We have an interview in which David Chandler makes no claim to be be the best historian of Cambodia, makes no claim to be better than the Khmer, and in general, makes no offensive comments whatsoever. This is an interview, no a coronation. To which Sophea Thon writes:
“To certain extent Dr. Chandler might be right on the subject of Cambodia as a whole, but he does not know the truth about Khmer Rouge or the caused of the regime or how it got to be in the picture. Only those who have been in the organization themselves could possibly comment on the subject.”
Then writes:
“I am not here to criticize Dr. Chandler.”
Let’s calmly dissect this logic (or lack thereof). First, the author *does* criticize Chandler while denying this very fact. Academics are always criticized –that in itself is no problem — but why not be honest here?
On to the core issue of whether or not a foreigner can understand the truth about the Khmer Rouge or the origins of the regime. This is a really odd argument that should not be on this page.
First of all, the Khmer Communists were originally set up with Vietnamese/ Viet Minh help. So of course, when looking at the origins of the party, some of the best places to look are to the . . . Vietnamese. Not just to the Vietnamese, mind you, but they played a key role. So I assume that you would agree that we need to understand how Vietnamese perceived their role?
Secondly, to criticize someone for not understanding how the Khmer rouge “got into the picture” is fine — but this is an airy statement that is contradicted by pages and pages of text written by Chandler. Or, if you think that no foreigner can understand this, you still have to explain *what* it is that Vickery, Kiernan, Heder etc get wrong — otherwise it is just a claim with no content. What exactly don’t they understand?
Third, on knowing the “truth” of the Khmer Rouge — why the extreme position that”Only those who have been in the organization themselve could possibly comment on the subject.” At some point in the future, everyone who lived under the Khmer Rouge will have died. At that point, can no one comment on the Khmer Rouge?
And let’s pursue this line a bit further — should only those who lived in the Eastern zone be able to comment on the Eastern zone? Should those *groups* that suffered the most — say, the Chams — have more access to the truth than the Khmer (who were statistically less likely to die than Khmer — or Vietnamese?). Should only Vietnamese be allowed to comment on Vietnamese deaths under KR?
It turns out that even if we were to accept your logic, this would mean that we would have to make sure that we had Cham, Khmer, Vietnamese, and Chinese voices discussing living under the Khmer Rouge. All of which seems unproblematical to me. And you?
In the end, I think everyone can agree that if one did not experience life under the Khmer Rouge, one can only imperfectly recapture what that experience was like. And it follows that we can all agree that in key ways, historians such as Chandler can only approximate the truth. But imagine a world in which historians followed your arguments. It would be a world in which only Holocaust survivors could write about the Holocaust. It would be a world in which no one could write about periods before the past 80 years. Inexorably, we would come to lose our sense of the past. What a horrible world.
Andrew Selth
Modern Burma Studies:
A View from the Edge
Working Paper Series
No. 96
November 2007
The Southeast Asia Research Centre (SEARC) of the City University of Hong Kong
Great interview as usual Nicholas! Thanks.
The most facinating part for me being the plausible chain of causes and effects linking the French humiliation in WWII to the Khmer Rouge. This ofcourse reinforces Sophia’s comments that Cambodia was and is a mere pawn in the Superpower’s chessboard (through centuries at both regional scale between Siamese and Vietnamese and, relatively recently, global scale between US, Russia and China). The emic view taken here is probably of ‘victimhood’ and hence the gap with etic ‘dissections’. I am only (admittedly ignorantly) speculating here but a Cambodian may ask if they are bringing the leaders of the Khmer Rouge to trial, why not French, American, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai ‘puppet-masters’ (of varying degrees) too? Sophia’s point on importation of ‘weapons’ may also not be only limited to tanks and guns, but also ideology (that is my reading of her last response but I could be wrong).
