Pen Sovann - Statesman and Patriot

Pen Sovann pictured - seated. 

Editorial by School of Vice

The personal and political circumstances of Pen Sovann constitute and offer the clearest evidence and rebuttal [if such things are ever needed] against that active and vociferous section in the international and regional publishing media outlets who have been turning out one report after another over the best part of the last 30 years or so, decrying what they claim to be "anti-Vietnam/Vietnamese sentiment" and or 'racism' in Cambodia. 

Where the term 'yuon' [legitimate and historical Khmer word for Vietnam or Vietnamese] would have frequently been invoked to support their case over this perceived sentiment, a handful among them are now seemingly willing to accept that the term itself might not be 'pejorative' or racist per se as have often been pointed out and insinuated, but that those who use it [especially, the Cambodian Opposition and its supporters] undoubtedly do so pejoratively or negatively when they are talking about Vietnam or the Vietnamese! [sic]. So if these Cambodians instead use the word 'Vietnam' to refer to that nation which has historically 'swallowed up' Cambodian lands and provinces, would their underlying intentions be described as 'pejorative' and therefore the term 'Vietnam' itself 'racist' or indicative of national xenophobia or racism? If one adheres to the same line of reasoning, should one call on the term 'Vietnam' to be replaced with something else, until such a time when we or our descendants will have 'world peace' and every nation will have learned to respect the existence and dignity of another nation?

Pen Sovann's opposition to the 'K-5 Plan' [pictured] in the wake of the Vietnamese invasion in the early 1980s, along with his objection to Vietnam's demand to have Cambodia's border open to Vietnamese colonial settlers-immigration, his attempt to bypass the Vietnamese and work directly with the Soviets on major national issues, ranging from rubber plantations to post-war rebuilding are some of the causes for his purge from Hanoi's installed PRK regime and subsequent imprisonment in Hanoi. After ten years of exile and detention there, Sovann was finally released in the early 1990s as part of the settlement reached between the warring factions through the PPA. He recalled how he found himself housed at a location by a lake upon his return to Cambodia, as if to 'mock' him. He also wrote a letter to the party which he once led, seeking explanations as to why he had been treated as an outcast, only to be curtly informed by way of an unsigned written note: 'You don't need to ask anyone. You only have to ask yourself [this question]. You are extremely nationalistic.' It is extremely likely that Hun Sen himself [or one of his aids] was the author of the note! Just as he is now denying Sovann his burial ceremony in the capital. 

Here is/was a man [like so many of his peers] who had been inducted into the Vietminh underground movement at a tender age [ostensibly, to serve a just social cause; a communist-inspired 'liberation' movement, but actually, to rid the country of its own independent home-grown rule by proxy] but who somehow and, despite all the odds stacked against him, had decided to cling on to his nobler impulse as a human being and patriot. This subversion or disguise is further seen by the Vietnamese as more expedient and practical than attempting to rule the country outright through imposed Vietnamese military-civil personnel and administration, as their Vietnamese ancestors had tried but failed to sustain in the nineteenth century. The differences in national cultures and, historical tension that has accumulated over the centuries between these two nations, have also rendered this approach necessary. Indeed, we have even heard of this 'ethno-migratory' theory put forward in recent years - which has the two peoples of Vietnam and Cambodia as having these shared historical and ethnic roots back somewhere in their distant past; a theory clearly designed or seized upon to gloss over Vietnam's de facto political hegemony and aggression, much as the commonly used term 'Yuon' in Cambodia is seized upon as being 'pejorative' and is now put forward as 'tangible evidence' with which to discredit Cambodian nationalism as a mere, baseless form of national hysteria or 'obsession' and "anti-Vietnamese sentiment" towards the same historical trend in domination and aggression? 

After more than 30 years the world and the Khmer people are starting to learn [and be in awe] of the extent of Sovann's personal dedication and sacrifice; he reportedly forewarned his prospective bride that his nation would come first and before his own marriage or family happiness. This undertaking would then be gracefully and unselfishly accepted by her, paving the way to their eventual marriage and, for what they had had, a family life together. We could only surmise or speculate as to the enormity of their personal pains and sacrifices endured in their lives so that Sovann could stay true to his conscience and his nation. For the first time, we also see and hear his daughter in the flesh; dignified, articulate, grief-stricken, yet un-embittered and non-resentful, half-Khmer and half-Vietnamese, recounting a life spent with the father without the mother, and vice versa. Her tears shed at her father's remain are at the same while privately profound and outward tributes to, and embodiments of, a life that only she and those closest to her parents would really know and understand. Above all else, this has been a life lived in the service of a nation, and somewhere in that overlapped context of the personal and the public, Sovann's legacy and her tears are also those of his beloved nation and people. 

Throughout human history only a very tiny number of men and women who are born with the inclination and impulse to feel and empathise with the predicaments of their fellows. On a given national stage, these rare and exceptional individuals are seen rightly as 'national heroes' or patriots, but deep down, and if one is not encumbered by political correctness or swayed by any tendentious leanings, they can also be seen as 'humanitarians' in their own right - people who refuse to accept the state of injustice as they witness in life and thrive as best they can to overcome it, which often entails sacrificing their family and personal happiness. 

The real 'heroes' though, are ones who live and breath the sorrows, happiness, joys, and adversities of their fellowmen in the millions, near and far, and who would do so unflinchingly and without conditions as to elevating these larger collective concerns above those of their immediate personal preoccupations; qualities that both Pen Sovann and Kem Ley [and some other lesser known Cambodians] can be said to embody and express in abundance.  

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