King Sihamoni of Cambodia (R) (Photo: AP)What monarchs offer modern democracy
May 23, 2010
By Joshua Kurlantzick
Boston Globe (Massachusetts, USA)
The tumultuous past two months in world politics have brought a surprise with them: Suddenly, monarchy seems relevant again.
In Belgium, where the fragile government constantly is on the verge of collapse, King Albert II has been essential in trying to prevent its dissolution, mediating between leading politicians and pushing them back to the bargaining table. After Britain’s recent election, as politicians from the Labor, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat parties struggled to negotiate a ruling coalition, Queen Elizabeth’s presence reminded Britons that the country retained institutions that would prevent it from really melting down.
And most notably, in Thailand, the chaos that has ruled the streets of Bangkok stems partly from fear over the country’s future after the eventual death of increasingly frail 82-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has helped resolve past political crises by forcing the leaders of the army and the demonstrators to meet and reconcile. Without him, notes James Ockey of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, “Thailand may not be able to resolve future crises without major conflict.”
The idea of a monarch may seem like an anachronism in a 21st-century democracy, a relic of an earlier era in which a small elite intermarried and ruled much of the world, while most average people had no say. And to be sure, in states where kings and sultans still actually rule, like Brunei, Jordan, and Morocco, monarchs can be every bit as oppressive and opaque as any other dictatorship. Morocco’s King Mohamed VI, for example, presides over “repressive legislation to punish and imprison peaceful opponents,” according to Human Rights Watch. In Brunei, Jefri, the brother of the ruling sultan, allegedly embezzled billions in state funds, which he spent on some 2,000 cars and a lasciviously named royal yacht, among other items.
But in Europe and parts of Asia, many politicians, political scientists, and citizens have lately developed greater respect for the positive role a constitutional monarch can play in democracy. As in Belgium, monarchs can be arbiters of last resort when elected politicians cannot resolve deep divisions. They can offer their nations a unifying figure to prevent political crises from spiraling into something worse. And in an era of partisanship and diminished individual rights, monarchs can serve as a means of stability in a democracy that might otherwise tear itself apart. A.W. Purdue, author of the book “Long to Reign?”, argues that a king or queen “enables change to take place within a frame of continuity.”
Some political scientists have even argued for reviving defunct monarchies in the interest of democracy, especially in developing nations where monarchs could serve as figures of national unity to prevent ethnic and tribal bloodletting. Cambodia did so in the early 1990s following its civil wars, and the king helped inspire average Cambodians and heal wounds after the Khmer Rouge era. After the toppling of the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan welcomed back former king Zahir Shah to launch the Loya Jirga and serve as a figure of unity as political parties bargained to build Afghan democracy. In Iraq, Sharif Ali bin Hussein, a descendant of the last monarch, has begun publicly arguing that a constitutional monarchy could help reduce the vicious ethnic and sectarian divides roiling the country. In Laos, where people can see the Thai monarchy on Thai television broadcasts, the exiled royal family has become a rallying point for some opponents of the authoritarian government. Southeast Asia academic Michael Vatikiotis argues, in an essay pushing for a return of the crown in neighboring Burma, that monarchy provided a unifying factor in that diverse society — a unifier ripped away during British colonial rule and never effectively replaced.
“The forlorn hope of progressive political change in Burma using all modern means,” he writes, “suggests that reaching back in time and resurrecting the long-dismantled monarchy could provide a prescription.”
Although the House of Windsor dominates global media coverage of monarchy, in reality 12 European countries still have monarchs, as do Cambodia, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Bhutan, and other nations. Despite occasional republican movements that attempt to end the monarchy, polls show strong support for the crown in nearly every nation that has one. In the Netherlands, 70 percent of respondents in one poll wanted to retain the monarchy; in Spain, 65 percent of respondents supported it; in Japan, the number was 82 percent. In many of these countries, poll respondents have more respect for the monarchy than any other public institution.
