Rainsy’s return
One tries not to focus on personal or private aspects of a
public figure, yet sometimes as mentioned in this note below, the two spheres
become overlapped and complicated owing to the nature of life in any public
arena of importance. Mr Rainsy's recent decision to return from his four years
of enforced exile was perhaps a result of the combination of a sense of public
duty and practical calculations as much as it may have been of his inner
intuition as a politician with a 'war' to win and battles to organise in that
war. At sixty-four years he is not young, but not yet too old for his calling,
while the adversities he has had to overcome within the last twenty plus years
of his life have added invaluable mileage to his experience of politics without
- to all appearance and purposes - either diluting his moral stance or
weakening his stamina.
If anything, these adversities, as he himself pointed out
lately to an admiring elderly lady at a market [!] has made him more determined
and steadfast in his purpose and resolve. After a long haul flight from France
with a brief stopover in Bangkok, he arrived at Phnom Penh to a mass body of
over half a million people flocking to the airport to welcome him home. His own
party might have arranged for a large reception gathering to mark his historic
return, yet the vast percentage of this massive crowd of people of all ages had
chosen to ignore the lack of personal invitation and just turned up cheerfully
for the occasion anyway! Such a turnout and show of solidarity with the
opposition cause signals a sea change in the manner in which people perceive
things of public relevance are governed and to be governed in the country, and
a popular revolt against long suppressed discontent towards authority and the
status quo. Even the party's strategists and organisers found their selves in a
state of momentary shock by the show of strength in number that simply says: We
want change.
It was not until five hours later before Mr Rainsy and Mr
Sokha finally reached their podium at 'Freedom Park' in the capital - a
marathon journey for a short distance due to the slow moving traffic. The last
time the people of Phnom Penh had witnessed anything on this scale was in April
1975 when the entire population of the capital was forced evacuated and
frogmarched off to the countryside. After the long speech Rainsy had had to
make time for interviews with foreign medias the same evening, and his next
morning's schedule must have commenced quite early again for the next two weeks
of election campaigning. If it had been School of Vice instead, don't expect to
see him/her coming out of the house for the best part of the following two
weeks spent recuperating from jet lag and other justified complaints!
Finally, we note that some writers have recently brought up
the story of Rainsy's father - Sam Sary - and his rumoured involvement with the
CIA in connection with a plot to assassinate then Prince Sihanouk. Mr Sary was
subsequently murdered for his reported "treason", and this rumoured
past of Rainsy's family history has been frequently aired to throw doubt and
question marks over Rainsy's own standing and motivations in pursuing his
political career - Is he there to avenge the ignominious demise of his father
by killing off the monarchy when the time will have come for him to do so? If
the father was a 'traitor', could the son also be one too? Well, first of all,
wasn't everyone who crossed his path with Sihanouk pronounced an outright
'traitor' and sent to his death or humiliation in some way? What if the CIA had
succeeded in their rumoured plot to assassinate Sihanouk; would that have
turned out to be such a bad thing after all that this man had put the Khmer
people through from his time on the throne until his recent death? And what
course would Cambodian history had taken instead in that scenario?
The irony and reality are that it wasn't Rainsy or anyone
else who had succeeded in seeing to the demise of the Cambodian monarchy [the
Royal parties had won zero number of seat in this recent election] but it had
been the active suicidal role of Sihanouk and the royals themselves,
particularly, this had been the case for Sihanouk and his undoubtedly inept and
self-serving son - Rannarith. The Monarchy itself as an ancient institution
remains potent and popular, but it is not the institution or entity, fiendishly
prostituted and pimped to no end and shame by the Norodom family for their
self-serving ends. And that is that. Let history judge! – School of Vice
Note by School of Vice
Rainsy was the target of Hun Sen's assassination attempt in
the 1997 grenade attack - it was nothing short of a miracle the former survived
that brutal attack, but many of his followers, workers and bystanders as well
as one of his own body guards had not been spared by this massacre. That is not
a refutable event or fact.
In his own defence, Rainsy has stated that "the stakes
are different" between him and Mu Sokhua. Yet, there is no question that
both these people are placing their lives at grave risk just by being in
Cambodia physically. A well known opposition leader of the Philippines had
similarly returned to his country from exile abroad to be assassinated by
President Marcos, and Rainsy faces the same risk of meeting the same fate every
time he returns to Cambodia and steps off the plane at Po Chentong airport.
Even if Hun Sen says or indicates that he won't kill anyone on order, can
anyone in their right mind trust his words on anything?! Hun Sen is mentally
sick; a madman who nonetheless wants to cling on to power regardless of the
right or wrong of his actions towards anyone - it is the common denominator and
pathological trait of tyrants the world over.
The circumstances of opposition activists in Burma and
Cambodia and their personal and/ or public agendas or priorities therein are
only fully appreciated by and known to them. Ho Chi-Minh had had to evade
arrest and imprisonment by going about with a variety of false identity and
passports, and by accepting lengthy spells in "self-imposed exile"
too, yet no one has ever thought of Ho being anything other than one who was
fully committed to his political cause - whatever that political cause might
be!
Politicians have both their public and private lives to
lead; sometimes the priorities of both spheres overlap and it is inevitable for
these individuals to try to juggle these priorities off as best they can manage
for their own sake, the sake of their family members, and that of their public
duties. It would be wrong for us to expect them to follow specific patterns and
examples set by someone else in their own other contexts and situations. If one
is out to find faults and use these subjectively and maliciously to discredit
or smear someone like Rainsy or anyone else, one is bound to come up with
something, even if on critical and close, thorough examination this something
turns out to be quite trivial or malicious in nature! Mahatma Gandhi of India
used to publicly scold his long suffering wife [she was thirteen years old when they married - a common norm in India at the time] for failing to account for the
missing of a few rupees in public funds entrusted to their keeping! Gandhi also
famously weaved and wore his own loin cloth - does Ms Suu Kyi also adhere to
Gandhi's personal life-style and conduct in this strict sense? If not, does
this imply that Ms Suu Kyi is falling short in our fair and balanced opinion of
what constitutes a noble life worthy of respect and admiration? So many
opposition activists in Burma, Cambodia, Africa and other nations on other
continents have put their own welfare and lives on the line in defence of
public and private freedom, and so many of them had suffered torture, exile,
jail and ultimately the loss of a precious life, which, however, may not be
precious to those like Mr Hun Sen and his sycophants or those who manipulate
his action and movement for their own ulterior benefit and agendas, but it is
still precious to these courageous activists nevertheless, who furthermore,
have not all been Nobel Prize winners either?
Enough said. But don’t be surprised to still read more
malignant comments on this or other public issues meant to mislead and subvert
public perception and opinion, thus deflecting these away from the real
struggle for liberty and change; like those Cu Chi rat tunnels in Vietnam,
these people will dig and gnaw their way out of any corner, literally!
1 comment:
I think Gandhi said "Actually, the King dressed enough for the both of us!" in response to Prime Minister Churchill's criticism of him for being almost half naked when he met the king of England.
Post a Comment