“When I hit San Francisco I knew that was my city. I began to shine. I let my hair grow. I looked like a hippie.” Mu Sochua(Photo: Justin Mott for The New York Times)
April 2, 2010
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times
MAK PRAING, Cambodia
IT was at Berkeley in the 1970s that Mu Sochua, a shy teenager fleeing a war in Cambodia, learned the thrill of speaking her mind.
The daughter of a well-to-do merchant in Phnom Penh, she had been sent to the West at the age of 18 to study and to be safe from the fighting that later brought the brutal Khmer Rouge regime to power.
“When I hit San Francisco I knew that was my city,” said Ms. Mu Sochua, who is now 55. “I began to shine. I let my hair grow. I looked like a hippie.” She learned English, she said, by listening to the Beatles.
She earned a master’s degree in social work from Berkeley and transformed herself enthusiastically from a demure traditional Cambodian woman to one who knew her rights and was not shy about demanding them.
That is her problem today as the most prominent female member of Parliament, a leader of the country’s struggling political opposition and a campaigner for women’s rights in a society where women are still expected to walk and speak with a becoming deference.
“I have to be careful not to push things too far,” she said in a recent interview on the campaign trail here in southern Cambodia. “I have to be very, very careful about what I bring from the West, to promote women’s rights within the context of a society that is led by men,” she said.
“In the Cambodian context, it’s women’s lib. It’s feminism. It’s challenging the culture, challenging the men.”
She has this in mind as she campaigns through the villages of Kandal Province, a woman with power but a woman nonetheless. “I walk into a cafe and I have to think twice, how to be polite to the men,” she said. “I have to ask if I can enter. This is their turf.”
Ms. Mu Sochua is a member of a new generation of female leaders who are working their way into the political systems of countries across Asia and elsewhere, from local councils to national assemblies and cabinet positions.
A former minister of women’s affairs, she did as much as anybody to put women’s issues on the agenda of a nation emerging in the 1990s from decades of war and mass killings.
During six years as minister, Ms. Mu Sochua campaigned against child abuse, marital rape, violence against women, human trafficking and the exploitation of female workers. She helped draft the country’s Prevention of Domestic Violence law.
In part because of her work, she said, “People are aware about gender. It’s a new Cambodian word: ‘gen-de.’ People are aware that women have rights.”
But she lost her public platform in 2004 when she broke with the government and joined the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, and she is finding it as difficult now to promote her ideas as to gain attention as a candidate.
LIKE dissidents and opposition figures in many countries, she has found herself with a new burden, battling for her own rights. As she has risen in prominence, her political stands have become more of a political liability than her gender.
Most recently, she has been caught in a bizarre tit-for-tat exchange of defamation suits with the country’s domineering prime minister, Hun Sen, in which, to nobody’s surprise, she was the loser.
It started last April here in Kampot Province when Mr. Hun Sen referred to her with the phrase “cheung klang,” or “strong legs,” an insulting term for a woman in Cambodia.
She sued him for defamation; he stripped her of her parliamentary immunity and sued her back. Her suit was dismissed in the politically docile courts. On Aug. 4 she was convicted of defaming the prime minister and fined about $4,000, which she has refused to pay.
“Now I live with the uncertainty about whether I’m going to go to jail,” she said. “I’m not going to pay the fine. Paying the fine is saying to all Cambodian women, ‘What are you worth? A man can call you anything he wants and there is nothing you can do.’ ”
Ms. Mu Sochua was still in California when the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia in 1975 and began mass killings that would take 1.7 million lives over the next four years.
“We were waiting, waiting, waiting to hear from our parents,” she said. “They told us they were on the last plane to Paris. They never made it.”
She headed for the Thai border, where refugees were fleeing by the tens of thousands, and it was there that she met her future husband, an American, when both were working in the refugee camps. They have lived together in Cambodia since 1989, where he works for the United Nations, and have three grown children living in the United States and Britain.
Ms. Mu Sochua makes frequent trips into the countryside around their villa, introducing herself to constituents who may never have seen her face. The next parliamentary election is still three years away, but she is already campaigning because she is almost entirely excluded from government-controlled newspapers and television.
She paused politely the other day at the stoop of a small open-fronted noodle shop in this riverside village, where men sat in the midday heat on red plastic chairs. She let her male assistants enter first.