There are many in the bureaucracy and business uncritically paying lip service to ‘sufficiency economy’ and doing much more harm than good – as they are people globally giving ‘sustainability’ a bad name by clearing ecologically sensitive rain forests to plant palm plantations (in the name of alternative source of fuels to mitigate climate change)… It is already complex as it is with ‘uncritical’ people with good intentions (at least they can be ‘informed’)…
It is a very promising sign that these remarks are coming from TDRI as they draft the 5 years national development plans. They will have to critically ground SE in rigourous research to effectively inform policy and action.
you might want to add to the SE Asia cultural section a website which averages about 50,000 hits per month with hundreds of expressionist style paintings of characters and hangouts from the Bangkok Night:
I will also add that, apart from lest majeste accusations/laws, the banning of books seem to also have a life of its own – with three books coming to mind: “The Revolutionary King” (favorable of the monarchy); Handley’s “The King Never Smiles” (critical of the monarchy); and Ajarn S.Srivalaksa’s recent book on Thai democracy (not too focussed on the monarchy I understand – but by a Thai who at times is openly critical of the monarchy but is not in jail…).
As I’ve mentioned before, the CNS generals would have had a much easier time dealing with PMThaksin and TRT (now PPP) had they merely focussed on lest majeste and take it to extremes (which they are capable of). For the objective of ‘political stability’, that would have been the obvious action to take.
I don’t know for certain what is behind all of this (and they make excellent research topics in themselves) – but we have probably seen another transformation of the way the political game is played…
Firstly I beg pardon from you all, specially from Grasshopper (his posters #9 and #12), but I just cannot resist the dig . . . about torture.
Grasshopper do you always greet your mother in the morning ethically and without any myopic Eurocentric paradigm that is not open to inimical dissection? Why Grasshopper that will inhumane torture!
Thaksin helping the poor was all right (every politician will willingly help the poor, but not with their own money). But Thaksin Shinawatra also generously helping (and tax free too!) himself, his family and in-laws, close friends and cronies was the crack that burst his dam.
Land of Snarls has made many interesting points from a foriegn perspective. However, to suggest that the Thais are enslaved, “chained” and “uncritical” sounds quite patronizing too. It is almost a colonial mindset – that the enlightened foriegners will come to free the Thais.
My points concerning this has been made above, so I will not repeat. But I will over-dramatize history in the spirit of Land of Snarls over-dramatization of the Thai gaol (as lest majeste cases are usually followed by pardons). In the 19th century, the British systematicaly ‘unchained’ the Burmese by dismantling the whole ‘feudal’ system and shipped them off to India – but seem to have laid down the seeds of another bigger and violent ‘chain’…
This is extreme alternative historical scenarios – ‘comparable’ cultures, one retaining its ‘feudal’ system, another having it violently ripped off by a colonial power(maybe Malaysia provides an intermediate scenario? I am not too sure). Outsiders often forget or choose to conveniently ignore that the ‘feudal’ system has always been in transformation and still is. The players/agents/institutions have always been highly diverse. In this context, to reduce Thai half century of history to HM the King alone is highly patronizing. To do that gives so little credit to Thai society, reduced to slaves!
To put things into broader perspective (not necessary related – pardon the way my mind works), I wonder myself how much we in Australia are also ‘enslaved’? Would the election at the end of the month will reveal how much we are still entrapped by GDP growth and interest rates? How high does local/international social and environmental equity rate?
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/mrdautay – This is in Vietnamese (which I cannot read), is referenced a lot by the Vietnam blog scene and gets hundreds of comments, so I thought it might be of interest.
‘Screenshots’ or http://www.jeffooi.com/ is a fantastic site for Malaysian politics.. It is fair to say that Jeff has developed a huge political influence as a result of his commentary.
The House of Lords http://ratchasima.net/ has really good articles on Burma, but I subscribed to it after seeing it referenced here..
My beef with Thaksin was never about ‘populist policies’, but rather about the policy corruption, extra-judicial killings, tax evasion & manipulation of various institutions etc etc.
Reading New Mandala one would get the impression that Thaksin is somehow the only person ever capable of helping the poor, and he never had (or has) any ulterior motives .
