Tim Sakhorn was previously abducted from his temple in Cambodia, forcibly defrocked, and then illegally transported across national borders into Vietnam, where he was tried in a Vietnamese court, and recently released to a highly supervised existence.
Recently he traveled through Cambodia, and has now apparently fled to Thailand, awaiting a decision on refugee status to the USA.
Busy writing dissertation stuff lately, and have been neglecting my blog. Here are a few things that have happened of note in the last few weeks. At any rate, it’s the Cambodia-centered stuff that I’m interested in…
Andy Brouwer is one of Cambodia’s most famous non-Khmer bloggers (some graciously give us foreign bloggers the honorary title of cloggers, but I prefer ‘floggers,’ since it takes the air out of our unearned pretention). Andy’s posts are most commonly on temples, and are extremely fun and worthwhile. But here’s a post which deals with the mummified, displayed body, of murdered monk Sam Bunthoeurn, who figures briefly in my dissertation. Warning – the pictures can be disturbing for those squeamish about bodies and decomposition….
Mandevu is back, with a couple of fantastic posts on current fieldwork in the agricultural sector. Great photos of field inventories, and on the production of roof thatch. Can’t wait to see how this work turns out!
You must read the second part of Ka-Set’s interview with Richard Rechtman, French psychiatrist and anthropologist dealing with trauma, death, and memory. Fascinating stuff. (see also part one).
Economic stuff is looking bleak for 2009. The ILO reports that 500,000 Cambodians have been significantly affected already, with another million to be affected during 2009. More precise numerical predictions can be found in the article itself over at the Phnom Penh Post, along with a nice little factoid sidebar. Yikes.
Chea Mony, president of the Free Trade Union Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTUWKC), about which I have often written in these pages and elsewhere, has been nominated for the Martin Ennals award in Human Rights. Ennals was the founder and first president of Amnesty International. Mony deserves the recognition, and I hope it accompanies a resurgence in local support and labor activism and solidarity.
Ros Sovannareth was a union official and activist within the FTUWKC, when he was assassinated on May 7, 2004. He worked at the Trinunggal Komara Garment Factory, and was gunned down by two men riding a motorcycle. Just as in the murder of FTUWKC president Chea Vichea months previously (brother of Chea Mony), a patsy was found to take the legal fall. Now, with the accused killers of Chea Mony beginning to possibly receive a new trial, the accused killer of Ros Sovannareth will also receive an appeal. This isn’t justice, but it’s a necessary step forward.
Good news, Dougald O’Reilly, archaeologist, founder of Heritage Watch, and acclaimed scholar (I’m slowly working my way through his engaging book “Early Civilizations of Southeast Asia” in the five minute breaks between getting into bed and falling asleep these days, and am grateful for his work), has received a major award for Heritage Watch’s work. The Archaeological Institute of America’s Conservation and Heritage Management Award, was given to Dougald just a few days ago. Congratulations Dougald!
Oh glory:
“After some discussion, it was agreed some controversial scenes will be modified,” he said, explaining that the biggest sticking-point for the clergy was that the performance change a line by the narrator from “the monk wants a girl” to “the monk turned into a playboy”.
While the cast sent a letter to the Council to apologise for any offense they caused, show organisers also used the meeting to reiterate what they feel is the show’s unique value to Khmer culture, he added.
The proposed changes must first be approved by a committee that includes representatives from the government, Buddhist clergy and show directors before it can be televised nationally.
I guess freedom of speech would be too much to hope for. Not sure if I’m more disappointed by the clergy, the council, or the cast.
via The Phnom Penh Post – Elephant agrees to modify scenes in bid to appease Buddhists.
More bad monk news from Cambodia: a seventeen-year-old novice monk (samanera, សមណេរះ, នេន) in Cambodia’s northwestern Battambang province has confessed to attacking and raping a British tourist on the famous mountain of Phnom Sampov (“Boat Mountain.”) Phnom Sampov is a famed mountain just outside of Battambang town, and a major tourist site: with lots of caves, a burgeoning set of shrines, a temple (sometimes considered as two separate temples), there’s a lot to see. But in the recent past, most foreign tourists went up to see the site of one of Cambodia’s ‘killing fields.’ No field here, really: instead, during the Khmer Rouge period, the mountain was in part used as a prison and execution site, and victims were killed and then dropped down into a deep cave.
