(Bora Touch, Esq., a Khmer living in Sydney, Australia,
continues the discussion on the Khmer home in Southeast
Asia prompted by a reported statement of Don Pramudwinai
of the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
I AGREE with the historical description by Kenneth T So
in "The Khmer home in Southeast Asia: A Wider View",
(Post August 6-19, 1999). I do not think that Mr So is
obsessed about the Khmer past, as C Rabour has alleged.
Rather, Mr So was provoked by Don Pramudwinai who has
asserted that Battambang and Siem Reap were historically
part of Thailand or Siam.
Battambang, Siem Reap and Srei Sophorn, (later Serei
Sophom, or Sisophon as the Thai pronunciation of it)
never belonged to Siam (known as Thailand since 1939).
Those regions have always belonged to Cambodia, but have
been attacked and at certain times in history, annexed
by Thailand. Most recently, these regions were invaded
and taken by Siam/Thailand in 1795 and 1941. They
remained under Thai control until 1946.
The first Siamese invasion and looting of Angkor was in
about 1352 and again in the 1430s. Ayuthaya, the Siamese
capital, itself was built on top of the demise of Sri
Dvaravati, former kingdom of the Mons.
The provinces taken from the Khmers in 1795 were
Battambang, Siem Reap/Angkor, Bongkol-borei, Srei
Sophorn, Siem Pang. In 1814 more provinces were annexed
by Siam, namely Mlou Prei, Tole Peou, and Stung Treng.
Only in 1907 were most of these provinces returned to
Cambodia. However, other Khmer borei, now called
provinces or khet, such as Norkor Reachborie (Korat),
Boreirom (Buriram), Sorint (Surin), Korkhan, Sisaket,
Bascemborie (Prachinburi), Chantaborie (Chantaburi),
Champasak and Trat annexed before 1790, have remained
under Thai occupation till today.
Under the French-Thai treaty executed in 1907, the Thais
were required to return to Cambodia only those provinces
taken by the Thais after 1790. For this, Thais should
thank the Anglo-French conflict, because Thailand was
not part of French Indochina but was an ally of the
English.
History from the Thai point of view, especially relating
to the Angkorian legacy, was cultivated by King Mongkut
and later his son, Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, the
"father of Thai modern history" and the architect of the
Thai modern state.
It has been reinforced by people like Luang Vichitr
Vadhakarn, the director of Department of Fine Arts in
1932 and his successor Dhanit Yupho in the 1960s when
the Thais were engaged in nationalist and prejudicial
policies toward their neighbors, especially the Khmers.
History as told by the leaders of Thailand has been an
attempt to reinforce Thai nationalism and to clarify the
confused national identity of the Thai people. Confused
because the Yunan Thais, the Vietnamese and the Chinese
have, to use David Chandler's phrase, an identity
crisis. The Chinese are not worried but the other two
are. The Thais began their identity crisis during the
1908-1910 riots when Chinese residents refused to pay
Thai taxes. The Vietnamese crisis started when they
split from Qin or China. One way to try to distinguish
themselves from Chinese, Vietnamese women dyed their
teeth black, a very painful process.
After the Siamese victory, with Khmer military
assistance, in the long and destructive wars with Burma
(1548-1592, 1760-1767); and the founding of the current
Chakkri dynasty in 1782 (the current King is the ninth
King of the dynasty) the Siamese began to attack the
traditional boundaries of Cambodia.
In the 1850s, King Mongkut hired a Welsh governess, Anna
Leonowens, to educate his children. As a result of this
different education, lifestyle and Western way of
thinking, successive Thai kings began to view Khmer
traditions and lifestyle as outdated. The Chakkri kings
began to view the Khmers to be Khmamen padong or "the
jungle Khmers", hence the uncivilized Khmers.
The term "contemptible Khmamen" lives on today. This
prejudice was so strong that many of the successive Thai
generations did not want to have any thing to do with
the Khmer people, which has led to the propagation in
Thailand of a uniquely Thai version of history relating
to the Khmers. History as taught to Thai children has
encouraged a terrible prejudicial stereotyping of Khmers
which continues, in my experience, to this day.
I personally experienced discrimination by Thais. I was
invited to the Thailand home of a Thai of Khmer origin.
At first the whole family was nice and friendly, but
once I was introduced as Khmer, the youngsters began to
treat me with contempt. The parents were quite
embarrassed and had to apologize, whispering to me that
it was sad that the children did not know that they were
of Khmer origin. When I asked if they told their
children they were of Khmer origin, they told me that
"it is not wise to do so in the circumstances".