Many modernizing countries have found that a monarch provides a source of authority and national identity that stands apart from political squabbles. He or she can serve simply as a figurehead, or more substantively as a kind of independent power center that can check the worst impulses of elected politicians, in the way that a Supreme Court or House of Lords might.
Although a ceremonial president can fill this role, as in Israel or Germany, the monarch has a unique claim on the public imagination. Neil Blain, an expert on modern monarchies at the University of Stirling in Britain, says the monarch’s symbols, like the scepter and crown, can’t be replicated by a ceremonial president. The queen, he says, “attests, however mythically, to the country’s political stability and enduring historical foundations.”
“The English do not wish to see the queen on a bicycle,” he says, “because from where people stand here she looks just right in a Rolls-Royce Phantom or better still, a horse-drawn carriage.”
In developing nations, modern monarchs can do more than provide links to the past — they can help usher in democracy. In Bhutan, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck pushed his once-isolated country toward its first truly democratic elections. In Spain, King Juan Carlos midwifed a new Spanish democracy after dictator Francisco Franco’s death. In Cambodia, King Norodom Sihanouk returned to the country after the wars of the 1970s and 1980s and helped oversee a transition to democracy in the 1990s that brought the country a vibrant, if sometimes rough and bloody, democracy.
Some of these monarchs also helped bring economic and cultural modernization. The royals of Bhutan have prodded their citizens to embrace the Internet, satellite television, international trade, and other modern changes. Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, though not a constitutional monarch, has been credited with pushing for social and economic reforms that have diluted the power of the conservative religious establishment and pushed the kingdom to invest in science and technology education.
European monarchy experts also now see a growing role for kings and queens at a time when countries are becoming more diverse. As democracies take in more and more immigrants, and countries give up some of their national identities to superstructures like the European Union, these changes can make national unity more difficult, and a monarch can serve to welcome newcomers and help them feel like citizens.
Sweden’s king, Carl XVI Gustaf, for example, has used the monarchy to integrate immigrants. In one famous speech, he said that “new Swedish citizens...have come here from countries all over the world...under these circumstances it is precisely the strength of the monarchy that the king can be an impartial and uniting symbol.” The Netherlands’ queen, Beatrix, has used royal speeches to call for tolerance at a time when right-wing anti-Islamic politicians have made headway among the Dutch public.
Scholars of monarchy also suggest that, in an era of tightening internal security and control, when elected politicians are amassing previously unheard-of powers and courts are loath to challenge them, a monarch can safeguard public freedom. Eamonn Butler, director of the Adam Smith Institute, a think tank in London, recently argued in the Financial Times that Queen Elizabeth has stood aside too often while the prime minister has become too powerful, but that she remains a figure, under the British constitution, who could check the executive’s power. “The only solution is to make our current constitution work,” Butler wrote. “It certainly means having a monarch who is prepared to intervene on behalf of the people.” In fact, Britain’s unelected House of Lords — often criticized as a relic of a vanished feudal aristocracy — has played a similar function, trying to limit the British government’s surveillance efforts and other new powers.
Similarly, in Cambodia former King Sihanouk (who has since stepped aside because of health reasons and now holds the title of King Father), frequently clashed with Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is elected but has amassed near-dictatorial powers in his office. Sihanouk frequently criticized Hun Sen’s strongman tactics, and invoked the royal institution as the protector of average people abused by the prime minister.
Monarchs, however, must walk a very fine line. Because today’s constitutional monarchs’ power is so nebulous, to use it effectively they must be extremely careful in wielding it.
In Thailand, King Bhumibol Adulyadej frequently has used public speeches to criticize what he sees as politicians who are too venal or power-hungry — which sometimes has veered into a political alignment with Bangkok-oriented elite parties and against parties aligned with rural people, who came to Bangkok and eventually led the demonstrations that resulted in violence. “The palace is thus very much in politics, although the general myth is that the king is above politics,” says Irene Stengs, an expert on the Thai monarchy at the Meertens Institute in the Netherlands.
