Cambodia: A lesson in humility

(This post was originally published on http://www.masterpeace.org/blogs/post/cambodia_a_lesson_in_humility)

This blog is a reflection on a recent trip to Cambodia in Aug 2013 in the context of studying the history of genocide and development of eco-tourism, apart from understanding the peace building process. As an organisation development and capacity building professional, the country was disturbing for me, yet fascinating at the same time. At the end, I am glad to say, the hope and fascination superseded the disturbance...

Pol Pot aimed to establish Year Zero by destroying human, social, economic and political developments in Cambodia. As a foreigner, it is very tempting to say that he did indeed succeed. If we were to look at Cambodia from the narrow frame of the Khmer Rouge regime and the recovery thereafter, it does feel like a nation going through a silent, unforgiving, chronic PTSD.

But that is a naïve judgment. The fact that human beings continue to live in that country in spite of their past, the fact that they reproduce, the fact that they earn, and the fact that they invite others into their country and are willing to be witnessed as fellow human beings who survived the irrationality of a few people – all these scream out loud to say, do not judge. Learn from Cambodia, instead.

As an external observer, it is common to look at a post-conflict scenario and try to establish who the victims and perpetrators were. A conditioned mind is trained to take sides and to evoke the ‘right’ emotions of empathy, compassion, caring – all of which make us feel human. But then, in the process of doing that, we are only trying to prove our humanity to ourselves, while using the scenario – Cambodia, in this case – as a tool. The country does not need our judgments. It only needs to be acknowledged as a living organism that lives beyond a violation and needs time to catch up on growth.

In a globalised world, what happens in one country does have an impact on the rest of the world. It is natural, therefore, for the world to intervene in Cambodia and want to help it to catch up. But it is necessary that while we do that, we are doubly cautious of overcoming our limited frame of mind. One of the most impacting, albeit a very tiny part of my trip, was watching half a movie at DC-Cam (Documentation Center of Cambodia) based on the musical scene in the country before the Khmer Rouge regime. It was a stark reminder of the fact that there existed a thriving, prosperous place and culture before Pol Pot, that had all the aspirations and hopes that any other country does. Pol Pot succeeded in establishing Year Zero in the foreign minds, as he made us forget that Cambodia had a past before him. But thankfully, Cambodians have not forgotten.

The innate human need for growth has made them live when there was no reason to live. It has made them produce children in a place where it was difficult to envision the future of a child. For this reason alone, Cambodians have been victorious. They are not the victims of their past. They are what emerged despite their past.

Yes, the current polity and governance leaves a lot to be desired. The scope for development across board is huge and corruption and vested interested among politicians are rampant, as is the case across the world. The practical issues arising out of the fact that NGOs do more for the country than the government does, certainly need to be addressed and corrected. But as peace workers, it is important to approach these issues from the right angle.

The easy, tempting and popular angle is to view the populace as being incapable of good decision making in view of the chronic PTSD. That view explains the sheer number of NGOs wanting to offer service to the country. However, they may have caused more harm than good by living with an assumption.

In 1979, it was perhaps correct to assume that the country was indeed stressed and needed help at all levels – politically, economically, socially and psychologically. But true altruism would have been to build capacities within the structure to help the people move beyond their past. Instead, an entire industry has emerged to ensure that Cambodia stays glued to its past, simply to justify the presence and commerce of institutions that have formed to ‘help’.

The beacons of hope, as I see it, are the Cambodian youth and children, who are willing and wanting to move beyond an identity imposed on them by legacy. They are guided well by some senior elder citizens who have survived the tortures during 1975-79, and refuse to stay stuck with the label of being a victim. The foundations laid by people likeYouk Chhang, Thun Saray, Soth Plai Ngarm, Koul Panha, etc. will go a long way in building the nation of their dreams. It may take time, and they may or may not live to see it. But the seeds of emotional freedom are sown in the minds of the generation to whom the future belongs.

Personally, through my stay there, I was undulating between the conditioned responses of depression and pity and being a neutral observer. It was difficult to be hopeful then, as the rational mind looked at the current political situation and wondered if there is any cause for hope at all. But as I step back now, and recall the determination in the eyes of the youth and smiles on the faces of children, I am hopeful. Building a nation needs rationale and logic. But the willingness to build it calls for an irrational, humane sense of hope, and the Cambodians have this. They were brought down by an irrational need for destruction in the past. They can spring back up with the irrational force of aspiration, combined with rational creation of structures to manage the country better.

