In Cambodia, nobody can be perfect

Cambodian’s have accepted the notion that “nobody is perfect” to such an extent that they do not even have the word “perfect” in their language. You can say that something was good, very good or even extremely good. But you cannot say that it was perfect.

We learn our mother tongue without thinking about the rules that structure our language; we follow the rules almost naturally. When learning a language, not only do you have to learn new vocabulary, you also have to learn new rules. Rules that sometimes can seem strange.

Cambodians pluralise words in a totally different way than in the English language. For instance, we would add a ‘s’ onto the end of the word such as: “he owns expensive cars”. In Khmer, you would say the word for expensive twice to indicate that there is more than one expensive car, so the sentence would be structured as: “he owns cars expensive expensive.”

Cambodians also seem to be so far advanced in eradicating gender bias that they do not even have different words for he/she, him/her or his/hers. The same word is used for them all. When I was trying to describe to colleagues that I was going to visit a friend and her wife in Viet Nam, it took minutes of confused sentences before they understand that:

1. my friend was a female (not helped by platonic friendships with the opposite sex being abnormal here)
2. my female friend was married to another female (again, a scenario not that common in Cambodia)

Such experiences have opened my eyes to the deficiencies that languages can have. In that conversation, understanding was made more difficult because the language cannot differentiate between she and he. Languages enable us to communicate concepts but if we cannot even communicate the concept of perfection, can that concept even exist?

I remember learning, rather sceptically, about how language can restrict our knowledge, but now I have seen how this can happen and how it is harming the education of Cambodian children.

In Khmer, they do not have a word for a lesson or period, such as a period of maths in school. Instead they use the phrase “study hour”. However, in Cambodian schools, a study hour is not the same as an hour. In primary schools, a study hour is forty minutes and in secondary schools it is fifty minutes.

At this point, I would like you to pause, ensure that you have understood the paragraph above and then consider this question: if a primary school child has five study hours in a day, how many (normal) hours does that child study for?

If you can answer that question correctly, then you are doing better than one of the Secretaries of State for Education in Cambodia, and indeed a host of senior directors in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport.

In the Cambodian national curriculum for primary education, there are 950 study hours per year. If a study hour equals 40 minutes, then this means that there are 633 hours and 20 minutes in a school year, which is one of the lowest in the world and below the internationally expected 800 – 1000 hours per school year.

However, because the concept of a study hour equalling only 40 minutes has not been grasped, the Cambodian government reports internationally that there are 950+ hours in a school year. At a meeting with the top people from the Ministry of Education last week, I heard (yet again) that Cambodia compares well to other countries.

Now that I see how the structure of Khmer affects their knowledge and understanding, I wonder how the structure of English has affected my own knowledge and understanding.

Gordon

Us = Cambodia, Them = Vietnam

It happened when I was out with a Khmer friend for dinner. We were sitting at a street corner discussing the election and my friend was talking about how the Vietnamese controlled the Cambodian government. She had heard that they controlled the Lao government too. As she talked more, I realised that for Cambodians, the Vietnamese were "the other" who were feared.

We form social bonds by creating common identities, and one of the most powerful can be the sense of nation. This identity allows us to claim things for ourselves that we had nothing to do with. For instance, when Mo Farah won the Olympics, I was delighted because "we" had won a gold medal. It even allows us to claim things for ourselves that happened before we were born. "We", being James Watt and every Scottish or possibly British person since, invented the steam engine. We even feel proud of ourselves for this. Well done us. 

The identity of the "we" can be strengthened by not just defining who the "us" are, but also by defining "them", or "the other". We even sometimes give "them" names. In Cambodia, they have given the Vietnamese the name Yuon. The Cambodian opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, has consistently decried the influence of the Yuon in Cambodia during his speeches, which appears to energise his supporters and the public.

Despite various conversations with friends and reading about politics here, I only recently grasped the depth of hate for the Vietnamese that exists within the Cambodian psyche. We were watching a film that included interviews with the late King Father Sihanouk. After Cambodian-Vietnamese forces defeated the Khmer Rouge in 1979, freeing him from their arrest in the process, he sided with the Khmer Rouge against them. He helped persuade countries that the Khmer Rouge should keep Cambodia's seat at the UN, rather than the seat be given to the Vietnamese installed government. For him, there was no other option but to side with the Khmer Rouge even if they had killed some of his children.

Vietnamese sign: "Determined to firmly safeguard national sovereignty"

This intrigued me and made me begin to understand more what people were thinking during the civil war of the1980s, and also now. But I was still not prepared for what the King Father said next. He said that he would rather have died as a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge than his country be saved by the Vietnamese. 

The man who became King, achieved independence for his country, ruled as Prime Minister, saw sons and daughters die, returned as King to a unify a destroyed country, said that he loved his country so much that he would rather that the Khmer Rouge continued its destruction of Cambodia, than Cambodia be saved by Vietnam.  I don't think there could be a clearer sense of "us" and "them" than this.

