Domestic and Cross-Border Politics

I recently went with some members of my Rotary club to a refugee camp on the Thai/Burma (Myanmar) border, where we were managing a project. It was extraordinary to appreciate again how different the two countries are. At one point we went to a temple, half of which was recently moved by international agreement to the Myanmar side of the border. Once the border dispute was settled, the Myanmar authorities destroyed the village on their side and forced the Shan villagers to flee to Thailand. The army took over the concrete temple buildings and filled them with soldiers. The border now bristles with these people, who have also laid land mines just inside their country. It's hard to believe the cruelty of the Burmese government to its ethnic (for example, Shan) minorities. This kind of thing is routine. On the positive side, a sort of "normal" life has been created in the camp compliments of the Buddhist temple and an NGO. The people live in single-family thatched bamboo huts, the kids receive a basic education at the nearby temple, many of the women receive vocational training like dressmaking and crafts, and the men and some of the younger women go off to the fields to pick chillies or whatever happens to be in season. Of course, they do not have Thai citizenship so their movements are at the discretion of the Thai officials. Who knows what the future holds for them, but at least for now they don't have to live in fear. An Australian man, Laurie Maund, is the advocate for these people. Among many other accomplishments, Laurie is a driving force behind education for AIDS prevention in Northern Thailand and across the border. He spent many years as a traveling monk (no home and no possessions except for an umbrella which served as a shelter) in Isaan in northeastern Thailand. For my wife and me, Thailand now has much of the feeling of home. Still, the cultural differences are many, and profound. In particular, Thais see the world quite differently from the way we view it in the West. We have both read (and observed) a great deal that deals with this topic. Here is our quick summary and general observations: Westerners see things as rather black and white, while East Asians see them as heavily nuanced by relationships. Beliefs in the equality of man and in human rights are very real in the west. In east Asia, patron-client relationships are more important. And the immediate family is an incredibly powerful social unit. As I wrote to my friends in Canada last August,

the political situation here is an incredible mess!!! Although the country is actually running fairly smoothly. Thailand has not had a functioning government since February. That's when the breathtakingly corrupt prime minister and his cronies in government finally reached a level of corruption even Thailand couldn't handle. After weeks of mass protests and a rigged snap election that the opposition parties boycotted (the key members of the country's Election Commission were later thrown in jail for this travesty), the courts overturned the election and demanded a new one. It will probably be held in October. Until then, the country is unable to make serious policy decisions. Not only that, the courts are now considering whether to order Thailand's former governing political party disbanded! Thailand is in the odd situation of being under rule by the law, rather than of the law. The good news about all this, of course, is that the country has resorted to the courts rather than the military to solve its problems. This reflects a rather impressive political maturity for this part of the world. After all, the last coup in this country came only 14 years ago, and like many of the others it involved a great deal of civilian blood being shed.

Thailand's most recent putsch came barely one month later, turning these words into ashes in the mouth. The coup may have been justifiable, since the previous government was indeed corrupt. However, its successor has shown itself to be incompetent. The political situation is still a mess, and Thailand's political, social and economic lives all suffer. There is still a great deal of blood being spilled in this country, but it is mostly limited to the three (Muslim) southernmost provinces. A tragic, shadowy insurgency has been going on down there for three and a half years, and both governments have ham-handedly handled it from the start. People are being killed by both the terrorism of the insurgents and nastiness of the military, who waltz over western concepts of human rights. Unless there's a particularly horrific incident, the almost daily killings are covered on the inside pages of the Bangkok Post.

The Tragedy of Cambodia

The last century has been uniquely unkind to Cambodia, whose recent history has little of redeeming value. It began with French conquest, and the French were among Europe’s worst colonial masters. Then came partial conquest by Thailand and Japanese occupation during world war two. Fifteen years of corrupt rulers followed.