There is nothing more important to see and hear of Western Professors taking interests in Cambodia, not to mention Dr. Chandler alone. As Cambodian American, I appreciate very much for all the things that these Professors have done for our country…but there has to be precise applications should one or more wanting to contribute to a society that has been dilapidated by the hands of others. I hate to point fingers or laying blames on others, but Cambodia alone would not enter into war without “poisonous” tactics played by the former Soviet or China. I kept mentioning “Cambodia is a pawn on a chess board played by Super Powers and no one seems to care or make such calculated responses regarding this simple statement.
We are a citizen of the Planet Earth should there be no boundaries between humanity. If we take the boundary away then we are all citizen of the United Nation and not some specific country. We can be brother and sister. We came from the same path of life and we shall go back the same path of life. I dont like to be poetic or even speaking of philosophy, but in Cambodia most are taught to understand the simplicity of life itself…and that is to understand nature and its beauty in the realm of philosphy. That is why Cambodia is so far behind other countries if we begin to compare country per country around the world. Not that we are so primitive and so different from others, but we understand by growing so fast into an unknown realm of technology without full comprehensive understanding of the two edge swords…its consequences could be greater than it appears to be.
I came to the United States in 1981 escaping that horrible regime and the occupation of Vietnam is even worst than living under Khmer Rouge in 1979. After 28 years living here in the US, many Cambodians became naturalized and approved by the United States government. We appreciate that there is such a country that gives us opportunities to grow and the sky is the limite. Most of them have made their marks and well off into the world, but they like to live a life of peace and harmony. My point is that as Khmer or Cambodian, we can learn just as well as other races that have adapted themselves to do well and at some areas can achieve greater things in life.
In the book written by Henry Kissinger: Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy is a prime example of how the US adapting its tactics in the race of Nuclear Age. The question you gentlemen should ask is…why such a book is written? By whom it is written? What is the purpose behind this book? Why is it important to understand the title of this book? Cambodia can achieve and can think like the Western Nation or other regions of the fast growing countries or the so called “Industrialize Nations”, but we choose not to develop because of our belief, but now since we understand the “Game” is being played by the Super Powers, Cambodia will soon become the next best thing in Southeast Asia.
“You can lead a blind man to do anything as you wish, but once the blind man can see he can begin to think for himself and his ambitions can either be good deeds or bad deeds depend on how vindictive he becomes.”
Not to forget the “constitutional populism” in the section of the new charter that deals with state policies. But they prefer to call it “welfare state policies.” So, free health care for all is a good constitutional welfare state policy, while Thaksin’s 30-baht scheme was evil populism driven by money politics. In any case, most political parties running in the elections have “populist” platforms.
I am not a historian or an “expert” on Cambodia, but I have found Professor Chandler’s scholarship top notch. I have not always agreed with each of his deductions, but that is no reason to criticize his work. The vast majority of “research” on Cambodia only focuses on the Khmer Rouge and seems to be seen mostly through various sets of political lenses. European (Especially the French) tend to blame the US military intervention in SEA, others blame the Khmer themselves and still others blame the Chinese and even the Thai governments for “supporting” the KR. I have not read everything Professor Chandler has wrote, but from what I have read, he has tried to show Khmer history in it entirety and has attempted to put the KR regime in perspective.
Neither Professor Chandler nor anyone else can claim to be completely unbiased, but I have found his analysis has generally been sound, fair and based on facts to a greater extent than his own political orientation.
The criticisms against Professor Chandler on this comments section seem to be because individuals disagree with some of his conclusions, not with his method of research and scholarship.
Thank you, Professor Chandler for the work you have done and for giving me some solid background material for some research I have done in the past.
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Interview with Professor David Chandler
Too much honor for what merely is a thoughtless statement…
Interview with Professor David Chandler
We have an interview in which David Chandler makes no claim to be be the best historian of Cambodia, makes no claim to be better than the Khmer, and in general, makes no offensive comments whatsoever. This is an interview, no a coronation. To which Sophea Thon writes:
“To certain extent Dr. Chandler might be right on the subject of Cambodia as a whole, but he does not know the truth about Khmer Rouge or the caused of the regime or how it got to be in the picture. Only those who have been in the organization themselves could possibly comment on the subject.”
