Indochinese Federation: Perception and Reality

Map of the Indochinese Federation

Sunday, September 05, 2010
Op-Ed by MP

As for KI Media's perceived agenda or bias, Khmers everywhere should welcome their dedication and labour in light of the enforced insulation just described. As a nation, Cambodia has lost (and is losing) far more of what she once had to her neigbours, yet her nationalist fervour or organised consciousness would appear to pale by comparison with that of Vietnam, for instance, whose intelligentsia have been far more proactive and vociferous throughout history in their resistance to, or rejection of, Chinese hegemony than have their Khmer counterparts been towards Vietnam’s de facto domination over their own nation and people.

THE broad outlines of the Indochinese Federation as such have already been accomplished through integration/consolidation in economic, military and political spheres.

Most Cambodians, particularly, ones living inside the country who otherwise see themselves as Khmers and nationalists have yet to wake up fully to this accomplished fact, partly because of the hallucinating nature of their insulating cultural climate - they wake up every morning to the sound of traditional wedding music broadcast across the street on loud speakers; everyone gets on with their daily business of eking out a living; people dressed in their fine traditional costumes on their way to the local wat on many a festive occasion; the language and chatter at the vegetable market is mostly in Khmer, the PM is Khmer, the Senate President and the National Assembly President are Khmers (or at least, look like ones!), and on top of all this, there is that most ancient, quintessentially Khmer of institutions to bestow comfort and 'cool shade' onto the masses: the Monarchy and the King.

As a project and concept, 'Indochinese Federation' had been hatched somewhere during the era of anti-colonial struggle when the Viet Minhs saw the utility and value in turning popular nationalist sentiment against a common foe - the French - to their long term expansionist aim and strategy of consolidating Vietnam's unified control over the rest of France's Indochinese colony and thereby effectively replacing the latter as colonial power in Asia under the umbrella of anti-colonial resistance, and later on, anti-US imperialist struggle.

What makes such a ‘federation’ of otherwise disparate national states a practicality and realistic scheme is the challenge posed by the anachronistic issue and temper of cultural climate as described above. While the Khmers waking up feeling and believing they are Khmers, in charge of their own affairs, is very much their own business, they do so, however, in a state of illusion in like manner to a once mighty ocean that has now been reduced to a small pond within which the remaining fish find comfort and security in being huddled together.

But what really makes culture such a problematic hurdle to outright domination by even one super national state over another lesser state in terms of geography and population size is really something that has less to do with racialism or ethnic hostility between peoples even - a factor Vietnamese propaganda machine has never failed to emphasize, as their latest 'voicing of concern' over 'anti-Vietnamese' activities by the Khmer Krom activists would seem to testify - but instead this tension is in truth a symptom of the process of victimisation as this is affected through raw, unfettered imposition of one state's political will upon another state.

In other words, political domination has gone too far ahead of cultural consolidation, and this uneven hegemonic process or pace had indeed been the backdrop to the Khmers' uprising against the Vietnamese in the 19th century.

In this context, bringing states together under the more equalitarian, but ultimately specious and pugnacious umbrella of a protective Federation would make sense whilst recognising that Vietnam's Sino culture and Cambodia's and Laos's Indianised cum Khmer-Mon outlook would take time to merge through indoctrination and inter-breeding. And hence the needs to have all the ingredients down in the Pot while the fire is lighted beneath it by insisting on a policy of open doors and borders between the 3 countries.

As for KI Media's perceived agenda or bias, Khmers everywhere should welcome their dedication and labour in light of the enforced insulation just described. As a nation, Cambodia has lost (and is losing) far more of what she once had to her neigbours, yet her nationalist fervour or organised consciousness would appear to pale by comparison with that of Vietnam, for instance, whose intelligentsia have been far more proactive and vociferous throughout history in their resistance to, or rejection of, Chinese hegemony than have their Khmer counterparts been towards Vietnam’s de facto domination over their own nation and people.

Cambodia needs not align herself to such a perilous extent with another neighbouring power, placing both her identity and survival as a distinct entity at risk in the process out of the desire to counter the threat and size of another neighbouring power. The onus is very much upon Cambodia’s own internal cohesion and house-keeping. With unequivocal, but mature self regard and nationalistic attention and devotion to all spheres of the nation’s sovereignty and integrity; the popular will and people’s welfare genuinely and concretely reflected in all scopes of governance, the country would have in turn, at its own disposal, a far more formidable and reliable fortress or defence against external threats and encroachments.

It was essentially, the Cambodian elite and their lack of faith (through ill judgement) in churning and utilising this most vital of organic assets closer to home that allowed the country to become entangled in a fateful, reckless venture from which it had gained nothing but misery in the 1960s and 1970s. This costly ill judgement or its legacy has continued to underline Cambodian - Vietnamese relations to this day - an undeniably unwholesome pattern and affair (for Cambodia and Cambodians, of course) from which a decisive shift in direction or departure is called for as a matter of prime urgency.

The pledges that both Hanoi and Bangkok have been able to lavish upon their Phnom Penh counterparts through political and military treaties, or will be able to do so in the foreseeable future, must be treated with due caution. Adolf Hitler himself had also once similarly got his way over the Western allies through deceit and deception – indeed as he privately proclaimed, the bigger the lie, the more convincing it is! And no lie is bigger before us here than the idea and projection of the ‘undying solidarity’ of the 3 Indochinese states under the assumed or unspoken banner of the trans-national Federation of Indochina emblazoned with the red flag with a gold star in the middle.