It is this division that is evident in today's politics and is galvanising opposition to the Prime Minister,  who first became Prime Minister during the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia in the 1980s. Cambodians cite history showing that Vietnam has previously tried to take over territory by movements of people first followed by formal occupation. Cambodians fear this now because of Vietnamese people in Cambodia whilst believing that the people of Vietnam today are closely linked to the people of Vietnam hundreds of years ago; just like I believe that I am linked to a guy who invented the steam engine in 1765.

Hoi An, Viet Nam: These girls sell little lanterns that float on the river.  Who can resist buying one? Depends on what you think about child labour I guess.

Feeding this fear is the real loss of some territory to Vietnam, for instance the island of Phu Quoc, and large Vietnamese companies controlling industries such as rubber and timber. Sam Rainsy has called for immigration controls of Vietnamese people despite only being two years away from Cambodia and Vietnam becoming part of an ASEAN community. This community, like the EU, seeks to forge a new common identity, a new "we". And in this "we", people will be free to live and work in any of the ASEAN countries they wish to.

The driving motive of European integration was (and still is for some) that nations will have more security because countries i.e. France and Germany, are less likely to go to war with each other. Nations are protected not by strengthening separate identities but by retaining them whilst promoting a second common "we" identity. Some would say that it's worked. Peace for Cambodia might come through this route rather than one emphasising difference.

Gordon

Where are the Khmer Rouge now?

The forest was burning right up to the other side of the road just a few metres from where we were sitting drinking beer with former Khmer Rouge soldiers. The licks of fire were slightly transfixing, aided by beer in the afternoon and a conversation in a language which I don't fully understand. But then my head snapped around as I heard the Khmer words for Khmer Rouge and realised that this conversation might get interesting.

When I first arrived, I was intrigued to find out what happened to all of the Khmer Rouge soldiers. Were they able to live normal lives, or did they have to hide their pasts, or was that impossible and they were outcasts of society? Drinking beer beneath Preah Vihear temple, I was beginning to find some answers.

We were introduced to these former Khmer Rouge soldiers by a lady who has trained and supported hundreds of mid-wives over the years, but before that, as a young girl, she was running around with a machine gun fighting for the Khmer Rouge. The men that we were drinking with also appeared to have left their past behind them as they were now soldiers in the Cambodian army, and one of them was a celebrated artillery gunner.

Part of me finds it strange to think of former Khmer rouge soldiers going back to normal lives,  bringing up families and doing every day jobs, but maybe there should be some distinguishing between those who were involved because they may have grown up in Khmer Rouge areas and those who led the regime and took the decisions.

The Khmer Rouge Tribunal is currently considering what will happen to those who led the regime, and whether they are responsible for decisions that meant 2 million died. The Tribunal was set up to try five people: Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith and Kaing Guek Eav (Duch). Duch was the head of the S-21 prison (Toul Sleng) and has already been convicted and put in jail. The case of Khieu Samphan (Head of State) and Nuon Chea (Dep Secretary of the Communist Party) finished last Wednesday with a judgement expected next year.

We went to the Tribunal and heard part of Khieu Samphan's defence, which went something like this:

• He only joined the Khmer Rouge because he was scared that the then King would kill him and he didn't really believe in it all
• He didn't have any power over the "zone" commanders therefore he has no responsibility for the deaths of nearly 2 million people
• When the Khmer Rouge came into power, the country was already starving meaning mass forced migration to rural areas was a sensible policy
• He didn't actually really know how bad everything had got
• He never lost his temper at home (witness statement from his wife)

There are unlikely to be any more trials because the current Government does not want them and there are parts of Cambodian society that do not see the usefulness of spending millions of dollars on it. Part of this feeling is because the country has so many other needs, and also partly because those on trial are old.

However, there is a third reason; a desire to stop talking about it because of the emotions it can stir, especially given that some former Khmer Rouge middle to top leaders are now prominent in the Government. The Prime Minister, Chair of the Senate and President of the National Assembly were all Khmer Rouge commanders before defecting in the late 1970s and helping to overthrow them.

But the view itself has some legitimacy as Cambodian society must find a way for Khmer Rouge soldiers and Khmer Rouge victims to co-exist, and this requirement for co-existence between perpetrators and victims was a question in my mind before I came.

Perhaps surprisingly, it should not be assumed that the Khmer Rouge is universally hated, although they certainly are by many. When Ieng Sary died, he was accorded a hero's funeral and had lived for many years in opulence and freedom. The Khmer Rouge retained support even after 1979 and controlled parts of Cambodia until 1998. It seems that the notion of co-existence may not be right, as it implies that there are two separate sides living in the same space, when actually as the Khmer Rouge came from Cambodian society, it returns to it as well.

Gordon