Angkor, Poverty and Democracy

Angkor, Poverty and Democracy
A Very Brief Portrait of Cambodia


Chamroen

Poverty


Reflection


Angkor Wat


Arriving at Phonm Penh Airport



The gang on the top of the boat



Phonm Penh
January 1,
We arrived in Phonm Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Slightly, first impression was just like other countries that were under developed, the country fighting for its development. We stayed at Sunway Hotel downtown across from US Ambassy. The city has the central park precisely in the downtown of the city and it’s only couple meters from the Sunway. I, Sou Yan, Adriana and Aleyama went there and soon I found that Buddhism and poverty at the same time showed their faces.

In the afternoon, we traveled on the Mekong River by boat. It was beautiful to see the sunset there. It’s likely the travel was time for reflection; to be down to earth of the issues we talked in classes. Then we went to the Chamroen’s temple. The master of the temple explained more about the religious organization. Majority of the Cambodian people are buddhist. The religious organization takes role for education and of course the key role for teaching budhism to its people.

Then we went back to hotel. First surprising for me was when I had dinner in one of the local restaurants closed to the hotel. While I was waiting for my meal, there was a child selling cricket. I first saw that and I could not believe it when the local people ate the cricket as just like other snacks. Man.. I was completely surprised. To fulfill my surprise, I bought four the fried crickets to show to others.

Peter, my roomate, was not surprised at all. He’s been in Thailand and other countries surrounded and vistied Cambodia couple times so that didn’t surprised him. But still I could not believe that. The next morning, he tried to take it down when we had breakfast and it surprised some of the fellows.

January 2,
I sarted to know Cambodia. The meeting was attended by Kol Pheng, Ministry of Education, Cambodian Center for Human Right, Panhavuth Long; Cambodia Justice Initiative, Jeff Daigle; Representative of US Ambassador and Senator Thacth Sitha. I found what’s going on here then. First fact was that the Director of the Human Right Comssion, Kem Sokha, was arrested by the Hun Sen’s Government. It was a big news here and surprising. This fact is enough to show the life of the democracy of Cambodia. He was arrested for alleging that he was responsible for the one of the writings in the banner they supported. Someone wrote that is unpleasant the government. And then he was put in jail for that. Simple as that. But from this, you can have something in mind what the democracy looks like here.

Other interesting one was the documentary film entitled Deacon of Death. Chan Theary is a Cambodian’s NGO activist. The film was about the peaceful conflict resolution after the Kmer Roug killing millions of people under the revolution movement led by Pol Pot. The point there was about the reconsiliation of the people of the countries. She was involved in the documentray film as one of the player and it was huge encourage to do that job. I really appreciated what she did.


Night’s Discovery
The night time was for discovery, to find out the life of Cambodian people. Peter knew the corner of the places and then took me to the bars. We passed two bars there and I saw the facts of night life there. Very young women were every where. We took some beers, hanging around for a while and went back to hotel. I was thinking of those facts and its relationship with education and poverty. I never saw these facts on the roundtable. This really opened my eyes the real meaning of lack education, poverty, prostitute involving very young girl, the families living on the street and at the same time tourism.

The next day, we departed from Phonm Phen to Siem Riep over the land. We saw and witness the poverty there. We stopped by the bridge built on almost 900 years old. A contradictory of history of a nation. Cambodian might be proud of the bridge. It showed that once it was a great country.

Siem Riep

Siem Riep was like an urban girl making up. It’s tourism industry is growing. One of the most popular destination was the temple or angkor. Angkor means capital. The most famous was Angkor Wat which was built in the Jayavarman the 2nd. This angkor was huge. I can imagine how big this kingdom was. And actually, this kingdom was once very powerful in past and yet occupied almost all the regions surrounding from Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and so on. Tragically, Cambodia now was a small country of those and was left behind than the other countries surroundings.

Other interesting fact was Cambodia has its floating villages. It was interesting how the nature phenomenon built the society. The houses or village built was very dependable on the water (lake). It’s amazing. And at the same time, again, poverty showed its real face there.

Again actualy, Cambodia has its huge potential. Tourism could make the country prosperous. Thousands of visitors every day to the temple and to Phonm Penh. Scott said it’s kind of oil in the middle east. It can be a source of income of the country without sacrificing much. Somehow, as I always believe that sometimes the problem is not because the country has its own resource or not but how to utilize the source for the benefit of its people. Very often, what happen with the under developed countries were the corrupted government that take rid of the all potential for their vested interested, for their groups. To be rich as quick as possible by sacrificing the welfare of its people. Hun Sen government showed that.

There was a question when we had reflection by the pool last night. What economy model is suitable for Cambodia? Free market or non-free market? I obviously opposed the idea of free market in Cambodia. Simple reason is free market with the corrupted government, without transparancy, democracy and respect on human right will be a disaster. When people are banned to have freedom expression, even if they can build jungle of building, it will only be a bubble economy. It’s fake and sooner or later in such situation, the economy can collapse easily. I think what Indonesia experienced under Soeharto Regime showing that.

At the reflection, I think we only understand the very complex of the real problems when we talked about poverty, power and leadership), bubble economy, tourism and things in classess. This study tour revealed the complexity. And we also understand that no any change over night. Chamroen kept explaining what happen as he saw it different now. Again, there is always that can be done. There is always. Perhaps not a spectacular and very sophisticated thing but at least there is always. I suggested to give more scholarship to Cambodian people in the next year or trying to figure out any project in cooperation with other NGOs here or with the governments. And the very positive thing is that we have already started good network with Prince of Cambodia, Norodom Sirivudh. So? Yup, the only thing to do now is to figure out the plans and do it. I think EWC-APLP has capacity and capability to raise the fund for whatever program it might support there. Yes Nick, do it.


From Siem Riep we headed Khon Kaen stopped over in Bangkok.

Me

....