Dictatorships can be disintegrated

October 27, 2010
By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS

I like the national capital's Korean War memorial that honors America's "sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met." Life-size sculptures of American soldiers, with World War II helmets and winter ponchos, carry rifles and equipment of the "old" U.S. Army, their postures and faces expressive of the danger all around them, a platoon fixed in time on a plot of grass on the National Mall.

Freedom isn't free

(Photo: Dr. A. Gaffar Peang-Meth)

With my old Pentax -- state of the art at the time -- I clicked photos of the sculptures and the adjacent pool that reflected the Stars and Stripes and visitors of different races ... until I reached a wall of lovely marble with four chiseled words: "Freedom is not free." I stopped, photographed the words, sat, looked and photographed again.

A mix of emotion rushed through me --sad and happy, anxious.

I was sad to think of the suffering and the sacrifices of men and women in the name of the nation's "call" and in the name of "freedom," which so many take for granted these days. I was happy that freedom prevailed on many lands; that dictatorships have succumbed, though they are never entirely defeated.

And I am anxious about the future of my children's children.

Long ago, while I was in college, it was that same word, "freedom," and its associates, "individual rights" and "independence," among others, that led me to the study of political science. Later, in graduate school, I made my choice and entered into political actions for the same words.

When the situation in Southeast Asia changed, I put what I learned and believed in into practice: I joined Khmer nationalists in the field from 1980-1989.

However much the explosive sounds of combat frightened me, I lived through them.

To do it again

Some say, "Talk is cheap!" You talk and I talk. We all talk. Yet talk that's influenced by high principles and beliefs and followed by action distinguishes one talker from another.

Once with the Khmer national resistance, I sought opportunities to "see a lot, hear a lot, and talk a little" -- a dictum taught to resistance cadres. At the risk of upsetting some in the power hierarchy, I traveled, at times alone, to visit different bases, some in faraway places, and stay with men in forward positions, sharing their food and experiences. As I saw a lot and heard a lot, I began to suggest and began to sense trouble: To be jealous is human!

There was no major enemy military offensive against resistance bases during which I did not find myself in the field, or in a bunker with my commander-in-chief, or in the trenches with the fighters -- a story for another day.

From time to time, I accompanied my president on official visits to some capitals of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. I remember withdrawing myself quietly from the dining table one time, returning to musicians who performed the song by Abba, "Fernando." In the circumstances, the words were evocative, describing the sounds and anxiety of another war at another time and place.

I didn't know how much everyone at the table understood the song, but politely they listened: "I was so afraid. ... We were so young and full of life and none of us prepared to die." I stole looks at the faces around the table: "And I'm not ashamed to say the roar of guns and cannons almost made me cry." My boss glanced at me. "There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, ... they were shining there for you and me, for liberty, ..."

"Though we never thought that we could lose, there's no regret," went the song, "If I had to do the same again I would, my friend, Fernando."

Upon returning to our rear base, the president wanted the words of the song; my wife transcribed them for him.

That was yesterday.

Fighting dictatorships

Today, I find myself fighting still. I am no longer "so young and full of life" as the song says, but my mind is sound and my pen is my weapon, my tool.

Recently, my brother-in-law gave us some old photos. One was of our first son riding a toy horse in our university apartment in Ann Arbor. On the wall was a poster of the time: "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." It marked my spirit then, and still does. So, I advocate fighting authoritarianism, and posit that authoritarianism can be brought down by better thinking.

Emeritus political science professor Gene Sharp's writings represent such better thinking: Dictatorships can be disintegrated through nonviolent action, which is also called people power or political defiance. Sharp, who presented us with nearly 200 methods of nonviolent actions, gave us a conceptual framework to liberate from dictatorships.

"The oft quoted phrase 'Freedom is not free' is true," Sharp wrote. "No outside force is coming to give oppressed people the freedom they so much want. People will have to learn how to take that freedom themselves. Easy it cannot be."

And that's where Cambodian democrats and rights fighters must realize: Unless they become a credible internal force resisting dictators, foreign intervention on Cambodians' behalf should not be expected.

Still, as Sharp says, it is possible to disintegrate dictatorships!

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.