In fact, the king sanctioned the 2006 coup, after it happened, that deposed populist former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. With these actions, Bhumibol — who is protected from public criticism by strict lese majeste laws — has chipped away some of the respect he earned over decades. Among the “red shirts” battling the government, one has begun to hear anti-monarchical sentiments, though they are careful not to disdain the current monarch. In contrast to many previous rallies in Bangkok, the red shirts did not hold up noticeable photos of the king this time — interpreted as a sign of distrust of the palace.
Nepal’s royal family recently learned of the devastating consequences when a king overtly takes sides. After a Maoist insurgency rooted in the rural regions challenged Nepal’s parliamentary government in the late 1990s and early 2000s, then-King Gyanendra in 2005 took control of the government himself and attempted to dominate the security forces and to wipe out the Maoist movement. The suppression failed, even parliament turned against the crown, and the Maoists eventually took power in Kathmandu as part of a power-sharing agreement. In 2008, with Gyanendra’s reputation in tatters, Nepal created a republic and abolished the monarch, and Gyanendra moved out of his palace like a delinquent tenant.
For now, most of the other constitutional monarchies seem to have absorbed the lessons of places like Nepal. In Spain, Juan Carlos, though given an extremely conservative education and hailing from a conservative background, has worked with politicians from across the ideological spectrum. In Britain, even as the Labor, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat parties haggled with one another about forming a new government, Queen Elizabeth did not appear in public to bless any of their leaders — although she personally, according to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, disdained the Labor policies of Tony Blair. And according to British tradition, when the new Parliament convenes for the first time and the government formally announces its agenda for the year, the person who reads the speech — as she always does, no matter who is setting the policies — will be the Queen.
Joshua Kurlantzick is Fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. He can be reached at jkurlantzick@cfr.org.
In Belgium, where the fragile government constantly is on the verge of collapse, King Albert II has been essential in trying to prevent its dissolution, mediating between leading politicians and pushing them back to the bargaining table. After Britain’s recent election, as politicians from the Labor, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat parties struggled to negotiate a ruling coalition, Queen Elizabeth’s presence reminded Britons that the country retained institutions that would prevent it from really melting down.
And most notably, in Thailand, the chaos that has ruled the streets of Bangkok stems partly from fear over the country’s future after the eventual death of increasingly frail 82-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has helped resolve past political crises by forcing the leaders of the army and the demonstrators to meet and reconcile. Without him, notes James Ockey of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, “Thailand may not be able to resolve future crises without major conflict.”
The idea of a monarch may seem like an anachronism in a 21st-century democracy, a relic of an earlier era in which a small elite intermarried and ruled much of the world, while most average people had no say. And to be sure, in states where kings and sultans still actually rule, like Brunei, Jordan, and Morocco, monarchs can be every bit as oppressive and opaque as any other dictatorship. Morocco’s King Mohamed VI, for example, presides over “repressive legislation to punish and imprison peaceful opponents,” according to Human Rights Watch. In Brunei, Jefri, the brother of the ruling sultan, allegedly embezzled billions in state funds, which he spent on some 2,000 cars and a lasciviously named royal yacht, among other items.
But in Europe and parts of Asia, many politicians, political scientists, and citizens have lately developed greater respect for the positive role a constitutional monarch can play in democracy. As in Belgium, monarchs can be arbiters of last resort when elected politicians cannot resolve deep divisions. They can offer their nations a unifying figure to prevent political crises from spiraling into something worse. And in an era of partisanship and diminished individual rights, monarchs can serve as a means of stability in a democracy that might otherwise tear itself apart. A.W. Purdue, author of the book “Long to Reign?”, argues that a king or queen “enables change to take place within a frame of continuity.”