Cambodia for me has been a lesson in humility. It has been a personal journey in understanding my tendencies to judge, to identify with victims, to hang on to the past. It has made me understand that I as a person would not want to be slotted into one event or incident in my past and be labelled with it. Neither would a country of fellow human beings want that. Even if that event has had a huge impact on my growth, I am not my past, I am one that survived my past. Similarly, Cambodia is not Khmer Rouge, it is a nation that has survived it.

There is a lot to look forward to. From a logical perspective, the near future may not be a cakewalk for Cambodia. They have a lot to catch up with. Like a lot of other countries, Cambodia needs a real government – the one that is interested in nation building as against vested interests. It needs good, non-political educational institutions. The people need infrastructure and basic amenities. In a way, the advent of the AEC in 2015 will push the nation towards these developments, whether or not the government is willing. It may be economically difficult for people in the next few years. But they will cope. The youth is incredibly determined to change their lives, and hopefully, this determination will carry them through, even if it takes a little while.

I have mixed feelings about the commercialised tourism at the killing fields and Toul Sleng. In a way, it helps the world confront its nihilistic tendencies. It makes us aware of the fact that we are capable of what Pol Pot did - should we not guard our behaviour at all times? At the same time, a part of me questions whether mindless tourism of a graveyard is respectful to those that lost their lives. It also makes me question if we are evoking sympathy and sadness for a country that does not need it. Cambodians need understanding and hope, not a reinforcement of their past.

The decision to permit tourism in graveyards is a question that all of us as human beings need to ponder over. What is it that attracts us to such ventures? What is it that makes us averse to the idea? The answers will vary from one person to another. But hopefully it will make us aware of our conditioning and intentions as human beings and help us be more mindful in the future.

Human versus human

Who does that little island in the midst of the river belong to? Did Earth ever put herself up to be claimed and sold and bought in the first place?

In that picture, there is Myanmar to the left, Laos to the right and it was clicked from Thailand. The Mekong River calmly caresses the borders, blissfully unaware of the divide in the minds of people around it. Or perhaps, it makes a statement by flowing there. Perhaps, it laughs at the futility of the idea of borders and dares us to assign a name and claim to that little green patch in the centre. The backdrop of the hills seem to jeer at the notion of the porous border that is violated everyday by victims of parochial minds.

This patch of land and its consequences were the central theme of a recent field study trip to northern Thailand that I was part of (during my course on peace and conflict resolution at Chulalongkorn University). While the beauty and vibrancy of Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai deserve a mention, the undercurrents of parochialism shake the very foundation of society here, and for that matter, question the nature of humanity all across the globalised world.

These hills all around the borders have lured settlers over the centuries. When nations formed, they gladly claimed the land and its resources allocated to them. However, they took no note of the people. These hill people had been without access to the lowlands and the ‘mainstream’ for ages due to lack of infrastructure. Consequently, they did not exist in the records. Today, even as one can acknowledge the existence of these colourful communities with all our sense organs, governments choose to overrule the proofs and maintain that they do not exist, since they do not have birth certificates, land papers, identity cards – apparently, pieces of paper validate existence in a way that a breathing human cannot.

And so we have statelessness. We have entire communities (we do not know the numbers – remember, they do not ‘exist’!) that are born and struggle to live and die without ever belonging to a nation. And the powers that run the nation are not bothered to embrace them into the folds of country because no one cares about one that does not exist. As a privileged citizen of a country with a citizenship rewarded to me for no apparent effort, I cannot even imagine what it feels like to be trapped in the hills with no nationality, no legal existence and therefore no access to education or healthcare, no freedom of movement beyond the hills (how can one be in a country where one does not exist?).

The ray of hope are the numerous organizations and individuals advocating citizenship for the stateless hill tribes on both the Thai and Burmese sides of the border. However, the process is painful and slow with no carrots dangling for the governments if they do their jobs, nor sticks to berate them, since the non-existent have no voice. But these stateless communities are shining examples of survival without that which most of us take for granted – citizenship. They fight for their rights, farm, produce goods, marry, produce children, educate them to whatever extent possible, dream of a better future. And I wonder, we who rant against our governments, we who complain about not getting our favourite food, we who are depressed about not earning enough money: what would we do if we were told we did not exist anymore even as we lived and breathed? Will shattering an identity free us from our excuses to not be happy and grateful?

Another consequence of those borders has been the openly visible and blatantly ignored phenomenon of human trafficking. People cross borders knowingly or unknowingly and willingly or unwillingly for greener pastures. Women end up in brothels or as tortured maid servants, men end up in factories and fishing vessels chained by their employers and children are consumed by paedophiles. Again, hope shines through the clouds in the form of agencies working against human trafficking. However, what sends a shudder down the spine is the reason why this exists and is perpetuated.