Then the country found itself caught up in the Indochinese War, with military rulers. When the US lost the war, Pol Pot and the murderous, genocidal Khmer Rouge took over. Apart from the killing and death, their policies destroyed the very foundations of civil society. They emptied the cities; they killed or forced into exile their educated citizenry, burned books and stopped formal education; they banned religion; they weakened the family; in total, they killed a fifth of the population. They ruled by terror.

Then, thankfully, the Vietnamese invaded and occupied the country. Since their departure (brokered by the UN and international diplomacy), the country has remained an economic basket case governed by another string of uneducated and uninspired men. The present leader, Hun Sen, was a bigwig with the Khmer Rouge before (to his credit) shifting allegiances and helping organize the Vietnamese conquest. The recent coronation of a western-educated king may be a ray of hope, however faint.

So it is to the ancient past, not the present, that you need to look for inspiration in Cambodia. Siem Reap is fantastic. This is the part of the country that hosts Angkor Wat and dozens of other huge and magnificent temples. Most were Hindu, but many were Buddhist. Constructed in the jungle, they were later reclaimed by the jungle, too. Angkor is unquestionably one of the wonders of the world. I began reading about Angkor Wat as a boy, and have read much about it since, but I was still quite amazed. Each of the many temples we saw was a marvel in its own right, but Angkor is unquestionably one of the wonders of the world.

We began our adventure by flying to Bangkok, then caught a bus to a Thai border town. We crossed into this tragic country at Poiphet, and there we rented a car. The Lonely Planet describes Cambodian roads as the worst in Asia and among the worst in the world. This is no exaggeration. It took us six hours to make about 150 kilometres in a Toyota Camry.

We eventually arrived in Siem Reap, in the region that hosts Angkor Wat and dozens of other huge and magnificent temples. Most are Hindu, some are Buddhist. They were constructed in the jungle, and later reclaimed by the jungle, too.

Archaeological studies of Angkor Wat have suggested some remarkable things. For example, it is the only temple in the area that you enter from the west – by tradition, the direction of death. Why? After more than a century of debate, in 1977 archaeologist Eleanor Mannika may have cracked the code. Using a traditional Khmer unit of measure, she calculated that the distances to key places in the temple correlated precisely with the years in the Hindu notion of the four ages of time, the yugas of the universe.

As historian David Chandler explains, these distances may be, in effect, “a kind of pun that can be read in terms of time and space….(Walking into the temple) from the west, which is the direction of death, the visitor moves backward into time, approaching the moment when the Indians proposed that time began.” By this interpretation, the central tower, which once housed a now-vanished a statue of Shiva, represented the beginning of time - the golden age of the Krita Yuga. As you depart this sanctum and leave the temple, you are walking toward the Kali Yuga - the present era - at the end of which the universe will be destroyed.

From Siem Reap we took the "ferry" (a wooden boat equipped with a diesel engine from a pick-up truck) to Battambang, Cambodia's second city. The trip along the Tonle Sap ("Great Lake") and up the river was fascinating. It took about six hours - one more than it should have - because the boat's steering system gave up on us half way. The very inventive crew made a fix that took us to our destination, however, and the view of both bird and village life along the way was quite amazing.

We thought we were pretty inured to the sight of poverty after Thailand, but we were shocked by what we saw in Cambodia. The country’s many recent tragedies have set the people’s living standards back to those of the 1920s.

Cambodians are trying to put their past behind them and look to the future, yet their children know little and are not being told about the atrocities committed in their country. The country is taking no serious effort to bring those responsible to book. In our view, the country is crying out for a process of truth and reconciliation. On a positive note, in one village we saw quite a fine school, and there is a medical ferry that delivers care to the people who live in villages along the river.

Except for the temples and the ferry trip, my most vivid memory is a visit to a food stall in the town of Sisiphon. The most prominent offerings included a grilled snake; skewered, roasted bats; and a variety of similarly prepared creepy-crawly cuisine. Various insects, land crabs, small skewered frogs and toads and other ghastly things were among the specials of the day. We bought bottled water and moved on.