Some political scientists have even argued for reviving defunct monarchies in the interest of democracy, especially in developing nations where monarchs could serve as figures of national unity to prevent ethnic and tribal bloodletting. Cambodia did so in the early 1990s following its civil wars, and the king helped inspire average Cambodians and heal wounds after the Khmer Rouge era. After the toppling of the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan welcomed back former king Zahir Shah to launch the Loya Jirga and serve as a figure of unity as political parties bargained to build Afghan democracy. In Iraq, Sharif Ali bin Hussein, a descendant of the last monarch, has begun publicly arguing that a constitutional monarchy could help reduce the vicious ethnic and sectarian divides roiling the country. In Laos, where people can see the Thai monarchy on Thai television broadcasts, the exiled royal family has become a rallying point for some opponents of the authoritarian government. Southeast Asia academic Michael Vatikiotis argues, in an essay pushing for a return of the crown in neighboring Burma, that monarchy provided a unifying factor in that diverse society — a unifier ripped away during British colonial rule and never effectively replaced.
“The forlorn hope of progressive political change in Burma using all modern means,” he writes, “suggests that reaching back in time and resurrecting the long-dismantled monarchy could provide a prescription.”
Although the House of Windsor dominates global media coverage of monarchy, in reality 12 European countries still have monarchs, as do Cambodia, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Bhutan, and other nations. Despite occasional republican movements that attempt to end the monarchy, polls show strong support for the crown in nearly every nation that has one. In the Netherlands, 70 percent of respondents in one poll wanted to retain the monarchy; in Spain, 65 percent of respondents supported it; in Japan, the number was 82 percent. In many of these countries, poll respondents have more respect for the monarchy than any other public institution.
Many modernizing countries have found that a monarch provides a source of authority and national identity that stands apart from political squabbles. He or she can serve simply as a figurehead, or more substantively as a kind of independent power center that can check the worst impulses of elected politicians, in the way that a Supreme Court or House of Lords might.
Although a ceremonial president can fill this role, as in Israel or Germany, the monarch has a unique claim on the public imagination. Neil Blain, an expert on modern monarchies at the University of Stirling in Britain, says the monarch’s symbols, like the scepter and crown, can’t be replicated by a ceremonial president. The queen, he says, “attests, however mythically, to the country’s political stability and enduring historical foundations.”
“The English do not wish to see the queen on a bicycle,” he says, “because from where people stand here she looks just right in a Rolls-Royce Phantom or better still, a horse-drawn carriage.”
In developing nations, modern monarchs can do more than provide links to the past — they can help usher in democracy. In Bhutan, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck pushed his once-isolated country toward its first truly democratic elections. In Spain, King Juan Carlos midwifed a new Spanish democracy after dictator Francisco Franco’s death. In Cambodia, King Norodom Sihanouk returned to the country after the wars of the 1970s and 1980s and helped oversee a transition to democracy in the 1990s that brought the country a vibrant, if sometimes rough and bloody, democracy.
Some of these monarchs also helped bring economic and cultural modernization. The royals of Bhutan have prodded their citizens to embrace the Internet, satellite television, international trade, and other modern changes. Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, though not a constitutional monarch, has been credited with pushing for social and economic reforms that have diluted the power of the conservative religious establishment and pushed the kingdom to invest in science and technology education.
European monarchy experts also now see a growing role for kings and queens at a time when countries are becoming more diverse. As democracies take in more and more immigrants, and countries give up some of their national identities to superstructures like the European Union, these changes can make national unity more difficult, and a monarch can serve to welcome newcomers and help them feel like citizens.
Sweden’s king, Carl XVI Gustaf, for example, has used the monarchy to integrate immigrants. In one famous speech, he said that “new Swedish citizens...have come here from countries all over the world...under these circumstances it is precisely the strength of the monarchy that the king can be an impartial and uniting symbol.” The Netherlands’ queen, Beatrix, has used royal speeches to call for tolerance at a time when right-wing anti-Islamic politicians have made headway among the Dutch public.
Scholars of monarchy also suggest that, in an era of tightening internal security and control, when elected politicians are amassing previously unheard-of powers and courts are loath to challenge them, a monarch can safeguard public freedom. Eamonn Butler, director of the Adam Smith Institute, a think tank in London, recently argued in the Financial Times that Queen Elizabeth has stood aside too often while the prime minister has become too powerful, but that she remains a figure, under the British constitution, who could check the executive’s power. “The only solution is to make our current constitution work,” Butler wrote. “It certainly means having a monarch who is prepared to intervene on behalf of the people.” In fact, Britain’s unelected House of Lords — often criticized as a relic of a vanished feudal aristocracy — has played a similar function, trying to limit the British government’s surveillance efforts and other new powers.