She had succeeded in halting a sand-dredging project that was eroding riverbanks here, and she wanted the men to know that she had been working on their behalf. “I came here to inform you that you got a result from the government,” she told the men, showing them a legal document. “I want to inform you that you have a voice. If you see something wrong, you can stand up and speak about it.”
Asked afterward what it was like to have a woman fighting his battles, Mol Sa, 37, a fisherman, said, “She speaks up for us, so I don’t think she’s any different from a man. Maybe a different lady couldn’t do it, but she can do it because she is strong and not afraid.”
FEAR was a theme as Ms. Mu Sochua moved through the countryside here.
At another village where cracks were appearing in the sandy embankment, a widow named Pal Nas, 78, said the big dredging boats had scared her.
“I’m afraid that if I speak out they will come after me,” she said. “In the Khmer Rouge time they killed all the men. When night comes I don’t have a man to protect me. It’s more difficult if you are a woman alone.”
Mr. Hun Sen’s ruling party holds power through most of rural Cambodia, and Ms. Mu Sochua said party agents kept an eye on her as she campaigned. At one point a man on a motorbike took photographs of her and her companions with a mobile telephone, then drove away.
Later, as the sun began to set, a farmer greeted her warmly, calling out to his wife and climbing a tree to pick ripe guavas for her.
“I voted for you,” he said as he handed her the fruit. “But don’t tell anyone.”
The daughter of a well-to-do merchant in Phnom Penh, she had been sent to the West at the age of 18 to study and to be safe from the fighting that later brought the brutal Khmer Rouge regime to power.
“When I hit San Francisco I knew that was my city,” said Ms. Mu Sochua, who is now 55. “I began to shine. I let my hair grow. I looked like a hippie.” She learned English, she said, by listening to the Beatles.
She earned a master’s degree in social work from Berkeley and transformed herself enthusiastically from a demure traditional Cambodian woman to one who knew her rights and was not shy about demanding them.
That is her problem today as the most prominent female member of Parliament, a leader of the country’s struggling political opposition and a campaigner for women’s rights in a society where women are still expected to walk and speak with a becoming deference.
“I have to be careful not to push things too far,” she said in a recent interview on the campaign trail here in southern Cambodia. “I have to be very, very careful about what I bring from the West, to promote women’s rights within the context of a society that is led by men,” she said.
“In the Cambodian context, it’s women’s lib. It’s feminism. It’s challenging the culture, challenging the men.”
She has this in mind as she campaigns through the villages of Kandal Province, a woman with power but a woman nonetheless. “I walk into a cafe and I have to think twice, how to be polite to the men,” she said. “I have to ask if I can enter. This is their turf.”
Ms. Mu Sochua is a member of a new generation of female leaders who are working their way into the political systems of countries across Asia and elsewhere, from local councils to national assemblies and cabinet positions.
A former minister of women’s affairs, she did as much as anybody to put women’s issues on the agenda of a nation emerging in the 1990s from decades of war and mass killings.
During six years as minister, Ms. Mu Sochua campaigned against child abuse, marital rape, violence against women, human trafficking and the exploitation of female workers. She helped draft the country’s Prevention of Domestic Violence law.
In part because of her work, she said, “People are aware about gender. It’s a new Cambodian word: ‘gen-de.’ People are aware that women have rights.”
But she lost her public platform in 2004 when she broke with the government and joined the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, and she is finding it as difficult now to promote her ideas as to gain attention as a candidate.
LIKE dissidents and opposition figures in many countries, she has found herself with a new burden, battling for her own rights. As she has risen in prominence, her political stands have become more of a political liability than her gender.
Most recently, she has been caught in a bizarre tit-for-tat exchange of defamation suits with the country’s domineering prime minister, Hun Sen, in which, to nobody’s surprise, she was the loser.
It started last April here in Kampot Province when Mr. Hun Sen referred to her with the phrase “cheung klang,” or “strong legs,” an insulting term for a woman in Cambodia.
She sued him for defamation; he stripped her of her parliamentary immunity and sued her back. Her suit was dismissed in the politically docile courts. On Aug. 4 she was convicted of defaming the prime minister and fined about $4,000, which she has refused to pay.
