“So Do Not TOUCH him anymore.” >> Why would you want to go farther than the King himself? If you were really loyal to him, you should follow the King’s famous statement, “I can be criticized.”
A few month ago, my husband had talked with the soldier who has a high rand and is working in the northern part which people has very income.He said that about 30 years ago when our king was on helicopter, he noticed a temple with is not in a map.The king wanted to kow , how the monks and people nearby lived, then he asked the pilot to land on a field. He travelled with quee Sirikit and maj.gen prem.Our king and queen were waiting in helicopter while Mr. Prem walked across the field to find a car. Would you who touch our king do this.We did’nt have a concret road at that time,and is hard to walk across the field. He can stay in a palace , does’t need to see with his eyes how his people live.Everyone is not perfect.His project has developped faster than the government do. So Do Not TOUCH him anymore.
Don’t be offended Don, but when a history hasn’t been etically accepted how can it be emically dissected??? I think there needs to be a lexical order because otherwise it seems as though we are telling people their history which I think is a little bit strange. As equally strange as Cambodians judging that we Westerners, if we could, would all like to be “served their hamburgers and budweisers by the best known bar girls in the city” because its historically what happened.
I’m not knocking Professor Chandlers work (for which I have only read chapters and sections) but I do believe that it and other histories can only really serve as a launch pad for people to be more interested in Cambodia rather than some sort of definitive work that is to be used as a source of education for Cambodians.
Perhaps I am one of the few here old enough to remember the days when Dr. Chandler’s books and articles on Cambodia were nearly the only resources on the subject available for inquiring minds written in English. Sure there were plenty of articles in French academic journals, but I doubt that most of them have been translated to this day. Vickery’s books came out a bit later in the mid 1980s if memory serves me correctly. It is little wonder that his peers during those more spartan years of Southeast Asian scholarship in the English speaking west would heap high praise upon the man, a brief verbal click of the heels and a tip of the hat, deserved praise in my opinion.
As for Sophea’s statement, ” Only those who have been in the organization themselves could possibly comment on the subject, I think it is important for outsiders to look inside history and culture as the participants will always be blinded in some spots by that old school, and I am old school, emics vs etics distinction. There is a complimentary need for both outside observation and participant reflections.
And Jon, let me add that the old 4th of July picnics at the US Consulate in Chiang Mai use to be a real hoot with the few resident Americans at the time , an odd mix of missionaries, free lance teachers, and gnarly eccentrics rubbing elbows with the Provincial governor and other local bigwigs who were unaware they were being served their hamburgers and Budweisers by the best known bar girls in the city courtesy of the Consulate staff.
Good points indeed landofsnarls. Just for information, I know that some chapters have been translated into Thai and are circulating. I received a couple of the chapters from an anonymous emailer just last weekend .
Your question about Wyatt is interesting. But he never did write anything that I can recall that was especially critical of anything in Thailand. I’m not sure he wanted to see anything that was critical. I don’t recall (and I may well be wrong) anything on even relatively safe critical topics like the Ramkhamhaeng inscription. His rather dreary History was republished basically unchanged…. So maybe this is the wrong place to look for critical and interesting scholarship or even commentary.
I am sorry to have attempted to inject some rationality into this discussion. From now on I will stick to reading the works of David Chandler and others who have taken the time and made the effort to seriously understand what they are writing about. Best regards to all, Don
Don, initially I thought your view reflected a myopic Eurocentric paradigmatic of what history means. You are clearly not Khmer, yet you talk as though you have some sort of affinity with Khmer people beyond the superficial! Consequently I now assume that I am simply projecting my mypopic, Eurocentric view and that you have already immigrated and began educating Cambodian people! I’m sure then that I am reading what you are writing in the entirely wrong way and that you really have a sound universal appreciation for the human condition rather than the faux one I saw here!
Republican #26: I heartily agree that Paul Handley should be given a prize. He’s done a wonderful & very courageous thing.
A few academics have said stuff like ‘doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know before..’ (sour grapes?), but the fact is they haven’t been telling us, have they? Why is this? Well, Thai Studies academics need access to their field. The thais are obviously terribly thin-skinned, & given to denying visas (not to mention more horrible punishments) to those who offend them.
