No manual for overthrowing regime

June 1, 2011
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS

Also last week, a writer who used his last name as "Varman" branded me a "Vietnamese spy" sent by Hanoi to "disunite" Khmers as Premier Hun Sen fights the Thais over Preah Vihear Temple. This old technique is used more and more by Hun Sen's "willing executioners" to distract those who might criticize Hun Sen by stirring Cambodians' emotional anti-Vietnamese and anti-Thai sentiments in the name of nationalism.

Each week as I conclude my column, I hope that I've succeeded in prodding readers to think about an issue from a new perspective, challenged complacency. Judging by the number of emails -- positive and negative -- that I've received, I think last week I was successful.

Ironically, even some bloggers, who wish my reasoning agreed with theirs, keep returning to read what I write as soon as it is posted on the Internet.

Last week, a blogger's complimentary email message suggested, "Perhaps you may want to extend (your goal) a bit further." He wanted me to prescribe how, step by step, the dictatorship in place should be removed from power.

That is not my role. As an educator, I encourage people to become informed, to discuss and make on their own decisions they believe to be in their best interest, and in the interest of the community in which they live. It is for the Cambodian people who live in that country to decide and act on their future.

As a former academic, I see it as my responsibility to question "what is," i.e., the status quo, and to seek to know if there are better ways forward. As Lord Gautama Buddha said, "To be idle is a short road to death." I shall continue to question and to provoke thought, but as Buddha advised, each of us must  "work out (our) own salvation ."

Unfortunately, we humans are creatures of habit, experts at perseverative thoughts and actions. Creative new ways are as difficult as they are scary; we will be accountable if the new way goes awry. The old way is familiar and secure. It's easier to be members of a crowd -- "thveu doch ke doch aeing," ("do as others do") as Cambodians say -- a conformist culture and an excuse for inaction and passivity.

I have been told to stop pontificating and start giving "solutions." Never mind that in column after column I have suggested methods one can employ to deal with problems. But I know what many people actually want is a straightforward manual on how to oust Hun Sen.

A manual, I cannot provide. Thoughts, I have aplenty.

Thoughts, however, are abstract and require an effort to understand. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. said it pains some people to think intensively and critically. I am reminded of Abraham Lincoln's "You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could do for themselves." Sixth-century Buddhist spiritual leader Bodhidharma, credited with introducing Zen to China, said, "All know the way; few actually walk it."

As is said, "You can lead the horse to water, but you cannot make him drink," so Buddha advised, "No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may."

Last week, an email from a former resistance fighter in Phnom Penh pleaded I must "not abandon Cambodia." I won't. I was born a Cambodian, will die a Cambodian, even though I have been a proud naturalized citizen of the United States since 1980 who is resolute on individual rights, freedom and the rule of law.

Also last week, a writer who used his last name as "Varman" branded me a "Vietnamese spy" sent by Hanoi to "disunite" Khmers as Premier Hun Sen fights the Thais over Preah Vihear Temple. This old technique is used more and more by Hun Sen's "willing executioners" to distract those who might criticize Hun Sen by stirring Cambodians' emotional anti-Vietnamese and anti-Thai sentiments in the name of nationalism.

A similar technique is to denounce and paint regime opponents as traitors. When political activist Serey Ratha Sourn of the Khmer People Power Movement was given a TV platform by the Thai Yellow Shirts (Hun Sen's enemy) to state his views on a broadcast that would reach Phnom Penh, Sourn blasted Premier Hun Sen for provoking border fighting with the Thais.

Hun Sen's willing executioners lost no time in circulating an open letter denouncing Sourn as a traitor at the service of the Thais, and demanding that Sourn's Khmer citizenship be revoked. The letter pitched opposition democratic leaders against Sourn, a famous divide-and-rule technique. For a brief moment, some people who don't like the Thais condemned Suorn: The enemy of one's enemy is not necessarily one's friend, it was said.

But Suorn had courageously seized the greater opportunity of accepting the platform offered by the democratic Thai Yellow Shirts to express views to an audience he could not access from within his own country. In addition, Sourn secured an agreement from those Thai democrats to assist Cambodian refugees on Thai territory. Suorn is an independent who accepts the risk of taking controversial actions in support of his beliefs.

Unfortunately, many Cambodians don't see Hun Sen -- who no longer celebrates the 1991 Paris Peace Accord and allows millions of undocumented Vietnamese immigrants to settle in Cambodia, thereby changing the political, economic and cultural landscape -- as not serving Cambodia's national interest, but instead see Suorn as a traitor because they don't like the Thais or they don't like Suorn's personality, or because Hun Sen says they should. Khmer culture, after all, teaches to "korup, bamboeur, smoh trang" ("respect, serve, be loyal/faithful") to authorities, i.e, Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People's Party.

There are many changes Cambodians need to make if they and their country are to improve their circumstances, but the most important one is a change of attitude and values, without which other changes don't matter much.

The Chinese say, "The best time to plant trees was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

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

peangmeth@yahoo.com