My thoughts are with this woman as she recovers from this horrible act of violence. I confess to having anger as well, at the ‘natural’ tendency of the international press to cover the endemic sexual violence in Cambodia, or anywhere, only when it affects tourists from powerful countries. As the article itself notes, monks are often accused of such crimes (not nearly as often as non-monks, a point not made in the article).
The fact of such crimes perpetrated by monks takes outside observers by surprise. While Cambodians often feel such immoral behavior as an affront to religion and morality, they are not usually surprised by it. The article hints at some of the reasons: in Cambodia, as in Thailand and Laos, most monks are not bhikkhus (ភិក្ខុ), intent on remaining in robes for life, but are novice monks, ordained for varying lengths of time.
Novice monks may ordain for as short a period as a few hours (usually this brevity is limited to ordinations ‘in front of the fire’ – បួសមុខភ្លើង) to a few years. Lengthier ordinations, which were more common in the past, tended to be ordinations in pursuit of education, while shorter ordinations are more often about the merit created by the act of ordination, rather than the morality of the period in robes.
Given that background, it is perhaps easier to understand why novice monks may be seen with some suspicion, and prone to acting out, like other young men, sometimes even in brutal and criminal ways.
There is also noted in the article the issue of ‘fake monks,’ which do indeed exist in some numbers in Cambodia. On occasion, these young men dress in robes to facilitate their thieving (it’s difficult for a shopkeeper to shout ‘thief’ and get an immediate response when she appears to be pointing at a small group of monks, for instance), and more commonly they beg for alms. ‘Fake monks’ is a term that can be applied variously to impostors and to ‘bad monks.’
The article from the Telegraph after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »
TWO MONKS ON THE RUN FROM POLICE
Phon Sokum, 21, was seriously injured after two monks, Nuth Sok Phoun, 23, and Nuth Sovanny, 24, along with a number of other men, attacked him with axes and chains in Steng Meanchey commune, Meanchey district, Phnom Penh at 6:30pm on October 15. The police said that the attack was caused by an argument between the monks and the victim’s grandmother, which greatly angered the monks. Phon Sokum is currently recovering in hospital. The two monks are on the run. (Kumpuchea Thmey)
_________________________________YOUNG MAN’S BODY DISCOVERED IN POOL
Chao Meung, 20, and 10 of his house mates were arrested by Banteay Meanchey police when the body of Piseth Sok Heng, 24, was discovered in a pool in their backyard in Village 1, Ponlea commune, Serey Sophorn district, Banteay Meanchey province Friday. The police said that Piseth Sok Heng had been murdered. Chao Meung has been sent to court. Chao Meung’s house mates have been sent home after the police made them promise that they would not get involved in any type of unwholesome activity again.(Rasmey Kampuchea)
This promises to be deeply useful to many of us, whose lives straddle the divide of anti-work and jobs devoted to ‘productivity.’ Lovely. via BB.Like most immigrant communities, the Khmer community in America has had to adjust the days of its celebrations to accord with the only god that all Americans worship in common – the work week. Thus, instead of holding their final day of the dark fortnight of the pretas (ប្រេត) this morning, as was done in Cambodia, the good, and immensely hospitable, folks at Wat Munisotaram held it over two days on the weekend.
[sorry can't resist pointing out how wonderful the name of the temple is. Muni-sota-aram means "the monastery of that which was heard from the sage" (i.e., The Buddha's Teaching Monastery). Not so surprising, but listen to the sound of it - it was also chosen because it sounds like "Mini-sota". Hah!]
As I did last year, I organized an optional fieldtrip for students from my relevant classes (How to do things with dead people, and Buddhist books), and invited folks from some of the anthropology department classes as well. All told, we managed to haul 34 people out of bed before 4 AM on a Saturday morning, to go on an optional, completely uncredited, fieldtrip to a field in Hampton Minnesota.