Then writes:
“I am not here to criticize Dr. Chandler.”
Let’s calmly dissect this logic (or lack thereof). First, the author *does* criticize Chandler while denying this very fact. Academics are always criticized –that in itself is no problem — but why not be honest here?
On to the core issue of whether or not a foreigner can understand the truth about the Khmer Rouge or the origins of the regime. This is a really odd argument that should not be on this page.
First of all, the Khmer Communists were originally set up with Vietnamese/ Viet Minh help. So of course, when looking at the origins of the party, some of the best places to look are to the . . . Vietnamese. Not just to the Vietnamese, mind you, but they played a key role. So I assume that you would agree that we need to understand how Vietnamese perceived their role?
Secondly, to criticize someone for not understanding how the Khmer rouge “got into the picture” is fine — but this is an airy statement that is contradicted by pages and pages of text written by Chandler. Or, if you think that no foreigner can understand this, you still have to explain *what* it is that Vickery, Kiernan, Heder etc get wrong — otherwise it is just a claim with no content. What exactly don’t they understand?
Third, on knowing the “truth” of the Khmer Rouge — why the extreme position that”Only those who have been in the organization themselve could possibly comment on the subject.” At some point in the future, everyone who lived under the Khmer Rouge will have died. At that point, can no one comment on the Khmer Rouge?
And let’s pursue this line a bit further — should only those who lived in the Eastern zone be able to comment on the Eastern zone? Should those *groups* that suffered the most — say, the Chams — have more access to the truth than the Khmer (who were statistically less likely to die than Khmer — or Vietnamese?). Should only Vietnamese be allowed to comment on Vietnamese deaths under KR?
It turns out that even if we were to accept your logic, this would mean that we would have to make sure that we had Cham, Khmer, Vietnamese, and Chinese voices discussing living under the Khmer Rouge. All of which seems unproblematical to me. And you?
In the end, I think everyone can agree that if one did not experience life under the Khmer Rouge, one can only imperfectly recapture what that experience was like. And it follows that we can all agree that in key ways, historians such as Chandler can only approximate the truth. But imagine a world in which historians followed your arguments. It would be a world in which only Holocaust survivors could write about the Holocaust. It would be a world in which no one could write about periods before the past 80 years. Inexorably, we would come to lose our sense of the past. What a horrible world.
Par Par Lay released; many others still locked up
Andrew Selth
Modern Burma Studies:
A View from the Edge
Working Paper Series
No. 96
November 2007
The Southeast Asia Research Centre (SEARC) of the City University of Hong Kong
Link: http://www.cityu.edu.hk/searc/
Interview with Professor David Chandler
Great interview as usual Nicholas! Thanks.
The most facinating part for me being the plausible chain of causes and effects linking the French humiliation in WWII to the Khmer Rouge. This ofcourse reinforces Sophia’s comments that Cambodia was and is a mere pawn in the Superpower’s chessboard (through centuries at both regional scale between Siamese and Vietnamese and, relatively recently, global scale between US, Russia and China). The emic view taken here is probably of ‘victimhood’ and hence the gap with etic ‘dissections’. I am only (admittedly ignorantly) speculating here but a Cambodian may ask if they are bringing the leaders of the Khmer Rouge to trial, why not French, American, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai ‘puppet-masters’ (of varying degrees) too? Sophia’s point on importation of ‘weapons’ may also not be only limited to tanks and guns, but also ideology (that is my reading of her last response but I could be wrong).
“Royalist populism”
The NESDB will be surprised to learn that TDRI is given authorship of its plans.
“Royalist populism”
My sentiments exactly!
There are many in the bureaucracy and business uncritically paying lip service to ‘sufficiency economy’ and doing much more harm than good – as they are people globally giving ‘sustainability’ a bad name by clearing ecologically sensitive rain forests to plant palm plantations (in the name of alternative source of fuels to mitigate climate change)… It is already complex as it is with ‘uncritical’ people with good intentions (at least they can be ‘informed’)…
It is a very promising sign that these remarks are coming from TDRI as they draft the 5 years national development plans. They will have to critically ground SE in rigourous research to effectively inform policy and action.
