Kingdom at Risks of Cultural Divisions
" A Functional Cup Needs All Pieces Together, while Consciousness is One of Good Glue "
My quote of this sad morning
Sitting at the bank of Ang Kaew CMU and touched by rhythm of the wind carrying sound of Elvish Presley singing on a tree top, I immediately felt into a depth of sadness--the sadness which was stimulated by a piece of article asking "Why do [Cambodian] young abroad graduates choose not to work for the government jobs?] The same articles further quotes several claims from M.A. and PhD. holders who expressed their resentment over experience working in government offices. Their experiences have produced sorts of mainstream of government works painted with black color chasing away young intellectuals who indeed want to develop that little country. What is the definition of development? In what way and what speed should we guarantee development in right manner and right conditions? Can Cambodia get changed in a blink or an eye? Metaphorically when does Cambodian pieces come together jointed by what glue?
I do admit that their claims are accurate for certain reasons and certain places and certain situations. Yet I do oppose and discontent to see these claims becoming mainstream. I would sound ridiculous. but I have to say that mainstreams make thing worse and worse. For me I would choose to contextualize but not generalize such the facts. In plain English, I would say I still have little hope of better government works in Cambodia and still urge young and bright youth to get enrolled in government employment rather than escaping from it. Otherwise, you will be part of reproduction of stupidity and sameness of old working behaviors. When more young people with true capacity and passion to help this country, it will at least create a little change in terms of new thinking and new behaviors at work. In contrary, if more capable human resources fly off government works, they would seem to leave a crack for bad persons to work in their replacement. Therefore conditions of government works will never ever change towards betterment, instead it remained unchanged and firmly anchored with nepotism and corruption. I truly understand how they feel under mistreatment and devaluation received from upper houses with no sense of respect. I also have attempt to criticize anyone. All I write it just to pinpoint implications from our practices and dangerous mainstream.
With no interest to talk about political divisions I am more fascinated to share my concerns over what I may call "cultural divisions". What does it mean from my point of view? Let me narrow down my definition of culture within a context of people's everyday same practices and their way of thinking which create sorts of commonality shared by people at large scale. I have just talked about an example of cultural division where young generation get trapped in a dichotomy of whether state or non-state employment. They get trapped within whether should I work for the government or not. I call it a trap because people never realize connectivity and relationship between state and non-state agencies in development. To add to this, let's look at how most NGOs and Government institutions work together. It seems like there is contradiction of interests and positions between NGOs and Government. It appears that what NGOs works is perceived by government as opposition and criticism, while NGOs rather paints Government as a bad guy putting pressure to the local community or some other marginalized people. However, there is a big absence of understanding that these two actors have to be mutual friends with participation of community in country development. As long as these actors are still in pieces, development is a little beyond its definition in dictionary. Development needs all these pieces together--need all pieces and cooperation from its people rather than people in dichotomy and divisions.
In addition to divisions in sate and non-state employment and community and state, I would go down a little bit to individual divisions. Please allow me to give an example of group division among people. I studies at IFL and I often heard " IFL clique and RUPP clique cannot combine together. IFL folks are more...blah blah" What is it supposed to mean? I swear to God that such the mainstream does not help anything but makes students arrogant and big headed with their little achievement. Such cultural division makes informal rumor that IFL is not part of RUPP. That is an insane !!
Another common example is about hatred contagion spread by figures in high position and great influence. They have high influence indeed--for instance professors, M.A. or PhD seniors and others. They have great changing influences to their subordinates just by their dangerous words from brainless mouth. I define "dangerous" because when they hate a person in their field, they will try to broaden their alliances [subordinates] by talking bad about that person to the subordinates. To simplify they will be manipulating other people to become their side by ill taking which masked by their cultural influence. Ask yourself how much do you trust what your professors or PhD seniors tell you? If they are good seniors, it is good to trust. But if they hare bad people with hatred and extreme sense of group division, please be care of those those seniors or professors because they will lead you to the culture of hatred and culture of group divisions. You may become a person who always hate people and extreme hater, which upsets me a lot in the sense that it will make cultural divisions in a nation wider.
Last words to say, I do feel upset to see my people in divisions. People keep complaining about silly issues in current Cambodian society. However, complaints is nothing if they do not do anything practically. If we want the cup of Cambodia functional, please glue their broken pieces together by a glue of cultural solidarity and cooperation NOT division. We are not United States which has 50 states. We do not have 135 ethnics and 21 subdivisions as in Burma/ Myanmar. We only have one state of Cambodia. Thus it is not rational to be divided in any forms. "Stay Together"
[I am so sad to write in English. I always keep hoping to write in Khmer. But I admit my weakness and mistake.]
