Uncivil Society
This short book discusses what Shakespeare’s Hamlet [Act 4, Scene 4] might have termed ‘an egg-shell’, something small over which armies of ‘mass and charge’ might contend. But nationalism has made frontiers an even more sensitive matter than in the great playwright’s time, and the popularisation of politics can conduce to outright conflict. The tussle between Thailand and Cambodia over the temple of Preah Vihear – which led to some loss of life, notably in 2011 – is a case in point. As Dr Puangthong R. Pawakapan suggests, it raises other issues too, given, for example, the fact that the two countries are members of ASEAN and that the regional organization is aiming to make itself more people-centred.
A fuller understanding of the issue arguably calls for a longer history than the author has room for in her nevertheless telling book. The relations of the two countries have often been unhappy. A diminished Khmer state faced Thai dominance even before the Vietnamese appeared on the scene. It was to preserve what remained that subsequently led the king to accept French ‘protection’ in the 1860s. The French colonial venture in ‘Indo-China’ – an amazingly aggressive operation – put on a show of regaining the monuments of the Khmer empire. Angkor was one, Preah Vihear another. The conflict with Thailand did not end with the blockade of the Menam in 1893, but in a treaty of 1907 France secured Cambodia’s ‘lost provinces’, Siemreap and Battambang. In 1908 a boundary commission agreed on the Dongrek range as the basic frontier line, but allotted the temple to Cambodia. That perhaps helped to appease the parti colonial, which wanted to go further, and Khmer monarchists who wanted some counterpart to an intensified protectorate.
In the Japanese phase, Thailand regained the provinces, but, very reluctantly, returned them to French-protected Cambodia after the war. With the defeat of the French in Vietnam and their virtual departure from Indo-China in the 1950s, Cambodia had to make new arrangements for ensuring its independence and territorial integrity. That became the diplomatic objective of Sihanouk. Though he might not fit Hamlet’s characterisation of Fortinbras, ‘a delicate and tender Prince’, he was percipient as well as persistent. Both Thailand and South Vietnam fell into an American sphere. That made him more concerned about his neighbours, not less.
The dispute with Thailand over Preah Vihear he took to the International Court of Justice. In 1962 that decided the question of the ownership of the temple itself in Cambodia’s favour – to the fury of Thailand’s strongman, Sarit – but the court did not decide on the frontier. That left a disputed territory of truly eggshell size.
With the end of the Cold War, and the re-creation of a non-Communist Cambodia, Thailand looked to improved relations, which would give its rising industries a market and promote its ‘Golden’ dreams for the region in a new and more acceptable form. Perhaps over-ambitiously, Cambodians and Thais sought to make the temple an emblem of a new relationship. It would also be a tourist centre, and making it a World Heritage site is a recognised way of promoting heritage tourism.
The arrangements, however, became a focus for the political disputes in Thailand that pitted primate city against countryside, middle-class against peasantry, conservatives against Thaksin, and, on the streets and at the airport, ‘Yellows’ against ‘Reds’. The Yellows took up Preah Vihear as a national cause, sustaining it even after Thaksin was displaced in 2006, and indeed after the Democrat Abhisit became Prime Minister in 2008.
The historiographical community, like others, was divided. The author of this book was one of a group headed by the respected Charnvit Kasetsiri that endeavoured to undercut nationalist misinterpretations and offer a more reasoned and better supported background to the affair. Her book now does the task for us. It is also a good advertisement for good history and its public importance.
As her title suggests, she raises some other considerations. Civil society organizations are widely thought essential to democracy, but the activities of the People’s Alliance for Democracy suggest that they may also undermine it. The events of 2008-11 are thus not only part of the turbulent history of democracy in Siam/Thailand since the original coup of the Promoters. They may also have wider implications for other would-be democracies and for ASEAN itself. Its essential basis is the burying, if not resolving, of inter-member disputes. Can that be sustained if they are dealt with ‘uncivilly’?
Nicholas Tarling, from the New Zealand Asia Institute (The University of Auckland), is an historian, academic, and author (n.tarling@auckland.ac.nz)