Battambang is a desperately poor city filled with wonderful people. Few spoke English, but we found our Thai quite helpful. (Thai and Cambodian are quite different languages, but we could usually find someone who spoke Thai - just as you might fairly easily find someone who speaks Russian in Slovakia.).

We ended our trip by hiring a driver to take us back to Poiphet, thence home to Thailand. By this route the roads were much better, and the 85-kilometre trip only took three hours. Our driver had effective English, and during the trip told us quite vividly how the Khmer Rouge killed almost everyone in his family. Only a sister survived, and the two of them didn't reconnect (through UN efforts) until 15 years later. His commentary was riveting, and emotional. As he talked, I looked out the car window at the throngs in the villages and noticed how few old people (even our age) were there.

Most Cambodians who would have been my contemporaries are gone. Did they die during the Khmer Rouge madness, or from the effects of poverty in the years since? Both, I think.

A Visit to Luang Prabang

“On 25, July, 1861 I came to Luang Prabang,” wrote French explorer Henri Mouhot. It is “a delightful little town, set in its amphitheatre of mountains… a paradise.” It is a good thing he liked it, because Mouhot died there soon after.

Fourteen decades later an American explorer, Edward Gargan, found that the town had retained its charm. “Dawn trickled into Luang Prabang in cobalt blues and mauves flecked with gold and coddled in a cocoon of mist. Before six o’clock, thuds of drums echoed in the distance, and from my balcony I watched silent processions of saffron-swaddled monks, wooden bowls cradled in their palms, pad toward the town center on their morning alms rounds….”

Luang Prabang, the ancient royal capitol of Laos, is situated on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers. It is astonishingly beautiful, and rather otherworldly.

Phu si, a ‘sacred mountain’ three hundred meters high, dominates the town. Shrouded in palm trees, bougainvillea and a riot of other tropical flowers, it is adorned with Buddhist shrines and surmounted by a wat (temple) with commanding views of the surrounding hills and rivers. Down below, next to the broad and muddy Mekong, is the former Royal Palace, set amid venerable, teak-built wats of jewel-like perfection, intricately painted in red and gold. The famous "floating roofs" of these buildings give the illusion of hovering - almost as though they do not touch the temple walls.

The City.... Luang Prabang has been designated a world heritage site by UNESCO. It is reputed to be the best-preserved city in South East Asia. There is an overwhelming sense here of anachronism; of a place out of time, in which seventeenth century wats easily and gracefully commingle with French colonial architecture.

The present impinges, of course, in certain things. I began writing this from an Internet cafe, a twenty-first century phenomenon. However, the two adjoining computer stations were occupied by orange robed Buddhist monks with shaven heads, identical in every respect to their sangha predecessors of the far distant past.

UNESCO has been responsible for a simple and quite clever improvement to this city. Since my last visit, many of the sidewalks and gutters have been replaced with brick pavements. In the rest of South East Asia, the pedestrian is condemned to walk along the roads, which is dangerous because of traffic. In Luang Prabang one can stroll along the riverbanks on wide brick walkways, enjoying diverse and beautiful prospects, and let the mind wander. On a crisp, cool January morning, this place is a walker’s paradise.

Unlike other cities in Southeast Asia, traffic has not taken over. Laos is one of the poorest countries on the planet, and while Luang Prabang is a prosperous enclave, affluence here runs to motorcycles, not SUVs. The humble bicycle is still commonplace in Luang Prabang.

....And its Story: Laos was a bit player in the ‘American War’, as it is called here – the Vietnam War, as it is known in the west. The country received its (massive) quota of B52 bombing runs, but mostly in the east of the country in the Plain of Jars and along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Few people know how relentlessly American bombers pounded Laos during the American War. In sheer tonnage, the explosive power of bombs dropped on Laos (2.092,900 tons) was greater than that of all the bombs the Americans hurled at Europe and Japan during world war two.