Similarly, in Cambodia former King Sihanouk (who has since stepped aside because of health reasons and now holds the title of King Father), frequently clashed with Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is elected but has amassed near-dictatorial powers in his office. Sihanouk frequently criticized Hun Sen’s strongman tactics, and invoked the royal institution as the protector of average people abused by the prime minister.
Monarchs, however, must walk a very fine line. Because today’s constitutional monarchs’ power is so nebulous, to use it effectively they must be extremely careful in wielding it.
In Thailand, King Bhumibol Adulyadej frequently has used public speeches to criticize what he sees as politicians who are too venal or power-hungry — which sometimes has veered into a political alignment with Bangkok-oriented elite parties and against parties aligned with rural people, who came to Bangkok and eventually led the demonstrations that resulted in violence. “The palace is thus very much in politics, although the general myth is that the king is above politics,” says Irene Stengs, an expert on the Thai monarchy at the Meertens Institute in the Netherlands.
In fact, the king sanctioned the 2006 coup, after it happened, that deposed populist former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. With these actions, Bhumibol — who is protected from public criticism by strict lese majeste laws — has chipped away some of the respect he earned over decades. Among the “red shirts” battling the government, one has begun to hear anti-monarchical sentiments, though they are careful not to disdain the current monarch. In contrast to many previous rallies in Bangkok, the red shirts did not hold up noticeable photos of the king this time — interpreted as a sign of distrust of the palace.
Nepal’s royal family recently learned of the devastating consequences when a king overtly takes sides. After a Maoist insurgency rooted in the rural regions challenged Nepal’s parliamentary government in the late 1990s and early 2000s, then-King Gyanendra in 2005 took control of the government himself and attempted to dominate the security forces and to wipe out the Maoist movement. The suppression failed, even parliament turned against the crown, and the Maoists eventually took power in Kathmandu as part of a power-sharing agreement. In 2008, with Gyanendra’s reputation in tatters, Nepal created a republic and abolished the monarch, and Gyanendra moved out of his palace like a delinquent tenant.
For now, most of the other constitutional monarchies seem to have absorbed the lessons of places like Nepal. In Spain, Juan Carlos, though given an extremely conservative education and hailing from a conservative background, has worked with politicians from across the ideological spectrum. In Britain, even as the Labor, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat parties haggled with one another about forming a new government, Queen Elizabeth did not appear in public to bless any of their leaders — although she personally, according to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, disdained the Labor policies of Tony Blair. And according to British tradition, when the new Parliament convenes for the first time and the government formally announces its agenda for the year, the person who reads the speech — as she always does, no matter who is setting the policies — will be the Queen.
Joshua Kurlantzick is Fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. He can be reached at jkurlantzick@cfr.org.
59 comments:
In Cambodia the king was gay, powerless, only me has an absolute order to control the government.
Hun Sen: welcome back my puppet king
In Kampuchea, SenVarman and Da King ain't Khmers, they are unashamedly dogs!
Hun Sen has intalled King Si Ha Money to be the King rubber stamp of Cambodia.
Hun Sen creats King not King Creats Hun Sen!
Before Hun Sen approved Si Ha Money to become the King rubber stamp, Monique and Si Ha Money were crawl to kiss Hun Sen ass at his House in Takmao! Hun Sen's bodyguard said.
This article just magnified the degree of naivete of the typical western analysts who got no clue of how the asian inner working systems operate. If there wasn't the nudges from the viets and the russians, the khmer king would still be out there, let alone being the stamp-of-approval legitimizing the flawed and quasi democracy in cambodia.
