Wednesday, 29 January 2014
Monday, 27 January 2014
Friday, 24 January 2014
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
Why the caged bird sings...
by School of Vice
They say you can't keep a good man down, and they are right. They say you can't deceive the wise, and they are right too. But, what we have before us all and been privileged enough to witness [if one may use that adjective 'privilege' to describe our shared good fortune in our life time under these otherwise less than happy of circumstances] is something quite truly extraordinary altogether and one that defies even our loftiest expectations of men out of what benign forces - of Nature or their Maker - are thus disposed to elevate them above the rest of mankind or their fellows.
And we are not even talking about a man, but a thoroughly simple woman with all her physical frailties; a young mother, a housewife with no grander worldly aspirations or political ambitions worthy of being nominated for an Oscar or prestigious global award, nor a woman who harbours economic opportunities of her own judging by the manner in which she immerses herself in the daily threat of arrest and random physical violence at the hands of the thugs on the streets who accompany her every move and keep her within their unrequited and obsessive gaze.
She has neither been catapulted to her present fame or renown by the conventional inclinations of a 'good man', nor the acquired wisdom through formal education better privileged among her sisters around the world can be said to have benefited from on their rise to public platform and prominence. On the contrary, her star quality is entirely unique and quite indefinable. Even among those of her sisters at home with slightly better economic means would have thought twice and hard in choosing to have their residence within the vicinity of Boeung Kak, a suburban 'slum' the authorities claim stands in the way of their vision of 'development' by means of powerful rotten officials and deep corporate pockets.
That quality is something that is found in her rather than given and which alone defines her person and marks her apart from her peers; that spark of divinity in her soul and the spiritual imprint of a saint that propel her above and beyond all the cultural impurities of her milieu and above all, the inhumanities of her fellow humans. Just listen to her pleading with authorities before she was physically snatched off her feet by a man in uniform and bundled into a police van and feel her agony and raw emotions - all spontaneous and unforced.
It is as if a great soul is being torn between the expectations of Heaven and the banal evil and cruelties of this world of ours.
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| Ms Tep Vanny making her acceptance speech at 'Vital Voices' award ceremony |
Post by Sam Rainsy.
Saturday, 18 January 2014
Cambodian legends rescued from the depths of obscurity
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| Cambodian village life during the years of French colonialism. PHOTO SUPPLIED |
Many years ago in Cambodia, a devious woman tricked a group of thieves into disposing of her lover’s corpse. Less than grateful, she subsequently sold them into slavery. When the gang escaped, they tracked down the woman and one admitted her shrewdness, which caused him to fall in love with her. So, naturally, she tricked him into French-kissing her, bit off his tongue and left him with the slaver.
This fable, called "Women’s Wiles", is a Khmer morality tale that has been handed down through the generations. It now appears as the first story of a newly translated anthology of old folk tales, also titled Women’s Wiles, with topics ranging from the birth of Angkor to piracy.
“These are morality stories. They’re zany, they’re witty, they’re wise,” Kent Davis, the 49-year-old independent researcher who spearheaded the new English translation, said in a Skype interview from Florida.
The anthology was first put to paper in 1922 by Guillaume Henri Monod, a French geologist who heard the stories from a Pursat governor known only as Khieu. The original collection, published in 1922 as Légendes cambodgiennes: que m’a contées le Gouverneur Khieu, was never republished and disappeared into the obscure depths of university libraries.
But three years ago, Davis, a self-described “literary archaeologist”, stumbled upon the book while researching old Southeast Asian texts and decided to translate it into English.
Kent Davis edited the translation of Women’s Wiles. PHOTO SUPPLIED
“We really have a time machine of Cambodian culture and oral tradition,” said Davis, who previously republished the works of colonial-era anthropologist George Groslier.
“Monod was collecting these things 92 years ago from a guy who was probably born around 1850, so he grew up hearing these stories from his parents who were born around 1800.”