I don’t think it’s very fair to criticize academics from Thammasat in this regard. Thai gaols are hideous places and sentences can be very long (“life” can be literally that, and judges do seem to be able to award whatever sentence they like), always assuming that such an offender got to live long enough to go through the peculiar process known as the Thai System of Justice.
Further, there are obvious advantages to having a work of this type written by a person who has not grown up within the Thai culture, or, especially, been educated within the Thai education system, such as it is.
I was thinking about all this a few days ago, before I read the interview, & wondering if David Wyatt has left anything to be published posthumously.He must surely have come up with all sorts of interesting stuff that was impossible to publish while he maintained his links with the Thais…
One problem for farangs in Thailand is that the Thai social behaviour is so damned seductive, even though we know that all the sycophancy and obsequiousness is a major part of the destructive system of cultural elements that keeps Thais in chains. We value the relationships we form with the few (usually) properly educated Thai academics who are not caught up in the cycle of bare-faced mendacity & revisionism that is the norm, and we don’t want to embarrass or endanger them.
Carelus : “…colonising the indigenous imagination of the Thais…”! Good heavens! Is that what Handley is trying to do? I thought he was attempting to fill in a very serious gap in the world’s knowledge of Thai history by writing a responsibly researched account of the life & times of the most influential figure in the country’s last 61 years. As a scientist you should be able to appreciate that investigators in other fields hold the truth to be a worthwhile pursuit.
The notion that Westerners should protect those of other less-developed cultures from basic information about the forces at work in their lives because it may demystify is patronising in the extreme.
I sincerely hope that the book will be translated & made available for Thais to download …sorry – no royalties in that. If Thai people are ever going to break out of the disgusting feudalism that is their lot, they need to understand how they are being deluded. Good onyer, Handley, say I.
I am glad to hear that S0phea appreciates the work of David Chandler after all. But Cambodians have to come to terms with the fact that the Khmer Rouge were Khmer and stop creating diversions by trying to shift the blame to others. Wherever the weapons came from it was Khmer who used them (often the weapons used by the KR to kill other Khmer were no more than shovels or iron bars in any case not sophisticated military devices) and all Cambodians need to recognize that. They could start by teaching the history of the Khmer Rouge period in Cambodian schools, which is not now the case, largely becasue the whole issue is so controversial among Cambodians that they cannot deal with it in a straightforward manner. No one can learn from history in such an atmosphere and Cambodians especially have a lot to learn. Possibly the Khmer Rouge Tribunal now underway will help to change this situation, as Dr. Chandler suggests in his interview. I hope this proves to be the case, for the sake of Cambodia and its future.
I am not here to criticize Dr. Chandler, in fact, we appreciat what he has done for Cambodia by writing many books pertaining to Cambodia or the least Dr. Chandler has put Cambodia back on the world map again. Since Khmer Rouge came to power, Cambodia has vanished from the outside world. There is nothing worth mentioning in that horrible or genocidal regime. To describe in short…it is the darkest day for all Cambodians as well as the gruesome pictures that have painted by the Khmer Rouge. This horrible regime is not that much different from what Hitler did to the Jews. The point I am debating is Dr. Chandler should write about the torture to which the Khmer Rouge did to Cambodian people…just like the recorded history of what Hitler to the Jews. Not just dug up some graves and recovered those bones and trying to come to realization of how many Cambodian have been perished by the hands of a few.
Cambodia, as a country did not want to get involve with war between its neighbors, but the war in Southeast Asia did not just appear on the surface without tangibility. If you try to understand the insightful or indept of the problems about Cambodia, you have to realize that Cambodia is not a modern state or country. The question is…where did those bombs, granades, AK 47, artilleries, tanks, and those huge amount of ammunitions got into Cambodia and placed into the hand of the Khmer Rouge. It is about money being made by the Super Power exchanging money and blood of the innocense. I did not say that Cambodian leaders did not have anything to do with it, but I am saying that these weapons rather than a catalyst to peace, instead, it became something that did more harm than good…and Cambodia surely is not a country who responsible for these weapons.