Ugly Truths about the Royal Government and Marginalized News about Thai Politics
Lies from Abhisit's dirty mouth
both quy no one is good, they are youn dogs
I hardly find a real intelligent Cambodian who can make intelligence comments based on the geopolitics in SEA and the World. These trash and low class posters are more like wild dogs, because our dogs are more intelligent than these idiots. That goes to the KI's memmers some may be Hanoi's dudes as we usually see them playing Hanoi's cards. How much do these idiot Cambodian who who posted attacking King Sihamoni know about from Sihanoukville, Cocos island, Chittagong, Hambantota, Maroa to Gwadat under L'offensive Navale de la Chine has already choked Vietnam? Without King Sihanouk now his son, the Vietnamese may have already burned all these idiots long times ago.
Hun Sen is in power because of many of these stupid Cambodians like son of farmer and his dumbest cronies cannot play politics.
I hardly find a real intelligent Cambodian who can make intelligent comments based on the geopolitics in SEA and the World. These trash and low class posters are more like wild dogs, because our dogs are more intelligent than these idiots. That goes to the KI's members some may be Hanoi's dudes as we usually see them playing Hanoi's cards. How much do these idiot Cambodian who posted attacking King Sihamoni know about from Sihanoukville, Cocos island, Chittagong, Hambantota, Maroa to Gwadat under L'offensive Navale de la Chine has already choked Vietnam? Without King Sihanouk now his son, the Vietnamese may have already burned all these idiots long times ago.
Hun Sen is in power because of many of these stupid Cambodians like son of farmer and his dumbest cronies cannot play politics.
No matter what's other people said about unknown.Please keep building and restoring the foundation of the Kingdom of Cambodia for All Khmer empire.
They are Ayorng Yuon.
SAVED BY THE CROWN OR SAVED BY THE YOUNS? IN CAMBODIAN IN PARTICULAR, YOUNS CONTROLE EVERYTHING!
To 9:19 AM-- Your rude comment doesn't help at all. It just reflects of what kind of a person you are--rude!
"Hun Sen is in power because of many of these stupid Cambodians like son of farmer and his dumbest cronies cannot play politics."
9:19 AM, you're wrong, dude!
Hun Sen is in power because of many Yuons behind him.
While HM King Sihamoni is building homes for his poor people in Nikum Preah Norodom Sihamoni, there may be Hanoi's spies hidden in KI refusing to post the King's works. Why is KI afraid of?
Khmer King, King Sihamoni of Cambodia serves his subjects, KI never posted. Why is that?
Are some members of KI, Vietnamese spies?
10:13 AM,
Yuon don't control everything in Cambodia, because Chinese controls Yuon's economy little by little if you are too dumb to know about this. A few Yuon leaders already said "we kep running and fighting but how long? Sooner we cannot run anymore and why not submit our land to be a nother China's province? America is like in heaven cannot save us on time".
Mr. "intelligent"
i hope the king is correct in playing the china card like you were implying above. the last time he did, over a million were dead and yuon took over cambodia. remember?
Real Viets applaud Ho Chi Minh and said he is their hero who unite South and North into one Vietnam.
But Ho Chi Minh was Chinese and his wife also Chinese. He is a Chinese's hero. He fought for China at the end Vietnam will be China's Province. And China won't be blamed of taking lower Cambodia because the blames will go to Vietnamese.
Taiwan will join with the mainland China because the US's economy is about to go bankrupt. Japan is now shifting away from the US, and please read "L'offensive Navale de la Chine from Sihanoukville, Cocos island, Chittagong, Hambatota, Maroa, and Gwadar, you will see that Vietnam is surrouded by this maighty army. Vietnamese are Chinese and they too will join with China as Chinese.
11:04 AM,
King Sihanouk didn't kill his own people, teh Vietnamese did.
Not the King or the PM Mr. Hun Sen or Mr. Sam Raingsy able protect Cambodia without the help of their citizen. It is about the role of the citizenship and their responsibility.
We love or not love the personality of the King or the Prime Minister. But as Cambodian born, we still have to work together for the best of our Khmer people and protect our Country.
Look around very fast Cambodians. You are still in the first century.
