Cambodian society is one of the most complex in the region borrowing from Hindu, Buddhist, Indian, Chinese and Malay influences.
Cambodia’s story begins in legend. Apparently, the land of Cambodia was ruled by a dragon king. One day, a foreigner, a Brahman (an Indian caste) named Kaundinya came to the shores. As he was approaching, the dragon princess came out to meet him. Kaundinya then shot a magic arrow at the boat of the princess which amazed her enough to marry him. Before the marriage, Kaundinya gave the princess new clothes and, in exchange, the king enlarged the property of his son-in-law by drinking up all the water that covered the country.
Cambodia has a heavily Indian and Chinese influence. No one knows when the Indians first landed but the worship of the dewas Siva, Vishnu and Brahma remained strong as recently as the 19th century. In the early centuries, Cambodia was an important trading post for Chinese and Indian sailors selling elephant hides and ivory, rhinoceros horn, cardoman, lacquer and wood. In turn, Cambodia was ruled by the Khmer and Funan kingdoms until the 9th century.
With the onset of the Angkor kingdom, Cambodia reached its cultural apex. It was during this age that the traditional Khmer wat consisting of enclosed temples surrounded by concentric walls and moats began to take shape. The Angkor kings traced their legitimacy to their relationship with Siva and were seen by the people as a powerful force in bringing rain and contenting ancestral spirits. The Angkors built great cities including Angkor Wat which was built between 1060 and 1150 C.E. and was occupied primarily by slaves taken from the Northern provinces. As the centuries went by, Angkor became more associated with the Buddhist faith and, by the 13th century, the Angkor kings claimed their legitimacy from the people rather than the dewa.
In the Middle Ages, Cambodia’s new Khmer kingdom struggled constantly with the Ayuthaya Kingdom that ruled much of Thailand. Much of the influence of Cambodian arts and religion actually came through interaction in battle and prisoners of war. At the same time, the Vietnamese people spread to the south and captured the area of present-day Ho Chi Minh City. Even though the Cambodian power center had shifted to Phnom Penh near the South China Sea to take advantage of marine trade, the Vietnamese capture made Ho Chi Minh City a much more influential port and relegated Cambodia economically. It is partly from this event that anti-Vietnamese feelings remained high in Cambodia even to the present day. Cambodia was further relegated as a battleground between Thai and Vietnamese forces between the 17th and 19th century.
Finally, in 1863, King Noradam, fearing the loss of his kingdom, engaged French assistance to protect his kingdom and the territory became a protectorate of France. After putting down several internal revolts, the French insisted on more control and ultimately outlawed slavery while taking over administrative control of the territory. Many French settlers were moved in to administer the territory and income gaps were wide between these French residents and local servants. At the same time, there were some advancements during French times, particularly the paving of roads between Phnom Penh and the inland villages. Still, there was much unhappiness about French rule under belief that the French were administering in such a way as to suit the needs of the residents, the enlisting of Vietnamese to civil servant positions and even attempts to Romanize the alphabet.
When the present king, Norodam Sihanouk, took over in 1941, he sided with the monks against the French and by the end of World War II, the Cambodians took over control of their own internal affairs. In those early years, there was a great deal of struggle between the King, the Democratic Party and the Khmer Peoples Revolution Party (KPRP), the latter of which had risen from the Indochina Communist Party. The King did a masterful job of playing sides to consolidate his power and, by 1962, had the support of the people and a fairly successful economy. In 1963, he denied all U.S. aid and nationalized banks.
However, by the late 1960s, the economy had fallen into heavy disrepair, particularly due to the Vietnamese War and the decision of the government to fix prices of rice produced in the northern provinces. In the early 1970’s, the KPRP, or Khmer Rouge as they became known, had taken an increasing importance in national affairs and usurped power from the King who had gone into voluntary exile. The U.S. conducted a merciless bombing campaign in Cambodia to fight the Vietnamese but in the end, with U.S. withdrawal, the Khmer Rouge took power led by Saloth Sar (known as Pol Pot), a French trained school teacher.
The period between 1975-1979 is one of the most tragic in human history. The Khmer Rouge emptied the cities moving everyone to agricultural cooperatives to increase rice production threefold with only an increase in human labor. That rice which was produced was used to feed the army and for storage and by 1977, a terrible famine had swept over Cambodia. During those years, close to two million Cambodians died from malnutrition, exhaustion and malaria and hundreds of thousands of others, among them the most educated, were sent to re-education and labor camps.
Ultimately, in 1979, the Vietnamese Army came in and defeated the Khmer Rouge installing a more supportive rule and ending the suffering to some extent. For years after, people criss-crossed the country searching for lost relatives. Socially and economically, Cambodia had become a basket case. In the meantime, Khmer Rouge leaders such as Pol Pot, Iang Sary and others had retreated to Palin, Battambang and other areas to the north and fought a guerilla war laying landmines anywhere and everywhere they went. To this day, there are more anti-personnel land mines still buried in Cambodia than in any other country in the world.
In 1993, a U.N. sponsored agreement led to the organization of elections and the forming of a coalition government between Hun Sen and Prince Ranaridh, King Sihanouk’s son. This was an uneasy coalition and Ranaridh formed a coalition with the Khmer Rouge in an attempt to stop the guerilla war and take power. In 1997, Hun Sen used this as an excuse to indict Ranaridh on treason and left the Prince fleeing the country. Fortunately, by 1998, the Khmer Rouge had agreed to lay down their arms and were reinstated into Cambodian society, Ranaridh was convicted and then pardoned and new elections meant a new coalition government. No one knows how long the coalition will last but Cambodia is now a safer country than it has been in three decades.
To this day, most of the revolutionary leaders remain free men. Pol Pot lived comfortably as head of the Khmer Rouge party until a stunning internal coup in 1997 led to his arrest by the Khmer Rouge and trial. In 1998, he died while in Khmer Rough detention. Others remain free men and some have even taken positions in the government.
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