After posting an ad online asking for a French-to-English translator, Davis found Solang Uk, a 75-year-old retired Cambodian-Swiss biologist who had previously translated Chinese diplomat Zhou Daugan’s account of 13th-century Angkor.
Uk, who grew up in Tuk Meas town in Kampot province under both French and Japanese occupation, said that he recalled hearing the stories from his town’s elders. Despite being a Frenchman, Uk said that Monod accurately captured the essence of the tales.
“Reading the stories in French, I see no difference between what [Monod] wrote and what I had heard,” Uk said.
According to the translator, the morals of the stories are still a source of debate, with some seeing Women’s Wiles as a celebration of intelligence while others see it as a cautionary tale against treacherous women.
Many other aspects of the tales remain shrouded in mystery. Given the unstable transmission of oral stories, as well as the shortage of surviving written Khmer records prior to the 19th century, neither Davis nor Uk know for certain how old the legends are.
A depiction of Cambodians in an 1887 edition of Popular Science Monthly magazine. WIKICOMMONS
“Oral legends are going to change depending on the story teller, the place, the time, his or her mood, his memory, his sobriety,” said Davis.
“Some of these tales could easily be a thousand years old, but we don’t know and we can’t tell.”
Monod himself is a mystery, with only a handful of genealogical and colonial records confirming his existence, while no mention of Governor Khieu was discovered at all.
“We spent a couple years trying to piece things together, and even after digging through all this information, we were unable to find a single photograph of Monod, we were unable to find a single document by his hand or that he signed. It can be very frustrating when you go back to look at these people who created these literary works and then disappeared.”
The stories themselves are told less and less among Cambodians, said Uk, with the overseas Khmer community particularly disconnected with the legends. He hoped the English translation would increase awareness among the Cambodian diaspora of their cultural narratives.
“The young generation might not speak Khmer, so it’s a way of providing a link to this Cambodia diaspora to keep in touch with their culture.”
Women’s Wiles will be available at Monument Books next month in both English and French.
Sunday, 12 January 2014
Friday, 10 January 2014
Japan's Angkor art: Booty or fair exchange?
By Julie Masis
PHNOM PENH - Museum authorities in Tokyo doubtless took note this month of an agreement by the Sotheby's auction house in New York on December 16 to return to Cambodia a 10th century Khmer statue, known as the Duryodhana, said to have been looted in the 1970s during Cambodia's civil war. The move follows the return in June of two similarly old Khmer statues that had been on display for 20 years at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Visitors to Japan's most renowned museum are often impressed by its extensive collection of Angkor art from Cambodia. The Tokyo National Museum has the largest collection of ancient Angkor sculptures in Japan, as well as ceramics that experts say are generally of a higher quality than most of those on display in Cambodia's own museums.
A curious sign next to some of the 69 displayed items says that they were acquired through an "exchange" with France, Cambodia's colonial ruler. More specifically, the exchange was supposedly made with the l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient (EFEO), the still existent French institute dedicated to the study of Asian societies.
In exchange for the 69 Angkor era objects, Japan reciprocally sent 31 of its own precious items, including ancient swords, textiles, lacquer ware, and sculptures, to the French.
David Miller, an international relations expert at the Tokyo National Museum, said the exchange was arranged during a meeting between Japanese Count Kuroda Kiyoshi and George Coedes, the then director of l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient in Hanoi, in the spring of 1941. The Japanese had troops in Hanoi at that time. The ancient Cambodian items arrived in Tokyo in 1944, when the Japanese occupied French Indochina.
"This [exchange] was probably as a result of a policy confirmed at Japanese-French Indochinese talks held in November 1940, a policy that stated, 'Friendly relations between Japan and French Indochina shall be further promoted through cultural exchange'," Miller wrote, noting that the policy also promoted academic exchanges.