Southeast Asian websites for posterity
you might want to add to the SE Asia cultural section a website which averages about 50,000 hits per month with hundreds of expressionist style paintings of characters and hangouts from the Bangkok Night:
http://www.chriscolesgallery.com
Interview with Paul Handley
I will also add that, apart from lest majeste accusations/laws, the banning of books seem to also have a life of its own – with three books coming to mind: “The Revolutionary King” (favorable of the monarchy); Handley’s “The King Never Smiles” (critical of the monarchy); and Ajarn S.Srivalaksa’s recent book on Thai democracy (not too focussed on the monarchy I understand – but by a Thai who at times is openly critical of the monarchy but is not in jail…).
As I’ve mentioned before, the CNS generals would have had a much easier time dealing with PMThaksin and TRT (now PPP) had they merely focussed on lest majeste and take it to extremes (which they are capable of). For the objective of ‘political stability’, that would have been the obvious action to take.
I don’t know for certain what is behind all of this (and they make excellent research topics in themselves) – but we have probably seen another transformation of the way the political game is played…
Interview with Professor David Chandler
Firstly I beg pardon from you all, specially from Grasshopper (his posters #9 and #12), but I just cannot resist the dig . . . about torture.
Grasshopper do you always greet your mother in the morning ethically and without any myopic Eurocentric paradigm that is not open to inimical dissection? Why Grasshopper that will inhumane torture!
“Royalist populism”
Thaksin helping the poor was all right (every politician will willingly help the poor, but not with their own money). But Thaksin Shinawatra also generously helping (and tax free too!) himself, his family and in-laws, close friends and cronies was the crack that burst his dam.
Interview with Paul Handley
Land of Snarls has made many interesting points from a foriegn perspective. However, to suggest that the Thais are enslaved, “chained” and “uncritical” sounds quite patronizing too. It is almost a colonial mindset – that the enlightened foriegners will come to free the Thais.
My points concerning this has been made above, so I will not repeat. But I will over-dramatize history in the spirit of Land of Snarls over-dramatization of the Thai gaol (as lest majeste cases are usually followed by pardons). In the 19th century, the British systematicaly ‘unchained’ the Burmese by dismantling the whole ‘feudal’ system and shipped them off to India – but seem to have laid down the seeds of another bigger and violent ‘chain’…
This is extreme alternative historical scenarios – ‘comparable’ cultures, one retaining its ‘feudal’ system, another having it violently ripped off by a colonial power(maybe Malaysia provides an intermediate scenario? I am not too sure). Outsiders often forget or choose to conveniently ignore that the ‘feudal’ system has always been in transformation and still is. The players/agents/institutions have always been highly diverse. In this context, to reduce Thai half century of history to HM the King alone is highly patronizing. To do that gives so little credit to Thai society, reduced to slaves!
To put things into broader perspective (not necessary related – pardon the way my mind works), I wonder myself how much we in Australia are also ‘enslaved’? Would the election at the end of the month will reveal how much we are still entrapped by GDP growth and interest rates? How high does local/international social and environmental equity rate?
Southeast Asian websites for posterity
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/mrdautay – This is in Vietnamese (which I cannot read), is referenced a lot by the Vietnam blog scene and gets hundreds of comments, so I thought it might be of interest.
‘Screenshots’ or http://www.jeffooi.com/ is a fantastic site for Malaysian politics.. It is fair to say that Jeff has developed a huge political influence as a result of his commentary.
The House of Lords http://ratchasima.net/ has really good articles on Burma, but I subscribed to it after seeing it referenced here..
Interview with Professor David Chandler
?
New Mandala’s Melbourne Cup tip
I hope she goes better than Marty did last night.
“Royalist populism”
My beef with Thaksin was never about ‘populist policies’, but rather about the policy corruption, extra-judicial killings, tax evasion & manipulation of various institutions etc etc.
Reading New Mandala one would get the impression that Thaksin is somehow the only person ever capable of helping the poor, and he never had (or has) any ulterior motives .