The dinner went on. The children chose not to join us at
the dinner table. I wondered why they would treat me
this way. I realized that I was the "contemptible Khmer"
they had heard about in classes on Thai history. Racial
discrimination comes from two things: fear and/or
ignorance. In the case of Thais, it stems from an
ignorance about Khmer civilization.
Another reason for the manipulation of history by the
Thais came from the amazing evidence of Khmer
civilization which, according to historians, was well
advanced by the time Christianity came into existence.
This civilization encompassed the lands taken by
Thailand from Cambodia - the architecture, court
etiquette, culture and traditional religion and
language. (The Pali language, used in Khmer scripts, was
used by the Siamese until the 19th century.)
The Thais have adopted or appropriated much of the great
Khmer legacy as their own and due to their view of
Khmers as uncivilized, refuse to link their "history"
with Cambodian history.
A more recent example of appropriation of Khmer history
by Thailand is found in Luang Vichitr Vadhakarn's book,
Thailand's case, and Prince Damrong's Nirat Nakhorn Wat
(Trip to Angkor Wat), treated as official historical
texts by Thailand.
According to Vadhakarn's theory, the place now called
Cambodia once belonged to an ethnic group called "Khom".
They were eliminated by the Thais. The Khmers who lived
in present-day Cambodia were part of the Thai race. This
is, according to Vadhakarn, proven by the identical-ly
similar civilization, culture, tradition and arts of the
two countries.
Vadhakarn was not alone in this theory. A Thai
nationalist newspaper, Chaothai, on 31 October 1959,
stated the same thing. The newspaper quoted an
opposition party leader, Seni Pramoj, a Thai lawyer in
the Khmer-Thai dispute in the Preah Vihear case (1962),
saying that there was an ethnic group called "Khom"
living in the areas now called Thailand and Cambodia.
The article continued to say that Thais had killed most
of them and the rest were chased away, retreating to
India where they once belonged. As a result of this Thai
victory, the Thais were divided into groups: one group
was concentrated in the lower part, now called Cambodia;
and the other one lived in upper part now called
Thailand. The proof of this was that the arts and the
traditions were strikingly similar.
Vadhakarn also stated "it is an established fact that
the Khmers and Cambodians are not the same people... The
coming into existence of this new name 'Cambodja' marked
the end of the old Khmer Race and the birth of a new
people who have 90% of Thai blood". (Thailand's Case,
p129).
Contrary to Vadharkan's assertion, the term "Khom" was
an ancient word used by Thais and Laos for the Khmer
people. According to the historian Charles Keyes, in his
article "The Case of the Purloined Lintel: The Politics
of a Khmer Shrine as a Thai National Treasure", this
term was used in "the popular press - with semi-official
backing - to disassociate the modern Khmer from the
heritage of Angkor" (p278). The term "Khom" was Thai and
Laotian pronunciation and transliteration of "Khmer".
Many peoples have used different terms or pronunciations
to describe the Khmer: in about AD 70, Pliny, the Roman
author and his exploring son called the Khmer Camarini (Historica
Naturalis), they were called Kumar by the Arabs; Kui kmi
by the Chams, Coa Mein, or Mein, by the Vietnamese.
Khom have not been terminated as some Thais have
claimed. The current Cambodians are the Khom.
In my view, the statement made by Don Pramudwinai of the
Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs in July in the Nation
newspaper indicates that Mr Don has been taught history
from a Thai perspective.
His statement is indicative of the continuation of the
Thai policy of expansionism of his previous leaders,
especially the late Phibul Sangkram, the Thai Prime
Minister who in World War II, with Japanese assistance,
again occupied the Battambang, Serei Sophoan (Sisophon)
and Siem Reap provinces between 1941-1946.
Hopefully, the traditional Thai take on history will not
prevail in the current Thai-Cambodian border
discussions. The Thais may think that saying that these
provinces traditionally belonged to Thailand would
pressure the Khmers, inducing them to agree to the
border proposed by the Thais rather than the original
map drawn by the French in 1904.
This Thai attitude arises not from facts, rather from
arrogance. It is a rule of thumb now that when you are
rich and you have power you can manage to be arrogant.
You don't need to care what you utter.
The Khmers, the Thais and the Vietnamese all have
suffered more than enough. Live and let live. The three
are stronger when together and all should, according to
the current progressive Chinese nationalism, be aware
that the One-China Policy may not be restricted to
Taiwan only.
