Politics, Human Misery and Our Own Monsieur Var Kim Hong

Monday, March 29, 2010
Op-Ed by MP

Thank you KI Media for kindly publishing my comments. Thanks also to Mrs Tioulong for the touching update on SRP representatives’ recent visit to the jailed villagers in Svay Rieng.

Although not aligned to any political party, it is always encouraging to see ordinary people who are victims of injustice being looked after by representatives of a given political movement, whereas the same victims and their plight could easily be forgotten and abandoned to the mercy of their oppressors. This act also reveals something of the ethical commitment of the actors themselves and of their refusal to compromise on what it means to be human and humane towards one another in the face of prevailing tendency towards nihilism and expedient manipulation in political pursuits, where human lives and limbs, particularly, those of the "little people" count for very little.

The power that be is perfectly aware of the suffering of the Khmer people and of the world's desire to see an end to that suffering. However, instead of conforming their political agenda to this end, they have remorselessly used it in their favour as a principal bargaining tool, seeing it as their political opponents’ Achilles’ heel in political settlements and negotiations since day one. Had their opponents matched them in their Machiavellian instinct and casual brutality or their scant regard for human lives, the playing field would be a little bit more level than it is now. But, it is somewhat to those opponents’ credit that they have not allowed the madness to dictate their own method.

Indoctrinated by an ideology that emphasises the need to subordinate the parts to the greater whole, this regime of ‘neo-communists’ is oblivious to its own people’s cry for change, for the desired change runs counter to the fundamental tenets of an ideology that enshrines their core values in life, propels their actions and more crucially, bandages their damaged, tortured psyche.

Were they to do more than merely shedding their former outward appearances, as they have been doing in keeping with their chameleon nature, they would be placing themselves at risk of losing far more than their worldly assets, which naturally continue to flow into their private bank accounts and pockets – it would instead spell a sea change in their worldview that all their personal labours and endeavours have indeed been mostly what they were, a vast charade and an illusion all along. It would be a realisation that would see them transported back in time where and whence they first became involved in public life through being inducted off into the ranks of the then Communist Party of Indochina from their otherwise humble, inconsequential existence as children of the pagoda, as wayward sons of grinding farmers, herders of cows, . . . or even as belittled messengers and water carriers of the revolution itself. Such would be, in their subconscious mind, an admission of grand failure as well as an acceptance of grave personal involvement they have had in the making and prolonging of public misery.

No grand gestures in recompense or contrition such as new paved roads, bridges or schools will ever be quite enough to heal the many national wounds which they have helped to inflict in order to enforce and retain their accustomed status quo. Rather, true acts of contrition lie in building roads and bridges that lead into the people’s hearts and minds at such a time as now where the Khmer people are exhausted from decades of being trampled over by all sides; where they are being emasculated economically and politically disenfranchised by a system that has hitherto remained deaf and mute to their abject condition.

How are we to reason with people who think nothing of tossing grenades onto unarmed peaceful demonstrators, who assassinate activists for not endorsing their goals and agenda, who put poor innocent farmers in prison and hang them to dry there as a warming to others? Are these actions just random side effects of tyranny, a coded reassurance to Hanoi that all is quiet on Vietnam’s western front and, therefore, an ominous precipitation or green light to further doses of enforced surgery on an already paralysed, prostrate nation?

If Vietnam has no desire to have Cambodia under her iron wings, beyond any legitimate national security concern as an immediate neighbour, then why all the secrecy, behind- closed- door manner enshrouding the border delineation process?

Why not invite independent international teams of mapping experts to adjudicate impartially on both parties’ behalf, particularly, in light of Cambodia’s own dearth of such expertise; excepting that is our own precious, Mr. Var Kim Hong who constructively advises people to farm in the sky?

Was it not Pol Pot who once denounced Vietnam for “interfering in Cambodia’s internal affairs” when Vietnamese troops toppled his regime?

MP