There are more to say, but let’s just leave it at that. Finally, I have alot of respect for Dr. Chandler just as much as I have revere for those who love peace and propagate the philosophy of peace.
Most of the above comments about David Chandler and his work are ridiculous as well as irrelevant. His volumious work on Cambodian history has filled what until a few years ago was a great void. When I first became interested in Cambodia in 1969 as a Foreign Service Officer assigned there to serve as political officer in the newly reopened American Embassy there were only a handful of books avalable on Cambodia, most of them about the Angkor Empire or singing the praises of Prince Sihanouk’s magnificent leadership qualities. The latter, it soon became evident, were quite misguided and the former of only marginal interest in understanding modern Cambodia. David Chandler was the first to seriously begin filling this void and in a real sense has created a benchmark against which nearly all other scholarship on Cambodia must be measured. Cambodians, who generally have a very poor and quite selective knowledge of their own history, love to criticize him for elucidating the troubled times which Cambodia has experienced over the past 500 years and trying to place them in a perspective that is relevant to those trying to understand Cambodia today. In fact when queried most of the Cambodians who criticize Chandler’s work admit that he is the main souce of whatever knowledge they have about their country’s past. This is perhaps the greatest tribute to his contribution, for which all Cambodians, and others interested in learning about the country, owe him a great debt.
According to a report in Krungthep Thurakit (Nov. 11), the National Legislative Assembly, on Octo. 31, passed amendments to the Local Administration Act that abolishes the kamnan elections, and keeps both village and sub-district headmen in office until they reach age 60. Kamnan will be selected in a meeting of the chief district officer with the village headmen of the tambon. After every five years, there will be “evaluations” (that will probably translate into “kin”)
The vote was 82:1:1 — which makes one wonder where the remaining members of the 250-seat NLA were on the occasion of this very important decision.
One might recall in this context that Gen Sonthi as de-facto interior minister and chairperson of the government’s anti-vote buying committee has envisaged the kamnan and villaged heads as main actors in preventing vote buying in their respective areas.
So, just in time, the law was changed. This was like telling them: “Hey, we have helped you with what you wanted, now you help us with what we want, all right guys?”
Thus, this legal change becomes yet another tool in the coup plotters attempt to prevent the TRT/PPP from returning to power.
One might also recall that the introduction of periodic elections was achieved under another coup-government, i.e. the NPKC’s Anand Panyarachun. The Ministry of the Interior and many headmen have been unhappy ever since.
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 themselve could possibly comment on the subject. I myself have been in the regime and lived through it. Lost many relatives and a brother who I love dearly. Unfortunately, Ho Chi Minh is deceased, should he is still alive I bet you there would not be any Khmer Rouge…it may just be a Khmer Viet Minh. Cambodia has been used as pawn on a chess board played by the Super Power, in this case they’d be the former Soviet and China while Vietnam is the chariot. Every Cambodians know quite well the pre-emt threat against Cambodia and the intended swallowing of Cambodia entirety. We believe in karma and what goes around will come around…only time will tell.
I can understand Jon’s vehement objection, but he is overly emotional without undertanding the logic of the statement:
historian + Cambodia + English + West тЙа Cambodians (otherwise they could be Khmer-American or Khmer-Australian) nor French (who insist, as expected in writing in French, even in their present day consultancy documents to advise Khmer bureaucrats).
I can imagine the smile in Chandler’s face with all those descriptions, but I don’t think he pursued them relentlessly as if they’re the bar of his intellectual existence.
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Sydney Burma rally
Aha! Proof that Andrew is in the pay of both Thaksin and Marty Simpson!
O, is there no depth to your mercenary rapaciousness?
The King Never Smiles?
“So Do Not TOUCH him anymore.” >> Why would you want to go farther than the King himself? If you were really loyal to him, you should follow the King’s famous statement, “I can be criticized.”
Sydney Burma rally
Ohhh… Andrew, next thing you will be telling us which AF candidate to vote for.
The King Never Smiles?
