http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2007/02/exclu...nsy-srp_16.html
Translated from French
Cambodge Nouveau (New Cambodia)
February 2007 issue
The CPP fights a rearguard action
I put my confidence in human beings, I believe that sooner or later, people will think correctly. I believe that the CPP fights a rearguard action. It’s an obsolete party. It has some inertia, just like a car moving towards an abyss at a breakneck speed, but it is kinetic energy… an anachronism which cannot last for long. The CPP is there, it has all the advantages, all the prerogatives due to power, it has the means to control, to try to perpetuate the regime. But it is acting against the current, against the trends, against what a modern state would have done.
[The trends] is about fighting against corruption, about leading a new policy, about redistributing lands just like what Vietnam is doing – Vietnam is now becoming the second exporter of rice in the world, whereas it was lacking rice 20 years ago. The rural area reform was the first thing the Vietnamese undertook. In Cambodia, the CPP does not have the means, nor the desire to bring about such rural reform. The leaders cannot see farther than the tip of their nose. They own tens and hundreds thousands of hectares of land: it is not in their interest to bring about rural reform. If the agriculture sector remains paralyzed as it is now because of the unfair land distribution, the country will not advance, meanwhile at the top of the State, people are fighting to obtain lucrative positions through alliances between parties in order to divide up positions, and not to modernize the country!
Only a modern State with a modern, transparent fiscal system could put Cambodia on the right tracks to real progress. Not a system based on aids which treats citizens as beggars, which perpetuates this begging mentality. That’s not progress.
What it [the CPP] can gain from this game, is only a little bit of time, but one day it will explode back in their face. The unemployment is a ticking bomb. As long as you don’t set in place and lead a policy which allows the creation of 300,000 jobs per year, sooner or later it will explode in your face.
The CPP is like Mussolini’s fascism
The CPP is very sly. I don’t see it as a more or less communist party, but rather a party close to Mussolini’s fascism.
What is common between a communist and a fascist state, is that they are both police states. We have it: it’s the heritage from the State of Kampuchea. It is true that we have capitalism, but it resembles to that of Mussolini which encouraged large companies. Here, we don’t have “200 families” [which own France] as they say it in France, in Cambodia, we only the 20 go-between families, all these oknhas, … These 20 families are very close to the CPP high-ranking officials which monopolized the State, and they bludgeoned the unions, just like under Mussolini!
Another common point: Mussolini signed an agreement, a concordat with the pope – a conciliatory pope. Look at Tep Vong, look at these pagodas that are built everywhere on top of the [existing] misery, it’s the people’s drug! The CPP people are becoming very religious, they are hypocrites! Mussolini got along well with the pope, just like Hun Sen is getting along well with Tep Vong. Mussolini also got along well with king Victor Emmanuel III. I am currently writing a book in which I recall that Norodom Sihanouk, when he was King, told me: “I wonder if I am not like the last king of Italy, the people will blame me of being too accommodating…”
In both cases, State capitalism, workers repression, privileged relationships with the religious authorities, and a weak monarchy, all of these are puzzling. That’s the SRP language.
For a more social religion
It is true that Cambodian people are far from rising up. Why? Religion is interpreted in such a way as to sedate them.
The SRP wants to promote a more social concept of religion. Not the religion for a life after death, not for paradise, but for a religion which engages itself to improve the well being of people “right here, right now,” as [French President] Mitterrand used to say.
What sedate people is the religion, just like a drug, this favors the CPP: if you don’t have work, don’t rise up! It’s also the army draft, this famous law…. It’s also about the games on TV, where all the channels are broadcasting stultifying programs putting you to sleep, rather than programs which teach civic lessons, and from which people are learning to think, to look forward to their future, to ask about true social and professional problems.
We bet on the human spirit and on the youth
All of this shows that the CPP is scared, and that it does not stand up to the youth in terms of intelligence, in terms of light. It is not by chance that the SRP selected the candle as its symbol: the candle is the light! We believe that the true battle between human intelligence which can think, and the animal spirit, which is satisfied to live on a day-to-day basis because of religion, drugs, violence, superstitions, gambling… all things that stun, that push Cambodian people to resign to their fates. The SRP tends to be revolutionary, we tend to say: “No, wake up, go to vote! To the voting polls, citizens!”
The youth: you will see two youth movements in Cambodia: the CPP youth and the SRP youth.
The CPP youth are motivated with material advantages. They are conscripted to go dancing, to eat out, to take pleasure trips, to receive gifts, to meet, … to party, all things that stun them.
The SRP youth is a studious youth, which holds seminars, discussion groups, which compete by debating each other based on the Internet, on messages, on study reports … we are betting on the human spirit. We will form people who will claim their rights, who will ask for changes.
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Social Buddhism: Indeed, Buddhism is a social tradition, in particular that of the Greater Vehicle [Mahayana], Sam Rainsy explained. It worships pre-incarnations of the Buddha, a more human Buddha, who had known during past lives, passions, dilemmas, internal struggles … I belong to the Small Vehicle Buddhism [Hinayana], but there again, I support a Buddhism which is more socially engaged. That’s in fact what happens in Burma, in Sri Lanka … Let’s remember that in Vietnam, monks immolate themselves. Here, Buddhism is the ideological foundation of the regime which is preaching a Buddhism that sedates people.
There are five Buddhist precepts:
“you shall not kill,” but giving out orders to kill is the same as killing, not arresting a guilty person is also the same; a politician can also be guilty
“you shall not steal,” but stealing from the nation, the corruption, it is even more serious
“you shall not lie,” but then what is propaganda?
“you shall not commit adultery and incest,” but [it is OK] to admit to human trafficking, to prostitution, to pornography?
“you shall not drink alcohol,” but [is it OK] to admit to using drugs?