The old Sacravatoons

Click on the article in Khmer to zoom in

Cartoon and article by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

By U. Bun Heang
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

The old Sacravatoons were published in the “Nokor Thom” newspaper in the 70s. The editor of this newspaper was Mr. Soth Polin who was also the political editor.

“Peov,” rather than “Bun Heang,” was the pseudonym I used between 1970 and 1974 … In 1970, I became the political cartoonist for the Nokor Thom. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Hang Thun Hak, the minister of community and rural development, asked my father to tell me to stop producing cartoons for Nokor Thom. Mr. Hang Thun Hak and my father were very close friends, even though one is a politician and the other a businessman. My father asked me to stop drawing the cartoons and I agreed to his request.

On that day, I told Mr. Soth Polin about my decision to resign from Nokor Thom. He was very saddened and he told me: “What do you want me to do?” … I felt very sorry for him. Two or three days later, I returned back to see Mr. Soth Polin again, and I said to him: “Elder brother, I have decided to continue producing cartoons for you again, but I ask to change my pseudonym to “Peov” instead!”

Mr. Soth Polin was very pleased, he said: “Heang, you can change anything you want!”

My decision to return back to the drawing desk stemmed from my recollection of Mr. Hang Thun Hak’s struggle to spread his political point of views through many novels and plays he wrote … but when he became part of the Khmer Republic government, he did not like anybody criticizing his group. I believe that this behavior is not representative of a true democrat… My father knew about this issue also, but he chose to ignore it! Usually, my father would remind all of us, his children, at the long dinner table we had: “If you want to be involved in Khmer politics, you must be willing to give and take, you must be willing to jump the fence and go to jail. Either:

1. You will be sent to jail
2. You will be killed, or
3. You will have to flee the country.”

My father added that he was lucky, being a below average student, he only spent two years studying in the pagoda school, and he was not able to become a government official or court mandarin like others. Instead, he became a businessman, nevertheless, he wanted to see all of us, his children, study and acquire advance knowledge without becoming a civil servant. In fact, it was Mr. Hang Thun Hak who advised my father to send me to study at the University of Fine Arts in 1965. For that, I am thankful to both of them for sealing my fate and allowing me to learn about Khmer culture for a decade-long period, between 1965 and 1975. In 1975, we had to cut short our studies under the Khmer Rouge regime.

To learn more about life under the Khmer Rouge regime, I invite all the readers to check my website dedicated to this era at www.KhmerRouge-Toons.blogspot.com.

My cartoons were published in the front page of the Nokor Thom newspaper between 1970 and 1974, until the closing of the newspaper … when Mr. Soth Polin had to flee the country in pain and when his newspaper was closed (by the government) on 15 July 1974. Nokor Thom was a good newspaper and it had several well-known editors. The normal price of a copy of the newspaper was 100 riels, but when the newspaper was confiscated by the Cambodian authority during that time, its price rose to 10,000 riels per copy, this took place during a time when the price of a bowl of noodle soup was 500 riels.

I assembled all these valuable cartoons in two large volumes containing about 200 cartoons. It should be noted also that in the 70s, only the Nokor Thom newspaper published and sold more than 10,000 copies daily and 30,000 copies on Sundays. It was one of the most popular Khmer newspapers at the time.

U. Bun Heang

Post-scriptum note: Fortunately, the two volumes containing the 200 cartoons were spirited out of Cambodia before the fall of the country in 1975 by Mr. Mam Sophana, the elder brother of Mr. Mam Sonando from the current Beehive radio station. Currently, these two volumes are in the hands of Mr. Mam Sophana who now lives in Phnom Penh. I begged him to return them back to me because I wanted to edit and publish them as historical documents from the 1970-1974 era. Unfortunately, Mr. Mam Sophana ignored my request (?) … he is already quite old now … he should understand the situation! To avoid discussing this issue with me, he copied and sent me about 10 pages from the volumes, and he told me that he already sent the entire volumes to me already. I saw these two volumes with my own eyes when I stayed at Mr. Mam Sophana’s residence in Singapore. I begged him to return them back to me, but he replied: “I will send them back to you in Sydney.” … To this day, I am still waiting for them!