A few month ago, my husband had talked with the soldier who has a high rand and is working in the northern part which people has very income.He said that about 30 years ago when our king was on helicopter, he noticed a temple with is not in a map.The king wanted to kow , how the monks and people nearby lived, then he asked the pilot to land on a field. He travelled with quee Sirikit and maj.gen prem.Our king and queen were waiting in helicopter while Mr. Prem walked across the field to find a car. Would you who touch our king do this.We did’nt have a concret road at that time,and is hard to walk across the field. He can stay in a palace , does’t need to see with his eyes how his people live.Everyone is not perfect.His project has developped faster than the government do. So Do Not TOUCH him anymore.
Interview with Professor David Chandler
Sorry I got etic and emic the wrong way round. When a history hasn’t been emically accepted how can it be etically dissected???**
Interview with Professor David Chandler
Don’t be offended Don, but when a history hasn’t been etically accepted how can it be emically dissected??? I think there needs to be a lexical order because otherwise it seems as though we are telling people their history which I think is a little bit strange. As equally strange as Cambodians judging that we Westerners, if we could, would all like to be “served their hamburgers and budweisers by the best known bar girls in the city” because its historically what happened.
I’m not knocking Professor Chandlers work (for which I have only read chapters and sections) but I do believe that it and other histories can only really serve as a launch pad for people to be more interested in Cambodia rather than some sort of definitive work that is to be used as a source of education for Cambodians.
just another mongoloid hominoid,
Grasshopper.
Interview with Professor David Chandler
Perhaps I am one of the few here old enough to remember the days when Dr. Chandler’s books and articles on Cambodia were nearly the only resources on the subject available for inquiring minds written in English. Sure there were plenty of articles in French academic journals, but I doubt that most of them have been translated to this day. Vickery’s books came out a bit later in the mid 1980s if memory serves me correctly. It is little wonder that his peers during those more spartan years of Southeast Asian scholarship in the English speaking west would heap high praise upon the man, a brief verbal click of the heels and a tip of the hat, deserved praise in my opinion.
As for Sophea’s statement, ” Only those who have been in the organization themselves could possibly comment on the subject, I think it is important for outsiders to look inside history and culture as the participants will always be blinded in some spots by that old school, and I am old school, emics vs etics distinction. There is a complimentary need for both outside observation and participant reflections.
And Jon, let me add that the old 4th of July picnics at the US Consulate in Chiang Mai use to be a real hoot with the few resident Americans at the time , an odd mix of missionaries, free lance teachers, and gnarly eccentrics rubbing elbows with the Provincial governor and other local bigwigs who were unaware they were being served their hamburgers and Budweisers by the best known bar girls in the city courtesy of the Consulate staff.
Interview with Paul Handley
Good points indeed landofsnarls. Just for information, I know that some chapters have been translated into Thai and are circulating. I received a couple of the chapters from an anonymous emailer just last weekend .
Your question about Wyatt is interesting. But he never did write anything that I can recall that was especially critical of anything in Thailand. I’m not sure he wanted to see anything that was critical. I don’t recall (and I may well be wrong) anything on even relatively safe critical topics like the Ramkhamhaeng inscription. His rather dreary History was republished basically unchanged…. So maybe this is the wrong place to look for critical and interesting scholarship or even commentary.
Interview with Professor David Chandler
I am sorry to have attempted to inject some rationality into this discussion. From now on I will stick to reading the works of David Chandler and others who have taken the time and made the effort to seriously understand what they are writing about. Best regards to all, Don
Interview with Professor David Chandler
Don, initially I thought your view reflected a myopic Eurocentric paradigmatic of what history means. You are clearly not Khmer, yet you talk as though you have some sort of affinity with Khmer people beyond the superficial! Consequently I now assume that I am simply projecting my mypopic, Eurocentric view and that you have already immigrated and began educating Cambodian people! I’m sure then that I am reading what you are writing in the entirely wrong way and that you really have a sound universal appreciation for the human condition rather than the faux one I saw here!
Interview with Paul Handley
Republican #26: I heartily agree that Paul Handley should be given a prize. He’s done a wonderful & very courageous thing.