Thursday, 9 January 2014
Sunday, 5 January 2014
Friday, 3 January 2014
The Dalai Lama's Great Escape
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| Photo by The 14th Dalai Lama in 1959, soon after he was forced into exile in India. [AP Photo] |
by Stephan Talty
A new book gives the fullest account yet of the Dalai Lama’s
1959 escape from Tibet and the CIA’s role. Author Stephan Talty says in the
process the Tibetan leader lost a country but gained an international
movement—and surprisingly a belief in Buddhism.
In the middle of a Saturday night in the spring of 1959, a
phone rang on a quiet suburban block in Chevy Chase, Maryland. John Greaney
mumbled an apology to his pregnant wife and reached for the nightstand. The
clipped voice on the other end said that an “OpIm” had just come in and, after
giving a few details, promptly hung up. Greaney sat on the edge of his bed in
his pajamas, wondering just what in God's name was going on.
Unknown to his neighbors, John Greaney was not the
gray-faced government functionary he appeared to be. He was in fact the deputy
chief of a small unit at the CIA known as the Tibet Task Force. It sounded
dashing, but in fact the work of the five or six men that comprised the unit
was so lacking in excitement that Greaney compared it to running an
import-export firm. All the action was down the hall, where the Latin American
group would soon be planning the Bay of Pigs invasion.
But beginning that Saturday, Tibet—through the story of the
Dalai Lama 's great escape—was about to become famous.
The OpIm message—short for Operation Immediate, the second-highest
category of urgency at the agency—came from a CIA-trained guerrilla in the
desolate back-country of southern Tibet. Over that weekend, a series of
messages from this guerrilla would make it clear that the Dalai Lama had fled
from his summer palace in the capital of Lhasa and was heading for the Indian
border. His people were in revolt behind him, fighting against better-armed and
trained Chinese soldiers. In the next 17 days, thousands would die, tens of
thousands would follow their spiritual leader to India, and Tibet as a global
cause would be born.
Before that weekend, Tibet had been a beguiling, but
complete, enigma to the world. Greaney still remembers the time John Foster
Dulles, secretary of State under President Eisenhower, interrupted a briefing
Greaney was giving him on Tibet to ask him a simple question: Where, exactly,
is Tibet? Dulles, who made Tibet policy as much as anyone did, had no idea
where the place was. Greaney had to climb up on Dulles' leather couch to point
out the relevant blotch of color on a National Geographic map hanging on
Dulles' wall.
The Tibetans who left achieved a kind of freedom. But they
lost their Tibet, and in exchange the rest of the world got a small piece of
it.
Challenging Cambodia's strongman Hun Sen
PM faces first real test of political strength in 16 years as opposition grows increasingly bold.
Kevin Doyle AJ - 01 Jan 2014
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Security forces have acted with unusual restraint since
daily protests began [Philip Heijmans/Al Jazeera]
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Phnom Penh, Cambodia - Belying his hard-earned reputation as
his country's strongman, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said years ago that
his prowess in overcoming adversaries did not lie in his strength, but in their
weakness.
Hun Sen, 61, has ruled Cambodia for close to 30 years, but
now he faces the first real test of his strength in a decade and a half. Hun
Sen is face-to-face with a challenger of a very different kind - people power -
and one that he crushed violently during his last encounter with mass street
demonstrations in 1998.
Weeks of street rallies continue against his leadership,
with a recent protest estimated to have drawn as many as 50,000 people
representing all segments of Cambodian society, including garment factory
workers and impoverished rural farmers. They marched on the streets of the
capital Phnom Penh banging drums, blowing whistles and chanting the slogan
"Hun Sen, get out".
The prime minister's feared security forces have kept a
vigilant but low profile since the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party
(CNRP) called for daily street rallies on December 15.
They were ready to mobilise: several hundred riot and
military police, decked out in science-fiction-like body armour suits, helmets
and riot shields, bided their time awaiting orders at the train station in
Phnom Penh. Water cannon trucks were lined up alongside dozens of steel frames
wrapped with razor wire to seal off streets.
A small fleet of police trucks have been modified with
steel-mesh frames around the driver's cabin that offers protection from
projectiles.
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