And it was awesome.
Here are some of my favorite photos. More on my flickr site, and a few great ones from Somongkol over at Restless Trotter
more photos after the jump…. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve written before, briefly, on the issue of monks voting in Cambodia. It’s a more complicated issue that simplistic support of ‘democracy’ would indicate. Here’s a recent article quoting Ven. Yos Hut Khemacaro on the issue. The patronage shakeups in the Cambodian Buddhasangha since 2003 have been substantial, but for the most part, difficult to track beyond the individual temple level. Perhaps these realignments have something to do with Ven. Tep Vong’s reversal of opinion on the right of monks to vote?
Al Jazeera’s 101 East Program has a reasonable discussion on the question of whether Foreign Aid is helping or hurting Cambodia. Worth watching.
Cambodia is still among the LDCs – Least Developed Countries. Ugh.
Fertilizer Prices have gone up by 235% in the last year.
The “Freakonomics” blog at the NYT has a lengthy set of questions and answers from an agricultural economist. Best question? Is there any justification for farm subsidies? Best answer? “No.” [via]
Daniel Dennett’s destruction of the notion of a unified consciousness (what used to be criticized in philosophy as a Leibnizian ‘monad,’ but has survived mostly because we seem incapable of not synthesizing our experiences and attributing them to a single consciousness) is discussed in a fun, and accessible post, here at Mind Hacks.
Mahmood Mamdani, whose book on Rwanda represented a major moment in my own thought and style of analysis, has just been named as the 9th most important public intellectual by the conservative bulwark, Foreign Policy. Weird world. [via OpenAnthropology]
The MST has been threatened with banning. There’s a call for defense here.
One of my earliest heroes, Dorothy Day, founded the Catholic Worker’s movement. They celebrated 75 years of service and struggle.
Some good things for today:
Andy Brouwer visited the fantastic Khmer temple site of Wat Phu in Laos, and provides us with some wonderful photos. His series of posts can be found here, and I heartily recommend them.
Speaking of temples, and especially the symbolism of royal power in Southeast Asia, texturbation’s been visiting Cambodia lately, and has a gut-busting meditation on the ubiquitous shivalingas that focus so many Khmer temples. A snippet:
is the depiction of the Churning Of The Sea Of Milk.
(?)
The Churning Of The Sea Of Milk relief runs along a long corridor. It depicts a couple hundred guys holding onto a massive snake, which is attached to a mountain that sits within a sea of milk.
(Too… Much… Input…)
Tradition has it that as the demons pull on their collective snake, the mountain turns, churning the sea of milk into the delicious life-giving cream of creation.
(Too… Much… Input… Must… Reboot… Must… Reboot…)
And Thus was the Universe Created.
Great big daisy-chain.
Texturbation needs to visit Bangkok (get it?) and see this shrine:
It’s probably good that Gabon officials busted this order-service human skull provision service. Yeah, you read that right. On the other hand, this quote reminds me of stuff I just finished writing yesterday:
In Gabon, the knowledge that human bones are used in the potion was nearly as shocking to many as the news of the graverobbing operation.
“I was initiated by Bwiti. I’m scared that I ate a person’s body,” said Jeanne Mba, a middle-aged housewife in Libreville. [via BB]
This brief blogpost from Details Are Sketchy made me laugh out loud. Dead on.
Although it’s not strictly ‘good news,’ it’s always good to hear from the fantabulous Rong Chhun, one of Cambodia’s true contemporary heroes, fighting for teachers and against corruption in the best way possible. As the president of the Cambodia Independent Teacher’s Union (CITA), he normally comes up with superb analyses of what’s going on. Here he is, a few days ago, discussing the celebrations of the Preah Vihear World Heritage Status. Sounds prescient now.
The celebration ceremony at Olympic Stadium is nothing special as Preah Vihear temple has been Cambodia’s property since 1962 under the crusade of former King Norodom Sihanouk,” said Rong Chhun, president of Cambodia Watchdog Council. “The celebration is simply being used for political gain, which only confuses voters before election day,” he added.