The King Never Smiles?
Nattha : Nice try. You mean no-one else has ever walked into a village. Yeah, right, only a king could do that. Very silly posting.
Interview with Professor David Chandler
To Don,
There is nothing more important to see and hear of Western Professors taking interests in Cambodia, not to mention Dr. Chandler alone. As Cambodian American, I appreciate very much for all the things that these Professors have done for our country…but there has to be precise applications should one or more wanting to contribute to a society that has been dilapidated by the hands of others. I hate to point fingers or laying blames on others, but Cambodia alone would not enter into war without “poisonous” tactics played by the former Soviet or China. I kept mentioning “Cambodia is a pawn on a chess board played by Super Powers and no one seems to care or make such calculated responses regarding this simple statement.
We are a citizen of the Planet Earth should there be no boundaries between humanity. If we take the boundary away then we are all citizen of the United Nation and not some specific country. We can be brother and sister. We came from the same path of life and we shall go back the same path of life. I dont like to be poetic or even speaking of philosophy, but in Cambodia most are taught to understand the simplicity of life itself…and that is to understand nature and its beauty in the realm of philosphy. That is why Cambodia is so far behind other countries if we begin to compare country per country around the world. Not that we are so primitive and so different from others, but we understand by growing so fast into an unknown realm of technology without full comprehensive understanding of the two edge swords…its consequences could be greater than it appears to be.
I came to the United States in 1981 escaping that horrible regime and the occupation of Vietnam is even worst than living under Khmer Rouge in 1979. After 28 years living here in the US, many Cambodians became naturalized and approved by the United States government. We appreciate that there is such a country that gives us opportunities to grow and the sky is the limite. Most of them have made their marks and well off into the world, but they like to live a life of peace and harmony. My point is that as Khmer or Cambodian, we can learn just as well as other races that have adapted themselves to do well and at some areas can achieve greater things in life.
In the book written by Henry Kissinger: Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy is a prime example of how the US adapting its tactics in the race of Nuclear Age. The question you gentlemen should ask is…why such a book is written? By whom it is written? What is the purpose behind this book? Why is it important to understand the title of this book? Cambodia can achieve and can think like the Western Nation or other regions of the fast growing countries or the so called “Industrialize Nations”, but we choose not to develop because of our belief, but now since we understand the “Game” is being played by the Super Powers, Cambodia will soon become the next best thing in Southeast Asia.
“You can lead a blind man to do anything as you wish, but once the blind man can see he can begin to think for himself and his ambitions can either be good deeds or bad deeds depend on how vindictive he becomes.”
Thank You
Sophea T.
“Royalist populism”
I guess his next post will be from a prison cell!
“Royalist populism”
Not to forget the “constitutional populism” in the section of the new charter that deals with state policies. But they prefer to call it “welfare state policies.” So, free health care for all is a good constitutional welfare state policy, while Thaksin’s 30-baht scheme was evil populism driven by money politics. In any case, most political parties running in the elections have “populist” platforms.
Interview with Professor David Chandler
I am not a historian or an “expert” on Cambodia, but I have found Professor Chandler’s scholarship top notch. I have not always agreed with each of his deductions, but that is no reason to criticize his work. The vast majority of “research” on Cambodia only focuses on the Khmer Rouge and seems to be seen mostly through various sets of political lenses. European (Especially the French) tend to blame the US military intervention in SEA, others blame the Khmer themselves and still others blame the Chinese and even the Thai governments for “supporting” the KR. I have not read everything Professor Chandler has wrote, but from what I have read, he has tried to show Khmer history in it entirety and has attempted to put the KR regime in perspective.
Neither Professor Chandler nor anyone else can claim to be completely unbiased, but I have found his analysis has generally been sound, fair and based on facts to a greater extent than his own political orientation.
The criticisms against Professor Chandler on this comments section seem to be because individuals disagree with some of his conclusions, not with his method of research and scholarship.
Thank you, Professor Chandler for the work you have done and for giving me some solid background material for some research I have done in the past.