A few academics have said stuff like ‘doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know before..’ (sour grapes?), but the fact is they haven’t been telling us, have they? Why is this? Well, Thai Studies academics need access to their field. The thais are obviously terribly thin-skinned, & given to denying visas (not to mention more horrible punishments) to those who offend them.
I don’t think it’s very fair to criticize academics from Thammasat in this regard. Thai gaols are hideous places and sentences can be very long (“life” can be literally that, and judges do seem to be able to award whatever sentence they like), always assuming that such an offender got to live long enough to go through the peculiar process known as the Thai System of Justice.
Further, there are obvious advantages to having a work of this type written by a person who has not grown up within the Thai culture, or, especially, been educated within the Thai education system, such as it is.
I was thinking about all this a few days ago, before I read the interview, & wondering if David Wyatt has left anything to be published posthumously.He must surely have come up with all sorts of interesting stuff that was impossible to publish while he maintained his links with the Thais…
One problem for farangs in Thailand is that the Thai social behaviour is so damned seductive, even though we know that all the sycophancy and obsequiousness is a major part of the destructive system of cultural elements that keeps Thais in chains. We value the relationships we form with the few (usually) properly educated Thai academics who are not caught up in the cycle of bare-faced mendacity & revisionism that is the norm, and we don’t want to embarrass or endanger them.
Interview with Paul Handley
Carelus : “…colonising the indigenous imagination of the Thais…”! Good heavens! Is that what Handley is trying to do? I thought he was attempting to fill in a very serious gap in the world’s knowledge of Thai history by writing a responsibly researched account of the life & times of the most influential figure in the country’s last 61 years. As a scientist you should be able to appreciate that investigators in other fields hold the truth to be a worthwhile pursuit.
The notion that Westerners should protect those of other less-developed cultures from basic information about the forces at work in their lives because it may demystify is patronising in the extreme.
I sincerely hope that the book will be translated & made available for Thais to download …sorry – no royalties in that. If Thai people are ever going to break out of the disgusting feudalism that is their lot, they need to understand how they are being deluded. Good onyer, Handley, say I.
Interview with Professor David Chandler
I am glad to hear that S0phea appreciates the work of David Chandler after all. But Cambodians have to come to terms with the fact that the Khmer Rouge were Khmer and stop creating diversions by trying to shift the blame to others. Wherever the weapons came from it was Khmer who used them (often the weapons used by the KR to kill other Khmer were no more than shovels or iron bars in any case not sophisticated military devices) and all Cambodians need to recognize that. They could start by teaching the history of the Khmer Rouge period in Cambodian schools, which is not now the case, largely becasue the whole issue is so controversial among Cambodians that they cannot deal with it in a straightforward manner. No one can learn from history in such an atmosphere and Cambodians especially have a lot to learn. Possibly the Khmer Rouge Tribunal now underway will help to change this situation, as Dr. Chandler suggests in his interview. I hope this proves to be the case, for the sake of Cambodia and its future.
Interview with Professor David Chandler
To Don,
I am not here to criticize Dr. Chandler, in fact, we appreciat what he has done for Cambodia by writing many books pertaining to Cambodia or the least Dr. Chandler has put Cambodia back on the world map again. Since Khmer Rouge came to power, Cambodia has vanished from the outside world. There is nothing worth mentioning in that horrible or genocidal regime. To describe in short…it is the darkest day for all Cambodians as well as the gruesome pictures that have painted by the Khmer Rouge. This horrible regime is not that much different from what Hitler did to the Jews. The point I am debating is Dr. Chandler should write about the torture to which the Khmer Rouge did to Cambodian people…just like the recorded history of what Hitler to the Jews. Not just dug up some graves and recovered those bones and trying to come to realization of how many Cambodian have been perished by the hands of a few.
Cambodia, as a country did not want to get involve with war between its neighbors, but the war in Southeast Asia did not just appear on the surface without tangibility. If you try to understand the insightful or indept of the problems about Cambodia, you have to realize that Cambodia is not a modern state or country. The question is…where did those bombs, granades, AK 47, artilleries, tanks, and those huge amount of ammunitions got into Cambodia and placed into the hand of the Khmer Rouge. It is about money being made by the Super Power exchanging money and blood of the innocense. I did not say that Cambodian leaders did not have anything to do with it, but I am saying that these weapons rather than a catalyst to peace, instead, it became something that did more harm than good…and Cambodia surely is not a country who responsible for these weapons.
