While a savant can only pick a piece or few pieces of things but cant see or
draw the whole picture it is like a Khmer proverb said " a kvak steab domrei"
The most difficult for a man is not his capacity to digest a mount of savoir
(told/knowledge) but his discernment and mental capacity to make right
distinction between things and his capacity make his own idea of those things
in a right direction.
Behind each action, there's hides ambitions or goals. It is difficult not to
fall in ambiguity but ambiguity is generally belongs to someone who missed one
own idea, or oneself in a space or at least has something to hide. Man
influenced and influenable. I believe in a fact that a book, a culture can make
a man who he is. Theory destroys, kills as it save. Hyena or chicken cant give
birth to lion and inversely. But people can believe what they want to or think
they should. That's their freedom.
By joining Vietcong rank for whatever ambition, polpot did a lot of harm
against Khmer for yuon interest but polpot is not the creator of the practice
or theory led against Khmer.
A lot hate polpot or those they hate but don't they think they are polpot or
those they hated themselves in some degree. Human is not a machine that can
only repeat, report or contain things or apply/obey a command or an order.
You can hate me because I'm being honest.
----- Original Message -----
From: PuppyXpress
To: camdisc
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2010 11:27 PM
Subject: People must know they have power
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gaffar Peang-Meth <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 10:30 AM
Subject: People must know they have power
To:
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS
October 6, 2010
People must know they have power
By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
The Khmer blog KI-Media recently has been publishing in sections Gene Sharp's
"From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation," by
the
Albert Einstein Institution, that provides significant guidelines to "assist
thought and planning" in the fight against dictatorship.
Sharp hopes his study on "how a dictatorship can be disintegrated" would be
useful "wherever people live under domination and desire to be free."
Sharp presupposes people who live under a dictatorship can distinguish
between a
dictatorship and a democracy, and there are those with a "desire to be free."
Enormous work and effort are required from fractious democrats and rights
activists who fight powerful ruling tyrants. In Cambodia, deeply rooted old
habits and thoughts stand opposite imaginative, creative and innovative
thinking.
Some 70 percent of the people polled said Cambodia under autocracy is headed
in
"the right direction." Khmer and foreign partisans of political "stability"
ignore civil rights violations, while opponents of autocracy speak of "people
power."
Yet power doesn't exist until the people understand it is actually in their
hands; until democrats and rights activists help them to believe the truth
that
no power, force or barrier can withstand their determined efforts for rights
and
freedom.
More than ever, Cambodians need democrats and rights activists to lead them.
Through enlightened and efficient leadership, the citizens become aware of
the
parameters of oppression and develop the confidence that will bring down any
dictator.
'Pigs don't fly'
Some readers complain that I write a lot about better thinking but don't tell
them what and how it will help defeat Cambodia's autocracy and keep Khmers
Khmer. In some ways, the complaint itself is evidence of a lack of analytical
thought.
I don't normally read comments posted by anonymous bloggers, whose
expletives,
racial slurs or demonization of opponents affirm the bloggers' true values,
but
every now and then I peruse them.
Some people blog to relieve their frustration and unhappiness -- which is
useful
to detect the symptoms of a disease, if not the disease itself.
A blogger took offense at my remarks that all minds can be taught, and
responded
with "pigs don't fly" -- i.e., some minds simply cannot improve, just like a
horse refuses to drink even if led to the water. There can't be change
without a
belief that it is possible. Are some unredeemable intellectually?
Pigs don't fly. We know that. But human minds do develop and grow. We know
that,
too.
Pol Pot decided that a people so "stupid" as to refuse his ways and thoughts
must be destroyed and re-educated through forced labor and "tbaung chawb"
(hoe
blade) to strike the necks of those with "incorrect" thinking. There is no
gain
to keep them, no loss to eliminate them, the Khmer Rouge said. Thus, Pol Pot
killed the nation.
When I was a child, my father often reminded me that if I didn't use my brain
to
read and reflect, the brain's lack of exercise would kill me, just as if I
denied my stomach food, the stomach would contract and shrink and I would die.
Peasants, businessmen, the elite and those of royal heritage are human, each
with "one kilo of brain" that can think. Royals may know much about the
throne,
but peasants know much about the rice that feeds the royals.
Pigs won't fly. But the human brain has taken man to the moon and back.
True stories
I had just passed my doctoral comprehensive examinations and defended my
dissertation proposal at the University of Michigan when Cambodia's
republican
regime tapped me to take a post at the Khmer Republic Embassy in Washington,
D.C.
Long Boret, the foreign minister, who examined a political bulletin I edited
in
Ann Arbor, called me to join his delegation to the United Nations, observed
my
work, and I agreed to serve the republican embassy under Ambassador Um Sim.
Both
Boret and Sim gave me enough room to apply my creativity, innovation and
analytical thinking in my work. They saw some tangible change. Both were
interested in results and not gossip and backbiting.
In his last words to me before the collapse of the republican government,
Long
Boret told me to prepare to join him in Phnom Penh. Boret was executed by Pol
Pot's men on April 17, 1975.
The situation was different after I joined the Khmer People's National
Liberation Front in the field in 1980. With a degree of freedom to think and
act
as a member of the front's executive committee, I applied my creativity,
innovation and analytical thinking. Objective observers could affirm some
positive change.
But those qualities also gained me enemies, even within our ranks. My
problems
mounted. But that is a story for another day, if ever I have the desire to
share
my perspective.
Better thinking
I subscribe to Edmund Burke's philosophy that traditions link the dead, the
living and those to be born. But I distinguish those traditions that are
barriers to surviving in an advancing world -- like blind obedience and
unquestionable loyalty -- and those that uphold a people's culture and
integrity
-- like taking off shoes when entering home or clasping hands to say thank
you.
It's anyone's prerogative to prefer one regime over another. But I think it's
not good thinking to hate a monarchy or a republic. Professor Thomas Szasz
once
said, "A system is not stupid, the people in it are."
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he
taught political science for 13 years. Write him at [email protected].
http://www.guampdn.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201010060300/OPINION02/10060315
--
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