There are some that fall prey to trafficking lured by the guarantee of the next square meal. But there is an increasing number of those (some of whom are actively prodded by families), who get trafficked for that iPhone or the latest tab that the neighbour has. And to fuel this consumerist dream, it is shocking to discover all the actors that work in tandem – parents who are willing to sell their child, the middleman who looks for profit while disregarding the life that is at stake, the community leaders and even teachers who allow the middlemen to exist and even receive a share of profits, the monks that build temples with the donations from the profits of traffickers trying cover up their sins, the police that claims to protect society and yet guards the middlemen in return for their share of money, the tourism industry that stands on the pillars of trafficking and above all, us.

We – the consumers of human trafficking – do we care who made those heavily discounted clothes in the shops in Bangkok? Do we realise that they are cheap only because the slave labour is barely paid and is practically captive in the factories? When we are delighted about the low prices of that can of tuna, do we give a thought to that slave on the ship who has not been allowed to set foot on land for years? Do we know that he has perhaps become so ill that his employer intends to replace him after simply throwing him into the ocean? All those who come to Bangkok ‘to have a good time’ – do they think about why is that woman, or often, a child, willing to be used an object over and over again without any regard for their health, let alone their dignity?

Throughout the duration of the field study and beyond, these questions loom large. At one time, we visited a non-profit school run for stateless children, who were loving and smiling, in spite of their fate. And in the next hour, we had dinner at the private zoo of a rich individual (one of the donors to the school), complete with exotic animals imported from other continents. I try hard to resist judgment here, but it takes supreme and continual effort. One has every right to enjoy the fruits of one’s efforts in a manner one chooses. But is a private zoo, with the huge expanse of land, cost of animals and their maintenance, justified when that money could have provided several hundreds of families a roof over their heads or empowered an entire generation with education? This is not about that individual who owns the zoo, but about the choices that all of us make.

Consumerism seems to be a Frankenstein. I wonder how much of what I own do I really need. How much have I deprived an unknown, unacknowledged human being in another end of the world of? The point is not to feel guilty – that is a useless emotion. But the times do call for mindfulness in what we do. That is one of the lessons I take back from the trip.

The other lesson is to act in whatever sphere of influence one has, regardless of how big the sphere is. Most of the organizations and people we interacted with in the region would have never started had they questioned their ability to make an impact on a large scale. They started by standing up for themselves, or by trying to make a difference to a handful. The sphere of influence widens as one sustains one’s intent.

I am concerned, yet, I am hopeful. What we saw and learnt in northern Thailand was not humane. But the unsung heroes in the form of individuals and organizations working to infuse humanity into the system deserve to be celebrated. I hope I can begin that by initiating and continuing this conversation…

(Note: In the picture, the red rooftops on the left in Myanmar and the blue ones on the right in Laos happen to be casinos – tourists can gamble here legally without needing a visa to enter these countries, since the immigration check-posts are further inland. Capitalism rules the roost!)

Songs

Some songs are for us to sing,
Yet others to listen to and revel in,
Some are simply strains to be heard from afar,
To be grateful, that someone, somewhere, creates music.

Yet, some of these distant tunes touch a chord
That a jarring note next door does not.
One wonders if it's the call of destiny
To set out on a search for the source of melody
Or wait patiently surrounded by the noise,
Trusting that life will waft some lovely note
Into the ears that are empty, saving the space
For music that is not just sound, but who we are.

We may sometimes not feel the notes we sing
But see and know a distant strain
For what is essential for the soul
Is not always audible, but known deep within.

Colours, Words & Peace

(originally published at http://rotarypeacechula.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/colours-words-peace/)

The battle of power, politics and pride that we see

Is but a mirror of the war between I and me…

As I started pondering about this blog and formulating thoughts, words deserted me for a while. Colours invaded, instead. Before long, the fingers that fumbled over the keyboard were gingerly handling water-soluble oil-pastels, a medium that I am not used to painting in. And a blog emerged in this form:

My stint here, so far, as a Rotary Peace Fellow at the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, has reinforced a few questions that have perhaps been the drivers of my choices thus far in life. Much as I’d prefer answers to pave the way, it is often questions that make us tread the paths that we do, in the process, revealing us to ourselves.

So, the painting has multi-coloured flames surrounding the Buddha – the enlightened one. I chose fire as the element for various reasons. At a mundane level, fire is associated with violence and destruction. From a historical perspective, it stimulates growth by enabling cooking, industry, etc. From a spiritual standpoint, it is often referred to as the cleanser – that which purifies energies. It symbolises light and power. In summation, it seems to encompass all associations from the very negative to the very positive. Hence the varied hues of the flames.