A Cambodian monk has joined the 300-plus election observer group:
“Even if I’m a monk, I have the same rights as a civilian citizen,” Huy Man Kheang told VOA Khmer in a recent interview. “The monks have the right to create organizations also.”
“We have monks who go to vote also, like the ordinary citizens,” he said. “Observation is only to monitor if there is violence from one party to others and to monitor in order to have a smooth election process.”
Right, there we go. Next post is less pleasant.
“Thich Huyen Quang gave up his liberty for 30 years in a quest for greater human rights and religious freedom in Vietnam,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “His followers should be allowed to pay their last respects without government interference, at a ceremony of their own choosing.”
The UBCV plans to hold funeral services for Thich Huyen Quang on July 11 at Nguyen Thieu Monastery in Binh Dinh province. Thich Quang Do – the patriarch’s deputy, close associate, and likely successor – will preside over the ceremony. However, the Vietnamese government has already taken steps to wrest control over the funeral and the patriarch’s legacy by announcing that the proceedings will be organized by the state-sanctioned Vietnam Buddhist Church. Government-controlled media has run vitriolic denunciations of Thich Quang Do, accusing him and “extremist elements disguised as Buddhist monks” of plotting “devious schemes” to exploit the patriarch’s death for political purposes. On July 6 the state television station, VTV1, broadcast a statement saying: “Confronting the immoral actions of the Quang Do group, the students and disciples [of Thich Huyen Quang], as well as the genuine monks of Nguyen Thieu Monastery, have vehemently reacted and they are determined not to let the Quang Do group organize the funeral ceremonies.”
“The Vietnamese government is risking unnecessary confrontation with the patriarch’s followers by trying to control him in death as in life,” Adams said.
You’d think governments would have learned at this point. While an uncontrolled funeral may spiral into a situation that challenges their control, interference in a funeral is almost guaranteed to do so. see also, Katherine Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies.
I’m still writing! Thank the gods. Or not. As you like. But in lieu of something substantive, here you go:
CEDAC, the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture, is one of those organizations that people who know me instinctively think I will (instinctively) dislike. But nope, for the most part, I think CEDAC does fantastic work, encouraging smallholder sustainability, helping reduce farmer debt, improving methods through institution based education, and much more importantly, encouraging farmers to hold mutual education and consultations, and promoting the benefits of organic and more natural farming methods. Perhaps the two most important things they do (though they won’t say this outright most of the time, since it goes somewhat against the image of the Cambodian farmer itself) is to promote the diversification of crops grown by farmers – especially vegetables, and then helping to provide markets for these crops. In Rasmei Kampuchea today, CEDAC is quoted as claiming a pretty substantial set of successes:
“Mr. Lang Seng Houn showed figures that among 192 villages from five provinces, 14,300 families benefited from the project. the number of farmers who cooperated is 7,300, the living standard of 500 families changed greatly; 5,900 families experienced an average change, and 800 families got poorer. The number of women who have changed their attitudes and abandoned their old habits is 3,500, and the number of youth under the same category is 900. And 1,500 of the poorest families who sold their labor to have some income have changed their living standard and have become independent farmers; the livelihood of farmers in general is better. Generally, they can earn 80% more from the increase of the agricultural production and from the reduction of other expenses. They have stepped up the basis for this to retain the continuity of their production teams, and 718 teams have saved money – they have 6,000 families as members so that they are able to link their products to markets. Each family earns from Riel 1.4 million to Riel 2.6 million [approx. US$340 to US$635 per farming season] from their agricultural products; those are 427 families in Kompong Chhnang, Svay Rieng, and Kompong Cham. Their income is from paddy rice, from the breeding of chickens and pigs, and from the planting of vegetables and other crops.
via The Mirror
The Asia Times has an article by Megawati Wijaya about Asia’s Angry Monk Syndrome. This is a disease I’d never heard of before, but apparently refers to the supposedly novel actions of monks in the public sphere, where they can be found – in the press suddenly, as in reality for a while – protesting, providing aid in contravention of junta-based demands, and other things.