Chinese Cyber attacks on US continues to rise. China wants to destroy the US economy, you can contribute your knowledge agaisnt this attack. Now war between China and US is cyber attack. Why don't you Cambodians launch your cyber attack on Hun Sen instead of barking in here every day 24hrs?
9:19am - I think you use your dog's brain that's why you forgot to mention that the root cause of Khmer suffering was because I Sihanouk the father of King Sihamony. Do you know who helped Vietname burned Cambodia? and Come to Sihamony he just want to make his father's ambiton fulfilled.
So don't pretent that you are smarter than those who mad at Sihanouk.
Hi dumbass 11;23am.
You must be Yuon to keep carrying this propaganda. Your Yuon are infiltrating in Cambodia, God knows how longs ago? Don't try to frame King Sihanouk for your mighty crimes against Khmers.
Is Monarchy work for Cambodia?
King supposes to protect Cambodia why he signed supplementatry treaty to allow Vietname gain control of Cambodia?
Do you mean Is Monarchy working for Cambodia?
Did you see the King signed KHmer land to Yuon or someone else? He was not in the country.
9:19 AM is one hallucinated individuals...border-line crazy.
Normally the crazy people like 11;30am don't see itself crazy.
I bet you are real Yuon.
11;30am.
Vietnam will be soon a new Province of China. America is bankrupt. Read "L'offensive Navale de la Chine." Stop dreaming of cha cha cha.
what cha, cha? did not you mean "sleuk chheur" rendered by the revered one in his palace?
Thailand's economy controlled by Chinese. Most elites abd powerful in Thailand are Chinese. Abhisit cannot win that too long, and he cannot kill all million Thai people who rise against his government. This time is not the same as at Thammasat University when King Pumipon ordered to kill thousand of students and innocence civilians in 1976.
Oh ah kantorb 11:40 AM.
Why don't you shut your azz before I poke with a sharp stick?
where the hell is L'Offensive Navale de la Chine?" who wrote it?
ouch, "j'attendrai" mon cheri, 11:40 AM...
Wrote by Bruno Philip, Frederic Bobin, Gilles Paris and a few experts in war & economy world strategy. From pages 85+. Edition 2010. Everyone should buy and read it.
Ho Chi Minh was a Chinese man and he gave Paracel islands to China in exchange with Chinese army to fight the US. The L'Offensive Navale de la Chine can show you all that Vietnam will be soon a province of China.
12:00 PM,
are you saying both Ho and Norodom are all for the chinese?
12;03pm
Are you having some brain to learn the SEA geopolitics or you are just a stupid dude infront of TV fucking and smoking your cocaine and bashing other leaders?
Calm down, douchebag. Don't you mother fucker get too excited...
Now, how's that for your regional and geo-political savy brain?
Have some1 fucked you yet? The douche bag is you who needs a big syringe to go in.
10:53 am-- wrote:
Yuon don't control everything in Cambodia, because Chinese controls Yuon's economy little by little if you are too dumb to know about this. A few Yuon leaders already said "we kep running and fighting but how long? Sooner we cannot run anymore and why not submit our land to be a nother China's province? America is like in heaven cannot save us on time".
----------------------
First, I want to tell you that I'm Khmer, and I hope you are too. You call me dumb. It doesn't hurt me because I don't know everything. I'm just a typical human being who's trying to learn evryday to better understand the world around me. I hope you know a lot. Regardless of what you know and how much you know, just be nice to people because there is no such thing as being a dumb person.
From your friend 10:13AM--
MEd, CW University.
Nobody knows everything, and nobody knows nothing.
12:16 PM,
Not like you, yet. You have been fucked-invaded by l'offence annale chinoise, monseigneur!!!!
Pouchh Ah Laop
Believe in puk thmart Vaing your guys will seeing mass grave once again,Shaknuk and Sihakmony too weak to be the leaders only fuck fuck fuck at the end he fucks us up again and again
Puok ah refugees stay in the US,and don't return to your native country. All of you are traitors.
6:01Pm you think the mass graves country better than modern and hitech country? U must been taking medicine from the wrong packages or perhaps u can't read the instruction.
