I'm Singaporean so I'm totally exterior to this debate about Sam Rainsy vs. Hun Sen. However, I really feel sorry for Cambodia and the Khmer people for the way they are being treated by their neighbors. The worst is that your government isn't even defending your interests, especially with the Vietnamese. Cambodia is an amazing country with a great history and it's terrible to see how it is just handed over to the Vietnamese. Look at Singapore, we built ourselves, facing threats from both Indonesia and Malaysia who had millions more people than us. However, with great leaders such as Lee Kwan-Yew, we managed to rise and to build a strong nation supported by a prosperous economy and a feared army. As a result, our neighbors never tried, at least since the 1970s, anything against us. Cambodia is now in the same state (economically at least) as Singapore was in the early 1960s. I hope you'll find yourself a Khmer version of Lee Kwan-Yew, a dedicated, uncorrupted and bright man to lead Cambodia and make it the great nation it deserves to be!
Saturday 15 January 2011
Sam Rainsy vs. Hun Sen: A view from a Singaporean
By Philip Teo
I'm Singaporean so I'm totally exterior to this debate about Sam Rainsy vs. Hun Sen. However, I really feel sorry for Cambodia and the Khmer people for the way they are being treated by their neighbors. The worst is that your government isn't even defending your interests, especially with the Vietnamese. Cambodia is an amazing country with a great history and it's terrible to see how it is just handed over to the Vietnamese. Look at Singapore, we built ourselves, facing threats from both Indonesia and Malaysia who had millions more people than us. However, with great leaders such as Lee Kwan-Yew, we managed to rise and to build a strong nation supported by a prosperous economy and a feared army. As a result, our neighbors never tried, at least since the 1970s, anything against us. Cambodia is now in the same state (economically at least) as Singapore was in the early 1960s. I hope you'll find yourself a Khmer version of Lee Kwan-Yew, a dedicated, uncorrupted and bright man to lead Cambodia and make it the great nation it deserves to be!
I'm Singaporean so I'm totally exterior to this debate about Sam Rainsy vs. Hun Sen. However, I really feel sorry for Cambodia and the Khmer people for the way they are being treated by their neighbors. The worst is that your government isn't even defending your interests, especially with the Vietnamese. Cambodia is an amazing country with a great history and it's terrible to see how it is just handed over to the Vietnamese. Look at Singapore, we built ourselves, facing threats from both Indonesia and Malaysia who had millions more people than us. However, with great leaders such as Lee Kwan-Yew, we managed to rise and to build a strong nation supported by a prosperous economy and a feared army. As a result, our neighbors never tried, at least since the 1970s, anything against us. Cambodia is now in the same state (economically at least) as Singapore was in the early 1960s. I hope you'll find yourself a Khmer version of Lee Kwan-Yew, a dedicated, uncorrupted and bright man to lead Cambodia and make it the great nation it deserves to be!
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5 comments:
Hello,
I'm Khmer (currently living in the United States for the past 28 years).
Thank you very much for your encouragement. We Khmers have to do more for our Khmer people. No outside influence from either the Viet or the Thais or the Chinese and/or the American. Yes, we Khmer have to stand on our own two feets to re-build our economy, our school, and educated our people, I think that is the only way to better ourselves. Yes, I agree, we Khmers needs to find the uncorrupted leaders to lead us Khmers, otherwise, it would be the same....all over again.
Phillip Teo, thanks for your insightful observation of Cambodian affairs. True, Singapore is one of the smallest countries, yet it is one of the most successful countries because of smart leaders like Lee Kwan Yew and because Singaporeans are smart.
Lee Kwan Yee was a smart and highly educated strongman, but he was an elected strongman who led Singapore to prosperity. Hun Sen is a dumb and uneducated strongman who bullied his way into power and then led Cambodia to hell and misery.
all nations have the peak period.
no nations last forever.
it is just not the time for singapore to decline
hamona hamoot
Cambodia's version of Lee Kwan Yew could be Sam Rainsy because he is smart, highly educated, has economic credentials and qualifications and strong and a bit authoritarian like Lee Kwan Yew. He has to be given a chance to prove himself, not being trampled like what Hun Sen had done to him now. Rainsy got a brief chance from 1993-1994 when he was appointed as finance minister. For just a short period, he had cleaned up the ministry, appointed highly qualified people and collected a lot of revenues in a short space of time. As a result, he had upset a lot of crooked businesspeople and Mr. Hun Sen who then engineered his sacking in 1994.
Khmer are not like Chinese. They are bond to greed and power, and patriotism are not existence since centuries ago--its in their blood.
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