Neatee Koun Khmers: Exploring the concept of sovereignty

Dear Readers,

Based on a suggestion provided by one of KI-Media readers, Koun Khmer, we are initiating here a new weekly forum "Neatee Koun Khmers" (Khmer Children Forum). The idea is to focus on a single topic each week and to solicit discussions and opinions from our readers. Your political affiliation will be strictly respected, i.e. we will post your opinions/input irrespective of your political affiliations/views. However, we would like to ask that you leave out vulgarities from the discussion. You may post your opinion as a comment to each week's topic or you may send it to us for posting. In the latter case, please send us your opinion to kiletters@gmail.com. Again we would like to thank Koun Khmer for taking this initiative. We look forward to hear your opinion. Let us bring major issues affecting Cambodia to the discussion table!

Thank you!


KI-Media team

PS: KI-Media does not track your IP address. We barely have time to sleep!

Writing this article reminds me of George Orwell’s (1946) Why I Write. The purpose of his writing uniquely captured my attention, “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it” (p. 8). Here I find myself, several decades later, contemplating the similar scheme for democracy in Cambodia.

Up to this point, though, I have not done any serious writing; I have been a non participant observer of Khmer politics. As such, I have ample of times to reflecting on issues and concepts. Lately, I have been a regular reader on KI-Media. Immediately, I caught on with the trend. Most bloggers are doing it. They post their comments anonymously. Although writing comments anonymously or hiding behind a screen name is not yet an acceptable medium among the general public or academia as a serious political discourse, I found comfort in doing so even knowing that with current technology finding an IP address is just a “dig” away (see Linux document).

An opportunity came when a fellow blogger asked me to suggest topics for discussions. With accommodations from KI-Media Team, Neatee Koun Khmers, I hope, will be a good forum for all Khmers to suggest topics for future discussions. I would like to encourage each and every one of you to participate in suggesting topics and to participate in the discussions. Let us have substantive and meaningful discussions. If you can help it, let us stay away from vulgarity and profanity.

As I have stated in one of my comments in this forum, I am here to share ideas, to learn, and to dialogue with my fellow Khmers hoping that together we can raise each other consciousness. Paulo Freire (2007) wrote, “Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information. It is a learning situation in which the cognizable object (far from being the end of the cognitive act) intermediates the cognitive actors –teacher on the one hand and students on the other” (p. 79). I hope that all of us can be both teachers and students while we are in this forum.

I am particularly interested in ideas and concepts that could positively contribute to promoting of the understanding and the practicing of good governance, effective and functional institutions, and the increased in public deliberation in participatory democracy.

As Cambodia is celebrating the 57th independence anniversary, it is appropriate, for my first suggested topic, to explore the concept of sovereignty. Let us discuss the concept of sovereignty to see if it makes sense to us through our contemporary lenses. While we are here let us also try to make sense of what is the difference between divine and popular sovereignty.

According to Plano and Greenberg (1967), sovereignty is “The supreme power of state, exercised within its boundaries, free from external interference” (p. 15). Sovereignty also means, “A legal concepts that, in international affairs, means statehood, political independence, and freedom from external control” (p. 338). The former definition contains the phrase ‘the supreme power of the state’ that appears to justifying state’s absolute power which is a contradiction to concept of democracy while the latter also appears to be incongruent with Cambodia’s current situation.

Cambodia relies heavily on foreign aid. Can Cambodia avoid interferences from donor countries, international communities, and international organizations? China, Vietnam, and U.S are among the majors trade partners with Cambodia. How do they impact Cambodia’s sovereignty?

This leads to an interesting observation by Karl Loewenstein, a prominent political scientist, who viewed the concept of sovereignty with suspicion. He seemed to question whether sovereignty can truly exist in the modern world:

In reality the notion of sovereignty and its corollaries of equality and independence are largely semantic and escapist formulae ignoring the fact that the dynamism of inter-state power relations is no longer—if it ever was—controllable by the rules of international law. The independence and equality of states have disappeared because, in this techno-logical age with its vastly increased density of economic interpenetration and political interdependence, an individual state can exist in isolated sovereignty no more than an isolated individual can in society.(as cited in Minkkinen, 2007, p.34-35 )

After gaining its independence from France in 1953, Cambodia was a monarchy. Like most monarchies the rulers usually claim to have a divine right or divine sovereignty -a concept that supports absolutism based on the divinity of a person or on the right to rule inherited from ancestors believed to have been appointed by a Supreme Being (Plano and Greenberg, 1967, p. 7).

Forty years later in 1993, the United Nation Transitional Authority (UNTAC) attempted to introduce popular sovereignty to Cambodia through a constitutional monarchy government. As opposed to the right to rule that derived from a Supreme Being, popular sovereignty derives its authority and legitimacy to rule from the people. Alexis de Tocqueville as he observed American democracy in 1848 noticed popular sovereignty in action. He passionately wrote:

The people take part in the making of the laws by choosing the lawgivers, and they share in their application by electing the agents of the executive power; one may say that they govern themselves, so feeble and restricted is the part left to the administration, so vividly is that the administration aware of its popular origin, and so obedient is it to the fount of power. The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. (Mayer, 1969, p. 60)

In conclusion, most of us, if not all, have heard our politicians or our leaders used the term “Sovereignty” from time to time. The concept tends to surreptitiously make its way into our political lexicon if we don’t pay attention it. Politicians tend to use “sovereignty” to refer to an integrity of geographical boundary of the country. Here we discussed a bit more, next time when you hear this term being used, I hope you will have frameworks to analyze the purpose or usage of the term hence what political message they try to convey.

This has been a wonderful privilege for me to share this idea and to have this dialogue with you. I think I have done enough to introduce the topic. Now it is your turn.

References

1. Freire, P (2007). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York and London: Continuum
2. Mayer, j. P. (Ed.). (1969). Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America.
3. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books.
4. Minkkinen, P (2007). The Ethos of Sovereignty: A Critical Appraisal. Human Rights Review,
5. 8(2), 33-51. Retrieved from E-Journals database.
6. Orwell, G (1946). Why I write. New York: Penguin Book
7. Plano, J ,Greenberg, M (1967). The American political dictionary.
8. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and London: Western Michigan University