John Whalen-Bridge, co-editor of a series of books on Buddhism, refers to the growing phenomenon as “angry monk syndrome”, a flip way of referring to the clergy’s departure from the pursuit of equanimity and raised-fist involvement in the call for political change and economic justice. Politically active monks are not an entirely new phenomenon. Western observers will likely recall the images of Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Duc, who, in protest against the corruption and repression of the South Vietnamese government, self-immolated himself in June 1963.
It’s a worthwhile topic of conversation, but the keypoint I would highlight (and more needs to be said about this) is not that this type of action goes back as far as the period of decolonialization, but that the Sangha (the community of Buddhist monks) and governments are consistently imagined in a sort of productive tension with each other. In spite of governments’ ability (throughout history) to nearly completely subsume and incorporate the Sangha, the Sangha is universally understood to symbolically occupy a moral place above that of kings and sovreigns. As one honored teacher told me recently, the main thing to understand about Buddhism and Kings is that they are always capable of policing each other. So, when kings insist that the Buddhist patriarchs purify the sangha (as happened momentously in Thailand’s relatively recent history, and in Buddhist countries throughout their histories), we see merely the flipside of what is now being referred to as Angry Monk Syndrome – the policing of the sovreigns by the monks.
We should not, as is far too common, read this tension in a merely romantic mode, assigning the real sphere of morality to monks. The vast majority of the time, the Buddhasangha exists in a perfectly happy relationship with sovreigns, who as a matter of course predate on their subjects. Instead, our focus should be on (a) the conditions under which monks break free of their relationship with sovreigns, (b) the aims of the monks [re-establishment of a moral sovreignty? something else?], and (c) historical comparisons of the results of such monkish engagement.
Poor Rochom P’ngieng – if that is her real name. She’s the ‘jungle girl’ who was supposedly found in the mountain jungles of northeastern Cambodia by a family which lost their daughter at the age of eight (18 years previously), and identified by the family as their long lost daughter. Since she had apparently gone savage (she still ‘cannot’ speak, and talking in an ‘animal-jungle’ language, according to her family), and wanted to return to the forests, she spent much of her early months with her family bound and captive in their home. There’s a tragedy in her somewhere, and very likely more than one. P’ngieng’s story captures the imagination for many reasons: the family drama, the lack of certainty of her identity, but also for more cultural ones: the heavy emphasis in Cambodia on the distinction between the geographies of the forest (ព្រៃ) and the ’srok’ (ស្រុក), in which the former is the domain of wildness and the latter the domain of civilization. In reality, Khmers travel between these domains all the time, but P’ngieng’s story highlights the possibility of more permanent transitions, a possibility both terrifying and tantalizing to many Khmers, in my experience.
Maximilian Forte, over at Open Anthropology, has written a nice review post of several books on the worldwide revolution of 1968 (it’s the fortieth anniversary, after all). My mother-in-law asked me the other day if we were starting to relive that period, and I could only reply that in many ways it was similar, but that this didn’t necessarily make me hopeful. As Forte points out, citing Fred Halliday, the eventual outcome of the revolutions of 1968 were a consolidation of reactionary, right-wing, capitalist authority. We’ve lost so many of our elders to the so-called Reagan Democrats, death, and various forms of refusal; I’ve long thought one of the most important things that anybody can do is to insist on intergenerational relations.
So why do so many of those who were alive and active at the time celebrate 1968? First, it clearly was a revolution, or at least a series of revolutions. They failed, perhaps, but they were definitely revolutionary. That in itself is a cause for celebration. But a more insidious reason lurks, I think, behind these celebrations – they are for many a form of self-justification that allows their former participants to excuse their inaction while perserving their self-image. I was there, goes the story, and [it didn't work/I did my part/whatever]. Nostalgia is a virus. One hopes that this current incarnation of revolutionary action doesn’t fall prey to what Marx referred to in his justly famous essay on the ‘revolution of Napoleon the little’:
Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.
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