Cambodia - Part 16

24th August 2007

I wanna live like common people…

This week a friend of mine, Louise, from my high school days came to stay for a few days. She decided to visit on her way to London where she plans to set herself up for a year or so…It was nice to get a visitor from back home. For someone to make the trek here and see what I have been up to. But at the same time it was quite strange – sitting on the bus with her from Siem Reap to Kampong Thom I started thinking about how she might see this place and I started noticing how shabby and undeveloped everything was - how so few houses had toilets, how few had electricity cables or water pipes leading to them, how many of them were nothing more than a grass huts on stilts sitting in the middle of stagnant ponds. She didn’t say anything of course. It was all in my own mind. I was seeing things I knew and had learnt over time - things that no one new to country would notice or consider. The romance of travelling in a strange and exotic place blurs out the lives of those that live behind those greying palm frond walls. You don’t think about the poverty, the hunger, the violence, the alcohol abuse until it confronts you in the street in the form of a terribly deformed beggar. But after a while, you even come to accept this.

Strange thing was, when we were growing up I use to think of Louise’s family as rich – they had a nice house that stood on the high ground of Bankstown with a clear view all the way to the city. It is stupid now I reflect on it. We both grew up in the same area. The disparity between the wealthy and poor of our area is nothing compared to the disparity of wealth between poor areas and rich or rich countries and poor countries.

So I have been thinking a lot about the rich and the poor - the haves and the have nots - of late. And I have been thinking about my own life and the good fortune that I have had.

I wonder if HECS was not an option if I would have ever gone to university and I wonder how I might have ended up if I had not. In many ways the university experience was good to me. It opened my mind and sated a desperate need in me to understand the world and my place in it. I relished in the studies of politics, history, philosophy and sociology. All the subjects that are bad for job prospects, but which are like fuel to the fire of a curious mind. I gradually grew and developed my own world view, started determining my own future and building the confidence to follow it. I think that ability. The ability to choice and determine your own future is such a powerful gift. A gift that, I hope, I can somehow share with others. With people who really need it.

I suspect if I hadn’t gone to university, if I hadn’t had those experiences I would have had a very different life. I would probably have ended up working in a manual job that I despised. Instead of turning my mind to learning and understanding, instead of opening my mind, I would probably have become angry and frustrated with the world - like so many other people who have intelligence but have no opportunity or no way of exploring their potential or determining their own lives. But worse still, I would probably have closed my mind. Who knows I may have turned to drugs or alcohol or even crime to try and feel that void, try to divert myself from myself. So many people I use to know held onto that anger and are still angry and did many of those things. They let it stifle their personal development and ended up life ruts. Sometimes I think - they chose that life, that it is their problem. But sometimes I also think that the world can be unfair and cruel. It can kick you hard when you are down, and that, for many people leads them to making poor choices.

Every person has the ability to be good or bad. Every person has the capacity to take a life and to give a life and to save a life (metaphorically and literally). We make small choices everyday to determine which side of the line we fall. Where we stand is determined by these actions. We can talk for hours about doing something or changing something, but that counts for nothing unless you act upon this. And these actions are what leads us through life and are the basis for how we deal with the challenges that life presents. Do we let it swallow us in a dark hour or do we fight on and make the most of the good when it comes to us? Do we let our insecurities let us become brittle and cruel, or do we learn from our mistakes, take it on the chin, and treat people with kindness and respect? Do we look for the good in people or the bad? Do we see the glass as half full or half empty? Do we hate or love?

For many Khmers it would be easy to hate. It would be real easy. But so many of them are positive and friendly - It is truly inspiring. In many ways, as many poor and oppressed people have done throughout history, they have accepted their lot. This is their life and they will make the most of it. They will laugh, smile, create and dream despite the hardship. Poverty, short life expectancy and corruption are merely a fact of life for them. Those that work to change this don’t expect massive things in a hurry, they realise that social change is a slow generational passage. They look to the future with hope.

For us this is unjust; this is unfair. But this is our perspective - we are bringing our ideals and expectations to the party. We know that there is a difference and we want to correct it. But to them this is just life. It is the life they know. It would seem then that justice is a luxury of the affluent.

In a strange way it reminds me a little of the left wing political movements that I was a involved with over the years. Many times I have been disillusioned by the many ‘socialists’ I have met who came from wealthy backgrounds, who would get on their high horse and berate about the rights of the workers and the poor. I would often think that it is very easy to fight the fight if daddy would come and bail you out after. Real poor people are too busy getting by. They have no security net. But that is the cynic in me - at least they were trying to do something good, to correct what they saw as wrong in the world.

I think that a lot of poor people have this nervous fear and insecurity in relation to money (duh!). An insecurity that sometimes inspires people to achieve great successes, but which often results in them turning on each other and seeking blame somewhere else. Too often it leads to anger and violence. I think this is as true at home as it is here. However, here there is not the same emphasis placed on material wealth. But I can see that slowly changing as the country gets richer and richer. But who could blame them? They see all these rich people with all these nice things flying into the country and visit a set of temples which represent a time when their peoples history where they were one of the richest and most powerful empires in the world while they scramble to make enough money in order to feed their families.

But the tables of turned. The grinding cycle of history pushed on and the empire crumbled. As all empires based on power and money eventually do. Power and money are not sustainable commodities. They inspire greed and envy. Two qualities nearly every religion in the world admonishes. Two qualities that destroy empires and people. They are often the ugly side of human nature. They are a bad choice for anyone to make – they stifle creativity, love and openness. But they are inherently human and we struggle with them every day.

They are also the reason why, I think, that communism movements failed – they tried to deny and ignore these qualities in people and ended up giving birth to, often repressive, dictatorships instead…it always struck me as strange how a political movement that sought to flatten power could so easily give itself to being abused by dictators, effectively recreating the oppressive hierarchy that they tried to dismantle Mussolini, for example, was a leader in the communist party before he become a fascist dictator.

Perhaps there are only two ways (or perhaps more correctly, two extremes on a spectrum) that we can interact as people – we can either all get together or come to consensus (i.e. participatory democracy) or we can give up decision making to another person (i.e. a hierarchy). Both systems have their merits in different circumstances. One, however, is inherently fairer. It allows for people to explore their potential, to live with dignity, to have a role in determining their own future and affecting the world around them. If they choose not be involved that is their choice. But the choice, I think, must be offered. But then again, I clearly have a vested interested in this stuff.

So the table have turned for me too. I am now I am one of the affluent person who believes in justice and is upset by the disparity between rich and poor. Perhaps, I am a chardonnay socialist. Here - I am rich. I am educated. I can rant about what I think. I can go home at the end of this. I get sick, they fly me to Bangkok. It is not really my fight. I feel an odd detachment sometimes. It is strange feeling. Don’t get me wrong – it gets me angry and it I am passionate about making a change. But I always have this at the back of my mind. In the long run change must come from the people themselves. I am just here to give them some ideas. And hopefully soon, there will be an opening, a point of access, like there was for me and their lives will change for the better, as they become more empowered and take control of their destiny.

sorry - I started ranting again. Will post something more travel like soon...

By-e.