Photo: Travelpod
“Bpuu! Bpuu! Kgnom soam dtaow tribunals,” I say to the all-too-eager tuk tuk driver, individuals who are typically all-too-happy to drive foreigners anywhere.
My Khmer language skills after one month are OK, but it is still a work in progress. Still, I stand there boasting to the other drivers and motodops hovering around, impressed with myself that I remembered to say the one phrase I had practiced in my flat all morning.
“Huh?” was the reply I got, the driver looking at me as if I had three heads. Apparently, my linguistical hubris had gotten the better of me this time.
“I want to go to the tribunals,” I added in English.
“Yes, yes. I know,” replied the driver.
“No, no, no,” I quipped. I had seen this story before. “Do you know where to go? The Tribunals. Tribunals. Tribunals,” I repeated over and over again, trying to ensure my potential driver was not simply nodding in blissful ignorance as is the proclivity of such men in Phnom Penh.
“Wazz daaat,” said the tuk tuk man.
“You know, the Khmer Rouge Tribunals,” I offered.
Nothing. A blank stare and a smile. “You know Khmer Rouge. Tribunals. Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot. Pol Pot,” I offered.
Just then the conversation turned sour. All of the drivers around me seemed to recoil at the same time, as if watching some horrifying thing taking place in front of them. “Pol Pol? ECCC,” said one of the motodops, referring to the acronym of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the venue for where the trials have been taking place. “Why do you want to go there?”
I pulled out my business card and told him that I was a freelance journalist living in Cambodia for a while and that I wanted to observe a few days of court proceedings. I have since learned that mentioning Pol Pot by name to a most native Khmers – especially older ones – is almost akin to saying Voldermort’s name out loud in Diagon Alley. It is mentioned in hushed tones in quiet corners only when absolutely necessary. Moreover, it is all quite understandable: Khmer culture was largely destroyed by the murderous regime amid nearly two decades of irrational communist dictates and genocide.
Current Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge cadre himself, has been in his position of power since 1985, with a few brief interruptions due to instances of political uncertainty. He was handpicked by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) as a man they could do business with after the NVA overran the Khmer Rouge. During his time in charge, Cambodia has registered modest economic growth and ranks 121st in terms of GDP, according to the World Bank. It annually lags behind its neighbors and regional powerhouses Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia, and corruption is part and parcel of the political system.
However, most Cambodians I have talked with are as apolitical and indifferent as anywhere I have lived abroad. It fits into a theory I hold for most post-conflict, developing nations: as long as there is peace, most of the population will not care to change the political status quo despite a weak economy.
Maybe that is beginning to change in the 21st century as we have witnessed people powered revolutions sweep the globe. Maybe it is also beginning to change in Cambodia. In the capital, where the younger generations are becoming more educated, Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) is not as popular; Phnom Penh is the one province which the CPP failed to hold in the last elections which took place in July, 2008.
In the poorer provinces, however, the CPP remains the only viable choice for those who even bother to pay attention to the political process. In a country where per capita income is $2150 – worse than Timor-Leste, which is routinely cited as the poorest country in Asia – why is this so? The answer, I believe, is because for a country scarred not just by war, but by a calamity the scope of which can never be properly contextualized or empathized with by those of us who have never experienced such a catastrophe, peace is always preferred to economic success. One might be poor, but at least one has a family that has not been broken up or slaughtered because of conflict.
That may be why those tuk tuk drivers and motodops reacted so poorly when I said the name Pol Pot. That is an era which, while remembered properly out of respect to its victims, is better left alone in ordinary conversation. Cambodia had to undergo quite the transition over the past thirty years, and one of the issues greatly affected has been on the subject of political relevance. Every Cambodian knows about corruption: in the government, in the military, and in the police force. But it is a part of life here and accepted as such. Political apathy can sometimes lead to disaster; in Cambodia, it may one of the defining characteristics which makes the country as charming as it is now.