My beloved 9:19& 9:34am!
I truly hope that ye read this,
I honestly thankful of thy remarkable wisdom for madly calling me as one of stupidiest men in here, because I repeatedly see that 2+2=4, not highly intelligently as thine, 2+2=5!
It sounded like my people do not have the knowledge of conflict resolution.
Anybody has one share it please!
I have one resolution, someone needs to give 9:19 AM and 12:16 PM his med...he got both royal and chinese influenza. He took some french "l'offensive" something, but the flu aggravated instead of subsiding.
We should ask ourself, could they really work together to rebuild Cambodia ?
6:01 PM is a Yuon.
SenVarman and Da King can't patriotically work together to rebuilding our miserable shrinking nation, they selfishly can work together to destroy Kampuchea and her people!
Yes! 9:38PM We can rebuild our Country.Now i am asking for all your kindness G8 and G20 please help restore my Country.I believe my Country is just like a brand new computer in 21th Century need input old and news informationt(knowledge or intelligence)
Thank you!...May God protect the planet earth!
Question: Why do people keep trashing KI site?
answer: Monkeys see what monkeys do
6:01 pm
You sounded so hostile toward refugees. First of all, we're not traitors! Second, you have no right to tell us we can't go back to our beloved country. Third, you must be one of those jealous freaks who always broke cuz you have no relatives who support you financially. You deserve to suffer financially, physically and mentally. A person like you doesn't deserve ANYTHING. Therefore, my relatives in Cambodia are enjoying their wealth. P.S I'm not gonna stop showering my relatives financially. Get it, MONEY! LMAO, bastard! Isn't America great! Sucker!
They call their blog Khmer Intelligent :)) but their works some support Hanoi without even know it, although many times they attack Hanoi and the thugs in Cambodia.
I just hope the members of this KI blog are not spies from Hanoi.
Intelligent in what way? Dividing Khmer people?
Arrogant as they wannabe, but how about the SEA and the world geopolitics? Can they at least understand that nations's politics are connected?
K Intelligent??? K Intelligent??
Xmer puoch ch'kuot...pukae tae khaang sicho neung chluah khnea...
Khmer Intelligent = Khmer dumb
working to divide Khmer society...only the enemy gain, not Khmer.
Cambodia is acceptable to have the monarchy, especially King Sihamoni. It will be better, if King would acknowledge all Khmers regardless of what color and what party, but King seems to have his favorite and recognize only the cpp. Other khmers seem to be treated like the second or third class. Therefore the hostile will continue. Do you see King Sihanomi acknowledge or receive the Sam Rainsey's party member in the palace as he would with the member of cpp? The SRP seems like an alien to King. Nothing to talk about or share about. They're more/less step children and an out sider. What their party did means nothing to the crown. Abosultely nothing, even if it means the world to some 3-4 millions Cambodian people. This is when the monarchy becoming is sticky and less desiring. Why don't king call out or reach out to people of important like the surviving teachers doctors or engineers of pre- Khmer Rouge Era and treat them like they should be treated with respect? and even people that held important position in business or trade or government. Those people had jobs to earn money and to save their children. It may not have anything to do with King or King's family personally. They could be just plan good old people who sold their skills and talents to save their family. Who else can they sell those skill to when King was gone? It looks that King only open door to those who are at the present day have money which can donate tons of good and cash to King's certain foundation or charity cause. That's fine, but it's just not enough and seems rather sick. Who wants King that favors and trust just one party or two? Please give other people a chance to serve the crown as well, because after all the Crown was meant for everybody in the land of that country and King won't gain full respect until King does it so.
King Bhumibol will pay, if he refuse to acknowledge the red shirt and only has love Abhisit's. The same goes for King Sihamoni with the cpp, because it makes the cpp look strange and stranger everyday to other khmers that are not necessary in love with this pro -vietnam party cpp and eventually will ultimately devide to no end.
Good King gives fair chance and equal treatment to his subjects. So far, it seems like Khmer and Thai have a very prejudice King.
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