Why politicians should be barred from naming public institutions after themselves

"Bun Ranny Hun Sen High School", Cambodia

A school latrine - also by the same name?

Reference: "Everything in Cambodia – from schools to toilets - are named after Hun Sen"

by School of Vice

Thank you for raising this very important point. In English people say something like "What tangled web we weave" when they or someone gets caught up in his/her own designs or schemes. But, this practice of naming public institutions like schools or libraries after an incumbent politician or ‘public servant’ who is still holding public office is quite out of order and should thus be banned or declared 'unconstitutional' and unlawful in some way.

The principal reason for arguing against such a practice is to do with the need to prevent politicians from trying to shape public, and particularly, educational institutions in their own privatised ‘political image’ in so far as the practice could have lasting psychological imprint upon successive generations who are being conditioned to accept without question policies and agenda of a political party merely because the party in question is run by someone whose name happens to be the same as that of the school or college they had attended in their formative years.

If there is a public clamour to name a school or similar public institutions after someone, this should be determined by a democratic decision or a joint decision taken by concerned local community and other involved interest groups, and the person after whom the institution to be named must be retired from political office or is no longer serving public servant.

The political implications of naming such public institutions after an incumbent political figure are clear enough. For instance, in the 1950s and 1960s the then Prince Sihanouk had taken similar liberty by christening himself "Prince Father" which might have been acceptable politically or morally had he remained outside the arena of national politics. Yet the reality was Sihanouk abdicated the crown in favour of his father so as to free himself from the palace to assume the mantle of an undisguised autocratic political leader. The crucial point to be noted here is that this kind of personification of and by an individual who is at the same time actively involved in politics - something in the realm of a "personality cult" - is both undemocratic and politically problematic in the long term. In Cambodia’s case, this kind of personification has been one of the main incubating vehicles for ancient feudalism to persist and even flourish, allowing the Monarch as “God-King” to demand and expect unconditional loyalty and obedience from his unquestioning subjects who remain largely semi-literate.

Thus, it was Sihanouk’s public residue [often mistaken as ‘charisma’] as “Prince Father” in the conditioned minds of many Cambodians, especially, among his former rural subjects that had made it possible for the Red Khmers to rapidly swell their ranks with new recruits in response to his radio broadcast appeal for armed resistance against Lon Nol. In this specific instance, it is clear that such personification carries the inherent risk on a massive scale and proportion as the fate of the millions is locked into the whims, fallibilities and recklessness of the few.

Moreover, the PM of any country has no right to name any public institution after him/herself since such a public figure is not there to elevate or accentuate his own political party’s agenda beyond the remit of the democratic mandate - which is subject to regular reviews - or to apotheosise his own ego in this manner. Public schools are government initiatives and are largely financed by public monies or state resources. If the PM in question claims that the money comes out of his own pocket then he must be required to disclose the sources of his income, and even then the schools must not be named after him or his financial patrons. After all, if nothing else, it is morally reprehensible that public institutions are forced to bear his name when the resources and finance that have gone into their constructions came from the state’s coffer or public sources in the first place.