bullies his way into power in 1993 against United Nations-backed election results, and then orchestrates a coup against his co-Prime Minister Norodom Ranarridh in 1997. His ruling Cambodian People’s Party consolidates power in the media, and rampant corruption rankles the universities. Debate and discussion are left dead and a country is in ruins.

Yet today a brimming young movement of intellectuals resembling those of the 1960s is quietly—and sometimes anonymously— creating change in Cambodia. They mostly draw on the same inspirations and discuss the same topics of culture, politics and romance—the latter remains a highly taboo topic. Some even listen to the same music, writing about the classics of Simon and Garfunkel. Yet unlike their predecessors, these intellectuals do not mingle in French-style cafés and art galleries, but in the new wireless Internet cafés springing up in Phnom Penh.

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Posted by: | Posted on: August 30, 2008

Silent behaviour

Written by Sophan Seng
Thursday, 28 August 2008
Dear Editor,

Your recent news item titled “Good Karma for Sale” triggered my thoughts on the silent behavior of Cambodian people. Though the majority of the Cambodian population is Buddhist, they have only slightly learned Buddhist principles.

Over decades of social upheaval, Cambodian people seem to have fallen into a numb corner. This is a good chance for the Cambodian elite to take advantage of them. In term of economics, the Cambodian people are just enjoying the emergence of new buildings, roads and bridges. In term of politics, Cambodian people are satisfied with peace and social stability. This materialistic hard infrastructure blinds the Cambodian people to the all-important scene behind, the crucial soft infrastructure.

I don’t want to define current Cambodian politics as Abraham Kaplan said: “Politics is the redistribution of bandits.” But I prefer Gergen’s political thought: “A politician is a person who projects, motivates and rationalises the public for personal gain”.  World academic scholars have observed and concluded that many so-called authoritarian countries have adapted their strategies to receive the ideas of good governance, decentralisation and transparency, as well as to liberalise their national economics, with the intent of extending their power.

It makes sense for post-conflict Cambodian society to appreciate peace, stability, new roads paved, new schools and temples built, and modern cities urbanized. Generally, Cambodian people including Buddhist monks regard political leaders as the well-born persons who can legitimately own the power and wealth they have. Very often, they will not hesitate to beg them for donation. Very intelligent Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has never hesitated to utter his political rhetoric “culture of sharing”. Of course, this is the right time for political leaders to pursue this rhetoric.

Buddha addressed the way to go about donations in three thoughtful stages in order to plant wisdom into his audience. Firstly, concentrate on the right giver, secondly concentrate on the right receiver, and thirdly concentrate on the right material given. Significantly, the right material has not been given, in the same way as the crucial soft infrastructure has always been hidden.

For the long-term future and sustainable development, Cambodia should pursue the principle of every Cambodian citizen being offered the chance to get rid of this silent behavior, and political leaders should share the wisdom of reducing personal gain for the sake of collective national interests. Though the boat can move directly to the destination by a boat-hooker (leader), but without the competent boat-paddlers (peoples), the boat will inevitably be sunk.

Sophan Seng
Ph.D student of political science
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Original Source: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2008082821417/National-news/Silent-behaviour.html

Posted by: | Posted on: August 29, 2008

Cambodia Blogging

Last night I slept late. I was inspiring by the new discovery in wordpress blog. It is the easy compact software for all bloggers to enjoy. I was not hesitate to take this chance to be creative though I am really drowsy and busy with study.

During blogging, my mind wandered far and near especially thought about Cambodian peoples at Cambodia: How many of them who can access to internet? How many of them who can blog? How many of them who can use PC or MAC? And how many of them who know about the latest technology development of computer? More than 80% of Cambodian peoples are farmer. They are living in destitute, suburb, rural and remote areas. Significantly, major of them cannot access to electricity, clean water, and health care center.

In developed countries as well as some developing countries, internet has become their daily gadget and it is the magic buttons that their wishes can be unbelievably fulfilled. They buy, sell, communicate, entertain, and study just by clicking the buttons on the computer. And internet is the world wide web connectors for them to personalize as well as to globalize themselves. They can reach far away from their tiny room through video, audio, map, pictures, and online chat. Many peoples have delved themselves to trust and worship computer as well as internet as their new religion. Many internet surfers can accumulate wealth and strong social network. Many of them can seek their partner and become cute couple eventually, incredibly.

Look back to Cambodia, the trend is on the track. But it is really a creeping trend. However, many Cambodian young children are very innovative and creative. Though they don’t have sufficient tools to get into computer and internet, but there are mushrooming users. Many blogs are built and online communicate is so popular among them.

The future will be shed in light by our young generation who will not only the players of internet, but we further hope for their new inventing of modern technology. Cambodian young generation will absolutely not different from their ancestors who were very creative and urbanized such as several huge temples were astonishingly constructed entirely Cambodian Empire, those are rapidly attracting millions of people worldwide.

The pride and hope of future Cambodia doesn’t fall upon the past, the glory of Angkor Wat, but the competent younger generation, well-trained children. They are the responsible future architect and catalysts!

Sincerely,

Sophan P. Seng