“Now I live with the uncertainty about whether I’m going to go to jail,” she said. “I’m not going to pay the fine. Paying the fine is saying to all Cambodian women, ‘What are you worth? A man can call you anything he wants and there is nothing you can do.’ ”
Ms. Mu Sochua was still in California when the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia in 1975 and began mass killings that would take 1.7 million lives over the next four years.
“We were waiting, waiting, waiting to hear from our parents,” she said. “They told us they were on the last plane to Paris. They never made it.”
She headed for the Thai border, where refugees were fleeing by the tens of thousands, and it was there that she met her future husband, an American, when both were working in the refugee camps. They have lived together in Cambodia since 1989, where he works for the United Nations, and have three grown children living in the United States and Britain.
Ms. Mu Sochua makes frequent trips into the countryside around their villa, introducing herself to constituents who may never have seen her face. The next parliamentary election is still three years away, but she is already campaigning because she is almost entirely excluded from government-controlled newspapers and television.
She paused politely the other day at the stoop of a small open-fronted noodle shop in this riverside village, where men sat in the midday heat on red plastic chairs. She let her male assistants enter first.
She had succeeded in halting a sand-dredging project that was eroding riverbanks here, and she wanted the men to know that she had been working on their behalf. “I came here to inform you that you got a result from the government,” she told the men, showing them a legal document. “I want to inform you that you have a voice. If you see something wrong, you can stand up and speak about it.”
Asked afterward what it was like to have a woman fighting his battles, Mol Sa, 37, a fisherman, said, “She speaks up for us, so I don’t think she’s any different from a man. Maybe a different lady couldn’t do it, but she can do it because she is strong and not afraid.”
FEAR was a theme as Ms. Mu Sochua moved through the countryside here.
At another village where cracks were appearing in the sandy embankment, a widow named Pal Nas, 78, said the big dredging boats had scared her.
“I’m afraid that if I speak out they will come after me,” she said. “In the Khmer Rouge time they killed all the men. When night comes I don’t have a man to protect me. It’s more difficult if you are a woman alone.”
Mr. Hun Sen’s ruling party holds power through most of rural Cambodia, and Ms. Mu Sochua said party agents kept an eye on her as she campaigned. At one point a man on a motorbike took photographs of her and her companions with a mobile telephone, then drove away.
Later, as the sun began to set, a farmer greeted her warmly, calling out to his wife and climbing a tree to pick ripe guavas for her.
“I voted for you,” he said as he handed her the fruit. “But don’t tell anyone.”
20 comments:
Isn't she come to California for a facial surgery though? Thailand is definitely better, try it next time, Ms So chua
Great job Mr. Mu Sochua!
Thank you for all your efforts and dedications to help our people and nation. New young literate Khmer generation will always admired your hard work and ethic. Thanks a million!
Great Job Lady. You have alot to offer to your below country.
But one thing, why just don't you join the government and work together with the government for your own good.
This way is a cooperative solution for the good of the people and the country. No one will loss.
COme on girl, just join and work with the government for our beloved country.
Cambodia is the country for all Khmer, for me and for you, who have to leave the country in 1970. Khmer people are our brother-sisters.
Mrs. Mu Sochua please help them and give back to our beloved country Cambodia.
Congratulations to Madam Mu Sochua for having completed a Master degree in "Social Work". No. wonder you are doing very well in term of advocating for the "disadvantages people"!. In social work, there is criteria in relations to "how to work with people", mainly about helping and advocating for poor people including understanding "human right approaches", understanding the feminist perspective like how it is affected by the patriotic rules and I can see where you come from. I am so glad to see you are doing a good job. I believe you have been chosen by God to do his will. So, may god help you and guide all the way, Amen. Remember this, you are my role model. I admire your works and hopefully soon I will be able to do the same, like working for the most poor and vulnerable people just like you, but maybe on a different approach like working with them not against them because they are big and we are small. Aust
WERL,Women Equal Rights in Leadership,the theme of next election.
Time is the essence,opposition shall start campaigning and spreading words, it takes a village to change Cambodia for next generations hope.
Opposition must change tune and tone from confrontational to empowering voiceless voice (women/children) to be heard in politic.
How it sounds, MP Mu Sochua for Prime Minister in 2013.
You got my vote!
I am not against her or whatever. I just wanna talk from the reality in Cambodia now.