There are more to say, but let’s just leave it at that. Finally, I have alot of respect for Dr. Chandler just as much as I have revere for those who love peace and propagate the philosophy of peace.
“You can work hard…but work smart.”
Thank You
Sophea Thon
Interview with Professor David Chandler
Most of the above comments about David Chandler and his work are ridiculous as well as irrelevant. His volumious work on Cambodian history has filled what until a few years ago was a great void. When I first became interested in Cambodia in 1969 as a Foreign Service Officer assigned there to serve as political officer in the newly reopened American Embassy there were only a handful of books avalable on Cambodia, most of them about the Angkor Empire or singing the praises of Prince Sihanouk’s magnificent leadership qualities. The latter, it soon became evident, were quite misguided and the former of only marginal interest in understanding modern Cambodia. David Chandler was the first to seriously begin filling this void and in a real sense has created a benchmark against which nearly all other scholarship on Cambodia must be measured. Cambodians, who generally have a very poor and quite selective knowledge of their own history, love to criticize him for elucidating the troubled times which Cambodia has experienced over the past 500 years and trying to place them in a perspective that is relevant to those trying to understand Cambodia today. In fact when queried most of the Cambodians who criticize Chandler’s work admit that he is the main souce of whatever knowledge they have about their country’s past. This is perhaps the greatest tribute to his contribution, for which all Cambodians, and others interested in learning about the country, owe him a great debt.
New Mandala’s election watch
According to a report in Krungthep Thurakit (Nov. 11), the National Legislative Assembly, on Octo. 31, passed amendments to the Local Administration Act that abolishes the kamnan elections, and keeps both village and sub-district headmen in office until they reach age 60. Kamnan will be selected in a meeting of the chief district officer with the village headmen of the tambon. After every five years, there will be “evaluations” (that will probably translate into “kin”)
The vote was 82:1:1 — which makes one wonder where the remaining members of the 250-seat NLA were on the occasion of this very important decision.
One might recall in this context that Gen Sonthi as de-facto interior minister and chairperson of the government’s anti-vote buying committee has envisaged the kamnan and villaged heads as main actors in preventing vote buying in their respective areas.
So, just in time, the law was changed. This was like telling them: “Hey, we have helped you with what you wanted, now you help us with what we want, all right guys?”
Thus, this legal change becomes yet another tool in the coup plotters attempt to prevent the TRT/PPP from returning to power.
One might also recall that the introduction of periodic elections was achieved under another coup-government, i.e. the NPKC’s Anand Panyarachun. The Ministry of the Interior and many headmen have been unhappy ever since.
Interview with Professor David Chandler
What French historians?
Interview with Professor David Chandler
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 themselve could possibly comment on the subject. I myself have been in the regime and lived through it. Lost many relatives and a brother who I love dearly. Unfortunately, Ho Chi Minh is deceased, should he is still alive I bet you there would not be any Khmer Rouge…it may just be a Khmer Viet Minh. Cambodia has been used as pawn on a chess board played by the Super Power, in this case they’d be the former Soviet and China while Vietnam is the chariot. Every Cambodians know quite well the pre-emt threat against Cambodia and the intended swallowing of Cambodia entirety. We believe in karma and what goes around will come around…only time will tell.
Sophea Thon
Interview with Professor David Chandler
I can understand Jon’s vehement objection, but he is overly emotional without undertanding the logic of the statement:
historian + Cambodia + English + West тЙа Cambodians (otherwise they could be Khmer-American or Khmer-Australian) nor French (who insist, as expected in writing in French, even in their present day consultancy documents to advise Khmer bureaucrats).
I can imagine the smile in Chandler’s face with all those descriptions, but I don’t think he pursued them relentlessly as if they’re the bar of his intellectual existence.
Locked up in Burma
[…] in October I made a post about the detention of political activists and their supporters after the recent uprising in […]