Quote, unquote

“A country without a memory is a country of madmen.”

George Santayana

“If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.”

Lord Acton

The phenomenon of anarchic settlements by illegal Vietnamese citizens across large swathes of the country's most important natural reservoir and fishing hub that is the Tonle Sap [Fresh Water Lake] constitutes a gross violation of international law on immigration and a naked infringement of its national territorial integrity. The natural abundance of the country's geography with the Great Lake at its heart and the Mekong its arteries had for thousands of years been what sustained its well-balanced economic cycle and surplus or well-being which contributed directly to the Khmers' flourishing civilisations and powerful political empire through successive kingdoms between the 1st and the 13th centuries, is now being threatened with over fishing and ecological stress and degradation linked to this phenomenon of floating mass human settlements upon the surface of this Lake itself. It is an unprecedented man-made corruption that poses the most grievous immediate and long term threat to millions of human lives who still largely depend on this natural ecosystem and cycle for survival. Strangely, the Cambodian authorities have so far managed to overlook this imminent threat despite its massive implications in social political terms: this is more than about international law or issues of nationalities; it concerns present and future livelihoods and survival prospects for all who inherit this land from their ancestors. Most Khmers had never resorted to living in such ‘floating settlements’ and in such great numbers: Khmers were and are mostly rice farmers who converge on the Lake and other fishing ports once harvest time is behind them to gather as much fermented fish [prahok] and dried or smoked fish as possible needed to form part of their basic staple diet of rice and fish. A few temporary seasonal floating settlements may form here and there, and most are confined to dry land [during dry season] on the edges [or 'mouth'] of the Lake or along many a river bank, but never on such a scale as to be considered floating urban conurbations [towns] in their own right! Compared to these anarchic settlements and the overall environmental degradation and lasting negative ecological and social impact they induce, the 'crime' committed by so many thousands of families at places like Boeung Kak and elsewhere throughout the kingdom for which the authorities have been resorting to the use of physical violence in enforcing evictions against these people who harm no one in particular, appears to pale in significance. - School of Vice   

All right, I know it's not deep enough inside Kampuchian territory yet, but for now let’s keep this one here lest we are seen to be overdoing it! And work hard to keep those Khmer "terrorists" away. I want our children and grand-children to relocate it further afield in their own successive generation until it reaches Preah Vihear, Poi Pet and beyond. After all, we paid for this stone! -  School of Vice