She is not a bad MP..She fight for democracy..Yes...She helped the poor..yes...but does she has any influence on Cambodians?..No...And you can ask Khmers in PP now...Do they care about Mu Sok hua?..they will ask you back..Who the hell is that lady?
I am not saying that she is bullshit...and I am not trying to say that Bun Rany Hun XEN (KI style) is angel..but we have to know that...Mu Sok hua is really nothing in Cambodia...Pls accept this fact...
7:13pm,
Right she is nothing to the ruling party but she is someone that puts CPP in defensive mode.
Unfortunately Cambodia mass do not read or have access to daily news on TV;otherwise they would know what's going and who's who in Cambodia political whirlwind.
Bitch,
San Fransisco is your city. Go back there and stop going back to my city, Phnom Penh.
7:58 PM
San Francisco was her second home city after she had to leave our beloved country. But she always said, Cambodia was and is her birth Country.
Please stop to blame others and Cambodia is my country as yours and of course the country of all Khmer and Phnom Penh is not just your own city.
Mu Sochua is in the wrong place at the wrong time. The time is not ripe for her kind of advocacy in Cambodia. Perhaps, she should stay in San Francisco and help underprivileged people there. After all, she is a U. S. citizen. So where are her loyalties?
The extremist like 7:58pm is speaking volume of Hung Xen's belligerence and division among fellow patriots.
Cambodia would be better off to have more people like MP Mu Sochua.
Verbal assault is a crime in Cambodia laws so 7:58pm watch what you said to MP Mu Sochua.
in this world, we all need support of those who are sympathetic to your cause, whatever it is. if you do it alone, it will be sort of ineffective. you have to get support both from the people who wanted to help and those who will provide the fuel for your endeavor and so on.
yes, you have to get support from both the people you wanted to help and those who can provide the fuel for you to keep going. can't be effective if you do it alone, you know. think about it. so, it is important to get along with everybody without so much bad attitude. for example, you have to make your self likable and known in cambodia as well as over seas. if you fail to do any of these, no matter how much money you pour into the cause, you are ineffective. so if you are awaken and smart, i think it is good to change the strategy by courting both supports in cambodia and overseas. of course, it required lots of sacrifice, like going to school, but the end result will be worth it as well. same concept with dealing in cambodia. if you go to cambodia with attitude that khmer people in cambodia are uneducated, bad, corrupted, etc and thus you have no respect for cambodian people in cambodia, you will be popular there for sure, but if you go there in the name fo wanted to help to make a difference, you have to be willing to get to know the khmer people of all level there and get them to support or understand your cause, etc, then you will be more successful, really. if you fail to see that, trust be, i don't think you can go far, especially in cambodia. you have to be smart by looking both ways; be considerate. remember cambodia is a country by itself, so keep that in mind. in order to win the heart and mind of the khmer people in cambodia (by the way there are over 15 millions or perhaps more there), they are not an easy force to reckon with, you have to win their heart and win if you want them to cooperate and understand your cause, etc... no bad attitude please! otherwise, give it up already as it renders ineffective with bad attitude. now, people skill if very important to have. if it were easy, we would have to go to school to earn our college degree, you know! think about it, ok! good luck!
Cambodia is in the process of development. In addition, Cambodian need to strenghten her institution, promote human rights, and strenghten the rule of law. Thus, Cambodia need all the people that can help the country at any capacity. Each of of Khmer people have the ability to help Khmer nation moving toward the right direction and compete economically and culturally within the region...No discrimation against Khmer outside or inside the country. The bottom line...all of us should have one vision of building our nation. Don't wast time to ask, who distroy this nation, what kind of mean they distroy this nation, how big or how deep or how wide this nation have been suffer? By the time you finished asking all these questions...Khmer nation would be bleeding to dead already....According to the buddha...if you see nation is in dying need of help...just don't ask who put this country under this condition. Just help! some well educated khmer said that only if Hun Sen step off from prime ministership...than he will help. In this cas his help is not pure, not uncondition, thus, in this case leave him free from being responsibility of helping Khmer.
Today lesson...if you want to help Khmer...help her without any condition attached to it.
May Buddha bless us all and have compassion toward our Khmer brothers and sisters...
2:39,
that was so uncalled for, man. why would you care how she or anyone care for her/his personal appearance? it is how she contributes and impacts the lives around her that everyone else should care about.