And then there is the Buddha under the Bodhi tree (the tree of enlightenment). He is represented in black, the colour that absorbs every other, be it the passionately violent red or the serenely tranquil blue. The tree symbolises the concept of the Buddha as an entity like you and me, rooted to the Earth, standing firm against the vicissitudes of time, responding to the seasons, making every effort to bloom and bear fruit, and of course, provide the comforting shade of compassion and love. The enlightened one is not in denial of the raging red or passionate pink or the flaming yellow, nor of the luxuriant green or the calming blue or the alluring violet. No need or emotion or desire is good or bad. It simply is. Absorbing all of it into the non-judgmental black was the Buddha’s pathway to peace: absolute acceptance of self and therefore, of the world around. Often, blessings across the world have something to do with ‘being in the light’. In the Buddha’s case, the light is within.

The painting was my mind’s response to thoughts on peace amidst conflict. I choose, at this point, to deal with it at the level of the individual. I have no idea how to govern a country, let alone aim at world peace. Nevertheless, I do believe the macrocosm mirrors the microcosm, and hence the power of one is infinite.

So, what causes conflict within us as individuals? Ironically, often the very first lesson we are taught is a huge blow for the peace within. We are taught not to accept ourselves. As a girl child, I was told by parents trying hard to be liberal, “You are like my son.” The message I got was that it was not good enough to be a girl, one had to be ‘like a son’ to be of any value. School teachers often try to encourage us by comparing us to all and sundry who are better than us at something or the other, telling us we are not ok as we are. The competition in the university systems and the job market keep reinforcing our ‘areas of improvement’. In a world, whose systems we have willfully created, that continually screams non-acceptance at us, how are we to respond, but with inner conflict?

We try to mask this inner conflict by judging others as being not acceptable – the colour of his skin is too dark, she has conservative beliefs, he is too selfish, she is too career-oriented – all of this, to simply battle all that we do not accept in self, in some form or the other. If it were a quality that we accepted in ourselves, seeing it in others would not make us react, for then we would understand. It is only when we do not acknowledge and/or accept something in self, that we react to those things in others. Irritation is our mind calling attention to unaccepted aspects of self.

We find peace as individuals when we accept ourselves and celebrate us for who we are. Acceptance is not passivity. It is empowering. It is the first step to change and growth. Denial stalls change, for we do not admit the need for growth. Peace is a conscious choice.

My wish-list for world peace is simple: if only we held babies tight against our chests, regardless of their sex; if only we appreciated children for their efforts at learning, regardless of their grades; if only we hugged those that care, regardless of their economic class; if only we were grateful for love, regardless of who it came from; if only we shared in trust, regardless of who returns the trust and in what form; if only we respected the Mother Earth, who holds us to her bosom regardless of what we have been doing to her… we will know peace, in that moment.

In the meanwhile, our hope is the harbinger of peace. The flowers that bloom every spring, the bird that builds a nest after every storm, the naked street children that wear a big smile without knowing where their next meal will come from, the mothers that give birth in refugee camps – all remind us that peace is the destination of a conflicted world, and therefore, we must hope.

I am reminded of the words of the renowned Hindi poet Harivanshrai Bacchhan: “Need ka nirmaan fir-fir, neh ka ahvaan fir-fir…” Yet again one builds a nest, yet again there’s the call of love…

Dawn

We strive for an identity,
Believing life is the sum of accolades gathered;
Till life heaves a sigh
And gently smiles, revealing…
We are to break the identity,
To go beyond what we think we are.
Life now is not to gather, but to give up;
It's about claiming oneself and claiming all.
This claim demands relinquishing
All that was us, to now be us,
To wrench away from the image of God
To ultimately, be God.

What's in a name?

One sees, and wants to name...
What is it about us
That wishes and rushes to identify and define?
Is it our physicality that merits a definition;
Or is it the mind's eye trapped in the physicality?
Wonder how would it be in a world without names...
Would we blend and grow with abandon
For there would be none to call us small;
Would we love and merge with no boundaries
For there would be none to outline borders;
Would we see perspicaciously that we are one
For there would be none that is named God...
One does not know, for this is a world with names
Perhaps we hope that our names are the pathway to God.
That Name, which encompasses existence
And non-existence too,
For in naming, we acknowledge the un-named.
In this realm of names
Our journey seems to start with being the named
To claiming that in us which is un-named.
The named and the nameless indulge in the cosmic dance
Merging, dividing... Orchestrating the orgasm that is life
Till the named surrenders
The nameless graciously consumes
To birth another symphony
To be dedicated to yet another name...

(Inspired by and dedicated to a nameless two-day old kitten :) )