ក្រសួងវប្បធម៏ ថៃ ចង់ដាក់ឈុតសម្លៀក បំពាក់ ដើម. កំណើត ថៃ ភាគខាងត្បូង តំណាងជាតិថៃ

 

It's not really Thai people's fault - the common people that is - that they reject their own true historical and cultural roots because their rulers have for centuries plundered and adopted Khmer cultural expressions and riches and claim these things as their own. For hundreds of years the T'ai or Siamese had been a subjugated ethnic minority subsisting in the shadow of the more dominant and enviable Khmer civilisation. In fact, the earlier Siamese adopted just about everything that were Khmer including architecture, writing system, language, religious rituals, greeting, royal court customs and etiquettes etc. not only traditional dress. 

The ancient Khmers had also absorbed and adopted ideas and cultural influences from India and integrated these into their own indigenous Khmer-Mon mainstream culture including within the sphere of religious worship and belief without jettisoning or rejecting their own Khmer-Mon roots. Nowhere is this more evident than in the practice of Khmer Buddhism today which is an amalgamation of Khmer indigenous animism, Indian Brahmanism and Buddhism. This process of integration and adoption of foreign influences is known as 'acculturation' in anthropology. 

It’s not hard to see why the Siamese rulers would want to rewrite and teach the Siamese people a completely distorted version of history unlike the Khmers who acknowledge ancient Indian influences with pride and dignity. Moreover, unlike the Siamese and modern day Thais the ancient Brahmans and India did not invade and plunder the Khmer empire or Cambodia with swords, cannons or F16s but rather with religious texts, knowledge, literature, science and cosmology and their undeniable influence and historical footprints can still be seen today across South East Asia. 

It’s not farfetched to surmise that these Siamese rulers would rather hide from their populace and descendents truths and facts that were uncomfortable, ignoble, characterising their deeds throughout their violent conquests and mistreatment of the Khmers than the truth of their savage and demonic past – not too dissimiliar to what the world is witnessing today through their illegal invasion and mistreatment of Cambodian people who have neither the desire for war nor military might to match theirs. 

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