Democratic Kampuchea Pol Pot Khmer Rouge Regime
Members:
Pol Pot
Nuon Chea
Ieng Sary
Ta Mok
Khieu Samphan
Son Sen
Ieng Thearith
Kaing Kek Iev
Hun Sen
Chea Sim
Heng Samrin
Hor Namhong
Keat Chhon
Ouk Bunchhoeun
Sim Ka...
Committed:
Tortures
Brutality
Executions
Massacres
Mass Murder
Genocide
Atrocities
Crimes Against Humanity
Starvations
Slavery
Force Labour
Overwork to Death
Human Abuses
Persecution
Unlawful Detention
Cambodian People's Party Hun Sen Khmer Rouge Regime
Members:
Hun Sen
Chea Sim
Heng Samrin
Hor Namhong
Keat Chhon
Ouk Bunchhoeun
Sim Ka...
Committed:
Attempted Murders
Attempted Murder on Chea Vichea
Attempted Assassinations
Attempted Assassination on Sam Rainsy
Assassinations
Assassinated Journalists
Assassinated Political Opponents
Assassinated Leaders of the Free Trade Union
Assassinated over 80 members of Sam Rainsy Party.
"But as of today, over eighty members of my party have been assassinated. Countless others have been injured, arrested, jailed, or forced to go into hiding or into exile."
Sam Rainsy LIC 31 October 2009 - Cairo, Egypt
Executions
Executed over 100 members of FUNCINPEC Party
Murders
Murdered 3 Leaders of the Free Trade Union
Murdered Chea Vichea
Murdered Ros Sovannareth
Murdered Hy Vuthy
Murdered Journalists
Murdered Khim Sambo
Murdered Khim Sambo's son
Murdered members of Sam Rainsy Party.
Murdered activists of Sam Rainsy Party
Murdered Innocent Men
Murdered Innocent Women
Murdered Innocent Children
Killed Innocent Khmer Peoples.
Extrajudicial Execution
Grenade Attack
Terrorism
Drive by Shooting
Brutalities
Police Brutality Against Monks
Police Brutality Against Evictees
Tortures
Intimidations
Death Threats
Threatening
Human Abductions
Human Abuses
Human Rights Abuses
Human Trafficking
Drugs Trafficking
Under Age Child Sex
Corruptions
Bribery
Embezzlement
Treason
Border Encroachment, allow Vietnam to encroaching into Cambodia.
Signed away our territories to Vietnam; Koh Tral, almost half of our ocean territory oil field and others.
Illegal Arrest
Illegal Mass Evictions
Illegal Land Grabbing
Illegal Firearms
Illegal Logging
Illegal Deforestation
Illegally use of remote detonation bomb on Sokha Helicopter, while Hok Lundy and other military officials were on board.
Lightning strike many airplanes, but did not fall from the sky. Lightning strike out side of airplane and discharge electricity to ground.
Source: Lightning, Discovery Channel
Illegally Sold State Properties
Illegally Removed Parliamentary Immunity of Parliament Members
Plunder National Resources
Acid Attacks
Turn Cambodia into a Lawless Country.
Oppression
Injustice
Steal Votes
Bring Foreigners from Veitnam to vote in Cambodia for Cambodian People's Party.
Use Dead people's names to vote for Cambodian People's Party.
Disqualified potential Sam Rainsy Party's voters.
Abuse the Court as a tools for CPP to send political opponents and journalists to jail.
Abuse of Power
Abuse the Laws
Abuse the National Election Committee
Abuse the National Assembly
Violate the Laws
Violate the Constitution
Violate the Paris Accords
Impunity
Persecution
Unlawful Detention
Death in custody.
Under the Cambodian People's Party Hun Sen Khmer Rouge Regime, no criminals that has been committed crimes against journalists, political opponents, leaders of the Free Trade Union, innocent men, women and children have ever been brought to justice.
all hun sen's sperms drinker in Sanfransico should go back to live with hun sen in Scandaldia motherfucker.
What I don't understand is how can you be an effective voice in Parliament if your always out of the country?
I know you can fund raise more money by going on your public appearances in the US and doing photo-ops, and I know there's no accountability for how you spend it, but what about your duty to do you job as a member of National Assembly? It appears you missed both the anti-corruption law passage and the issue of foreign land ownership-am I wrong?
Is she legit or just a poser?
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