Dear Lok Sophan,
Thank you a big deal. I enjoy reading your article below even I don't share
some of your thoughts here. I found your input here very interesting to learn,
abstract and large sense. I encourage you to continue to express your concerns
and your opinions considering as useful for humain society, yours and theirs in
spread of political or personal threat and intimidation that you may victim of.
As I wrote some days ago, "Freedom is not free. It's a constant fight. To live
free, people fight and die for it in order to allow their children to enjoy of
it. They don't just pray gods or beg tyrants for some mercies or to live free."
In Greco antiquity, many Greco intellectuals were sentenced to die by Athens
authorities and tyrants' accusing being "trouble markers". Socrates for example
was sentenced to die accusing being trouble marker in public place, rejecting
of old belief (gods) and corrupted young people with his teaching. Hanoi via
CPP, after many years of killing and violence against those who stand against
its neo-colonial and totalitarian regime now passed to the criminalization of
a famous (imported) French law "defamation" to threaten, prison and repress
those who stand against this vn neocolonial and its tyrannical (tool) regime.
http://amekhmer.free.fr/khcrucial-event/sihanouk-crime/1cambogeno1.html
USA liberated Germans and Europe people from Nazis is another question which ,
I considered, as quite different from that of vn via Khmers. History and past
errors are there for us to learn and take a lesson from it to prevent it to
repeat over and over. This fact, we must not ignore it or run from it but face
to it. Specially we should not allow the murderers and its partners to use it
against us or victims endlessly. The question is, do Khmers need to thank vn
for creating a group of Khmer rouge to exterminate Khmers for its expansionist
and genocidal empire and created another group to serve Khmer just to
definitively install its neo colonial empire over Cambodia as today?
Regards
Bopha Angkor
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
S. Sophan
Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 6:15 AM
To: Cambodian Community of Canada
Subject: The Delusions of the January 7 Debates - Letter to Editor of PPP
The delusions of the January 7 debate
Thursday, 07 January 2010 15:01 Sophan Seng
Photo Supplied
A propoganda poster from the Khmer Rouge era calling for solidarity between
the citizens of Cambodia and Vietnam.
Dear Editor,
Your article "PM blasts January 7 detractors" (January 5) didn't demonstrate
anything new for Cambodian politics. Leaders have always pronounced strong
political rhetoric to create a clear dichotomy of pro- and anti-groups when
this day has arrived. In reality, the government has consolidated full power to
exercise over everything, including whether to celebrate this day or not
celebrate. The current political environment in Cambodia has not given any clue
of the possible threat to the stability of government at all. But why every
year, when January 7 arrives, is there a flowering of incidents and
controversial public speech in Cambodia?
The answers might be diverse. But I am impressed by the Khmer proverb which
states: Veay tiek bong-erl trey, or, "to stir the water to see the fish
clearly". It has been 31 years since Vietnamese troops encroached on Cambodia's
borderlands, accompanied by Khmer Rouge defectors, to topple the Khmer Rouge
regime of Pol Pot. The argument since has been endless. Vietnamese troops are
presented in Cambodia as either liberators, or invaders, or both. In the past
decades, the two debaters carried guns and ammunitions to fight against each
other, at least between the Khmer nationalists based along the border and the
Khmer troops based in Phnom Penh, and backed by a hundred thousand Vietnamese
troops. But after the Paris Peace Accords of 1991 and the subsequent power
consolidation of the Cambodian People's Party, the debate remains only on lips
and tongues.
Hence both guns fighting and lips quarreling have significantly divided Khmer
society. It has shown division over unity, disadvantage rather than advantage,
and myopia rather than long-sightedness. The more we hate the past atrocities
of the Khmer Rouge, the more shameful we are as the same Khmer. The more we
praise foreign intervention, the more we lose national identity to those
foreigners. Thus, what inputs should we welcome and what outcome should we
expect? Can Cambodian people come to a joint beneficial solution to this
disgraceful quarrel?
Of course, from these 31 years, Cambodian people both old and young have
focused on their living standards, schooling and future cultivation. The past
has become a good lesson for them. The Khmer Rouge regime will never come back
again for sure. The trial of the Khmer Rouge is going on to respectively bring
national reconciliation and the healing of trauma. All Cambodian parties and
individuals have to join this trial and be courageous to show up at the
courtroom as the primary witnesses if you really need the genuine outcome of
justice. Cambodian people have to look forward to determine the broader
interests of the nation. They should not entrap themselves in a "quid pro quo"
of this delusional date, January 7. Take Germany as an example: They have never
taken as a big deal or celebrated the day the Allied Forces, led by the United
States, liberated them from Hitler's brutal Nazi regime. That tragic past and
the liberation of the Allies has been buried deeply in Germany.
Sophan Seng
University of Hawaii at Manoa
United States
See full link:
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010010730677/National-news/the-delusions-of-the-january-7-debate.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Cambodia Discussion (CAMDISC) - www.cambodia.org" group.
This is an unmoderated forum. Please refrain from using foul language.
Thank you for your understanding. Peace among us and in Cambodia.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/camdisc
Learn more - http://www.cambodia.org
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Cambodia Discussion (CAMDISC) - www.cambodia.org" group.
This is an unmoderated forum. Please refrain from using foul language.
Thank you for your understanding. Peace among us and in Cambodia.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/camdisc
Learn more - http://www.cambodia.org