Luang Prabang was spared. Now and then, however, you may see a piece of old US ordinance – a bomb or an artillery shell – used as a planter or set out as decoration. This is almost like smiling at the horrors of the war. What other people could be so forgiving?

Following the American defeat, and inspired by the mindless fanaticism of China's Cultural Revolution (which was then just ending) the new Pathet Lao (communist) government made an effort to ban Buddhism. Their efforts failed utterly.

In the morning you can watch the monks, eyes lowered, on their alms rounds. Now and again one will see an alms giving beneath a red flag with the yellow hammer and sickle, the banner of the Lao communist party. It is as though the Laos have managed a harmonious fusion of Gotama’s ‘middle way’ with the classless society of the communist international. The net result is a sufficiency of things (just), and a remarkable degree of contentment. Despite the incompetence of one of the world's most secretive governments, everyone seems to have enough, and people appear to be happy.

The former Royal Palace has been converted into the National Museum. It contains the regalia of the Lao monarchy, and also, Buddha statues -- by the hundreds. Case after case displays Buddhas in gold, in silver, in rock crystal and bronze, some ancient, and many exquisite as works of art.

In a curious way the Laos calculate their national net worth in Buddhas. It is okay to export antiques from Laos, with the single exception of antique Buddhas. And one of the standard day trips out of Luang Prabang is the two-hour boat trip along the Mekong to the Pak Ou caves, in which for 500 years or more old or worn household Buddhas have been deposited. Now they stand in serried ranks by the thousands, gazing silently out at those who come to look and to wonder.

In the west we store our wealth in vaults (as at Fort Knox) to back our currencies; in Laos they store their wealth of Buddhas in natural caves to conserve the nation’s ‘good karma’.

An interesting exhibit at the National Museum is displayed in a case full of gifts from the United States to the Lao monarchy. It is a Lyndon Bains Johnson Presidential silver medal, presented to King Savang Vatthana in 1965 or so. It was Richard Nixon, four or five years later, who began the US bombing campaign against the ‘Viet Cong’ in Laos and Cambodia. With the triumph of the Pathet Lao in 1975, the king abdicated his throne, and that was the end of the monarchy. The new government later secretly (and savagely) executed the royal family.

Many French nationals visit Luang Prabang -- more, perhaps than from any other western country. This small city on the Mekong has enjoyed a special place in the French psyche ever since the glory days of French Indochina. Luang Prabang was a place for French colonial officials short on drive and ambition to secure a government posting and then disappear, often marrying Laos and ‘going native’. I think Luang Prabang conjures visions for the French that are comparable to their images of Gauguin’s Tahiti.

Lingua Franca: Sadly for the French visiting now, they have to place their restaurant orders in English. Even in this storied outpost of French Indochina, few Laotians speak French. A Lao taxi driver I met, fluent in both English and French, was snickering over an exchange he had with some French passengers. While speaking with them he pretended to understand only English. And he understood perfectly when they expressed their outrage in French over his unbecoming and historically bizarre ignorance of la belle langue.

Unlike in neighbouring countries, there is no sex tourism in Laos. I understand that this kind of ‘fraternisation’ is illegal here, and certainly no one has offered me a woman (or child). A waiter practicing his English yesterday expressed his pride that Lao women are becomingly modest, wearing, for example, decently long skirts. But then, officially communist countries do tend to exhibit a puritan streak.

To see in practice the active steps taken by the Lao Government to combat sex tourism, one need look no further than the back of the door of any guesthouse room, where a midnight curfew is prominently posted on a highly official, stamped and sealed document. This directive is posted on government authority. It includes other regulations promoting austerity. Some are directed at discouraging sex tourism; others at prohibiting other forms of immoral behaviour. Examples:

• “Disallow to apply another dopes and betting in the guest house.”

• “Awesome received or lead the guests in to your room before you get allowed from the staff.”

• “If ay one to perform this regulation will get pendalty to put on trial by the law.”

Imagine being a French visitor to this outpost of France’s glorious past, and, by way of having insult added to injury, having to decipher such English as this!