Understanding Cambodian Culture

In 1997 I accessed a translation of what appears to be the first attempt of a Cambodian to analyse their own society, a 1973 text entitled The Ten Basic Roots of Khmer Mentality. This analysis was written by the late Professor of Culture at Phnom Penh University, Sar Sarun. His analysis may seem shallow and sketchy by today’s understandings, but it includes a number of interesting observations, some of which were probably influenced by his French education. Sar Sarun pointed out that we must not overlook the basic roots of his culture as originating in agriculture. He maintained that the Khmer have hidden strengths and a tendency to self-praise due to an unconscious

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Father Poncheau, a Catholic priest living in poverty with the people he served in Phnom Penh since the 1950s (except for the Khmer Rouge period) had come to realise he could never be totally accepted as one of them because he was a barang (white foreigner) and, no matter what he did, he would always be seen as ‘rich’ due to his inherited karma (interview, Phnom Penh, 1997).

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Kevin was referring to the US-supported overthrow of the monarchy in 1970 and their saturation- bombings of the Eastern provinces drawing Cambodia into the Vietnam War - leading to socio-political breakdown under the KR regime. In the 1979-91 civil war Cambodia was a proxy combat zone for other nations. In hindsight the UNTAC period and 1993 post-election compromise had only represented an armistice rather than a true reconciliation. (Kevin, 1999)

strong pride in their ‘Golden Country’. Cambodians lack sensitivity to rules and tend towards conservatism and inactivity due to their inhospitable geographic conditions. He believed that these traits resulted in weakness in commitment combined with extremes in love and hate. He also referred to the Khmer ideals of virtue, originating in Hinduism. These ideals include purity and chastity of the body (especially in women), total commitment to keeping a promise (truth word), and a truly courageous mind. He said that Khmer people place more value on purity of the body than they do on quality of the heart.

Sar Sarun (1973) stressed the popularly held belief among Cambodians that the major root of Khmer society is ‘matriarchy’. He cited the ancient stories of Khmer princess Liv Yi who is seen as the matriarchal founder of the Khmer kingdom. Keo Men (1997:10-21) elaborates on this widely recorded story, referring to the use of the term me

(mother) as a prefix to all words denoting leadership positions within the family, village, district and army to confirm earlier female supremacy in the culture. She explains that although ‘matriarchy’ did not exist in government institutions, it existed in everyday life, and cites several well-known proverbs and stories about the supremacy of ‘mother’ to confirm this. In agreement with Népote (communication, 2005) my informants confirmed that relationships between women control the men’s behaviour more than occurs in the reverse. They believed that connections of brothers-in-law through their respective wives, sisters and grandmothers are at the basis of the patronage system underlying survival in Cambodia, citing a proverb, “women are the roots that connect the soil to the tree”. To more fully appreciate the Cambodian belief in the historically central place of women in the society, I set out to find relevant historical records. Initially I researched the available literature, but found only a few references specific to women. These were limited to accounts of a few privileged women in the Angkorean period, and passing impressions of rural and trading Khmer women recorded by travellers. The earliest study of rural life mapping the positions of women was undertaken by anthropologist Mayko Ebihara (1971). This precise study was of a small village near Battambong in the pre-Khmer Rouge 1960s. Although this study could not be used to represent the situation in all villages in Cambodia, it was considered to be typical of many, and on return to her village in the late 1980s, Ebihara found that the life patterns of the people there had

remained virtually unchanged. No further studies involving rural women were undertaken until the 1990s. Ebihara (1971, 1990), Chandler (1993) and others agree that rural culture in Cambodia has changed minimally since the Angkorean period (9th to 14th centuries), with women and men working together at the village level in a harmonious way, with most farming tasks being interchangeable. However, following the gender imbalances caused by foreign influences and wars in more recent times, rural women have become particularly over-burdened and devalued.

Although much effort has been given to understanding the culture in relation to women in the numerous reports of NGOs and bilateral donors generated in the 1990s, it was not until working through the post-graduate writings of French academic Jacques Népote (1992) that I found a framework for understanding the contradictions existing in Khmer culture and the way women fit into their society. Népote provides a profoundly useful tool for understanding the mechanics of the culture. He demonstrates the enormous influence the concept of family has at every level of the society. Every person in a village is addressed as a family member of some sort and every member within a family is addressed according to their place, while the village head is referred to as mother of the village. Each person must fulfil the expectations of the role they inhabit in this multi- layered framework, and behave accordingly. In the same familial understanding, the king has traditionally been seen as the great benevolent father and his subjects seen as his children. ‘Patrons’ (see 2.6) are seen as uncles or aunts, and clients as nephews or nieces. Monks in the monasteries form another type of family in themselves. In this hierarchical, ‘family’ structured society it is not difficult to understand why aid workers unwittingly become the more powerful patrons, making it extremely difficult for them to transfer the concept of ‘empowerment’ to those who perceive themselves as the powerless clients. This acts as a barrier to the poorest of the poor who have nothing to offer as a client, and keep their distance. Through understanding these principles, WID/GAD aid workers may be able to move to being adopted older sisters (as did Ebihara when she lived and worked in her chosen village) rather than patrons, in order to work together with the people.

