Us = Cambodia, Them = Vietnam
on Phnom Penh Pal (Cambodia), 28/Dec/2013 14:13, 34 days ago
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", beingJames 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 nameYuon.The Cambodian opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, hasconsistently decried the influence of theYuon 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 afilm 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