In understanding the levels of society, Népote (1992) illustrates the way in which the elite, aristocratic level at the pinnacle of the society is more Hindu than Buddhist, with the king served by Hindu priests. He points out that at this level men are highly

patriarchal and lineage of their progenies is maintained through marriages arranged with boys from the father’s side of the family. Although the women are expected to bear children of royal blood and take their father’s name, they often exhibit a range of behaviours that are outside the societal rules of ‘commoners’. Népote illustrates an inverse set of societal norms at the rural level, where women are seen as the centre of the family, and marriages to cousins on the mother’s side are common. He describes the connection of these two levels of society as being actuated through the functions of the male-centred sangha (Buddhist clergy). Traditionally, males at village level had access to higher bureaucratic levels of society through the legitimisation of serving time as a monk in the wat (village temple) and attaching themselves to an affiliated patron. Women also had access to higher levels, as the king included some beautiful women from the peasantry in his harem in order to connect with various sections of the countryside. In this way the people felt related to their father king. Népote (March 1990) warned French aid agencies that unless development workers truly understood the nature of the ‘family’ structures underlying the consciousness of Cambodian society at all levels, they would not succeed in reaching the needs of this broken people.

A year later, two expatriate American educated Khmer writers also pointed out the need for those working with Cambodian people to fully understand their socio-cultural basis. Abdul Gaffar Peang-Meth (1991:442-455) and Seanglim Bit (1991), discussed influences related to Hinduism. Peang-Meth maintained that “Cambodian society first and foremost represents an exaggerated hierarchy of socio-political control” where great importance is placed on a concentration of absolute power in the political authority, with hierarchy, oppression, and requisite conformity characterising the typical Cambodian experience. Both writers agree that we must begin by understanding that Khmer monarchs were traditionally invested with supreme authority, and privileges of the royal family, extended to relatives for more than five generations. The king frequently appointed family members to official positions of authority and administration, and financially benefited them through taxation and corvee exemptions.

The insights of Peang-Meth and Bit combined with Népote’s analysis provide a fuller understanding of the present situation in Cambodia where political leaders have effectively usurped the power of the king. Their behaviours emulate the king who is

traditionally described as ‘consuming the people’, not ‘leading the people’ as one might expect. Leaders and their followers see themselves as holding elite positions that cannot be relinquished. Their positions are consolidated through marriages arranged between their children to make sure power remains in their families, and democracy is little understood. The rural poor are there for ‘consumption’, and the rural poor accept it. The large numbers of men employed in the army and police force to protect the powerful leading party, see themselves as connected to and protected by their patron leader. In the same way, the older generation see themselves as connected to and protected by their king. With a weakened sangha unable to connect the levels of society, the poor and women in particular have lost out.

In agreement with Peang-Meth (1991), Bit (1991:39-41) points out that both Hinduism and the philosophy of Brahmanism have combined with the belief system of Theravada Buddhism and greatly influenced Khmer culture and society. These contradictory influences have resulted in generalised Khmer characteristics and predispositions that have greatly contributed to the recent tragedies and continue to affect the contemporary situation as well. Although these writers have not focussed on women in particular, they discuss the conflicting racial memories in which the Hindu ‘tiger/warrior’ god-kings of Angkor emerge to overturn the tolerant, accepting, agreeable and understanding Buddhist ideologies at crucial moments in history. They describe how Brahmanistic concepts of class-consciousness conflict with Buddhist beliefs of peace and equality together with teachings of karmic rebirth being subject to one’s merit. Overt corruption is legitimised through Devaraja Hindu beliefs of complete allegiance to leaders and ‘the ends justifying the means’. In the Khmer context, Buddhist passivity and acceptance are acted out as polite agreement and avoidance of action with the agreement not necessarily indicating intention to fulfil that agreement. I have seen these behaviours being misunderstood by Westerners who believed that all their help was being appreciated and couldn’t work out why things ‘went wrong’, misinterpreting Khmer behaviour as laziness.7 Conversely, when the Khmer felt their well-being threatened,

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An UNTAC handout (1992) prepared by Melbourne academic, Dr. Thel Thong, cautioned ‘In general don’t expect to engage Cambodians in a negotiation on which objectives are based. This Western concept is foreign to them.’

some even became aggressive, inflexible, argumentative and uncompromising.8 Peang- Meth claims that the contradictory beliefs and behaviours of Khmer people have contributed to the widening gap between Western-educated expatriates and poorly educated Cambodians. He maintains that these mismatches make stability and democracy very difficult to achieve.