The lifelong birth-right denied and an unfulfilled exit

Gaffar Peang-Meth
1944-2022

This is not only a dedication to the late Professor Gaffar Peang-Meth but also an indictment of the current Cambodian Government. Gaffar all of his life wanted a better fairer Cambodia. He sought to accomplish it as a diplomat, warrior, academic and policy advocate. An internet search of his name produces a wealth of writings not only as to how his aim could be achieved but also how troubles could have been avoided, and still could. Sadly his premature death meant Gaffar was denied seeing his ambitions fulfilled. He leaves the question though – can Cambodia afford to thwart the noble efforts of people like him exiled from Cambodia?

I am very appreciative that Mr Chan Thul Prak and Kiripost decided to post my article and was happy for them to abridge and edit it to meet their specifications.  In Cambodia there are few media outlets now brave enough to accept such critical pieces. That alone is a sign of the times and why many of us, Cambodians brave like Gaffar, and foreigners - dedicated to a better fairer Cambodia - must accept failure. Ideas for positive change are rejected outright, or they are tacitly accepted but then undermined.  

However some readers might like to see my original with its extra notes and the links to the various sources used.  So here it is:

The Lifelong Birth-Right Denied and an Unfulfilled Exit

The homing instinct exists in many creatures not just human beings. It's a natural instinct most graphically observed with the Salmon and Turtle who somehow manage to return to find their exact birth-places across thousands of miles to spawn and even to end their days.

Human beings might not have to endure such physical feats but the yearning to return home can be just as strong. Some who have left their birth-places and “traveled each and every by-way” want to go home to see people and places of their early years. Others who have forged successful careers abroad want to go home with their skills and knowledge to share and to benefit their people. Many, however, just simply want to end their life where it began.

inspirations original

 

The humble Salmon - what a remarkable journey it makes with sheer dogged determination to return to where it was hatched, to spawn and die. 
Photographer Mike Smith similarly persisted. It took two years to capture this Northumbrian image at Hexham Bridge.

This is a duplicate of the same blog here:

Inspirations, lasting impressions
Anniversaries

The original blog title included "lasting impressions" but in 2022 I decided to pen a sequel because quite a lot of personal anniversaries are coming up.   Some are most significant - my graduation in 1973 followed by a decade later my departure from UK to live and work abroad. (I talk more about this in a recent blog.) One more is 25 years in Cambodia in January 2023.

Anyway here is the original blog with the sequel added at the end.

.....ooo0oooo.....

Very often people ask me “What keeps you going?”  There is no doubt that work in the “Aid and Development” industry is a struggle and frustrating. Just ask Nate!

Over there? Over here?

 

A discourse on perceptions, manipulations, and realities. Note my blog banner above.

Those of us who spend our lives in more than country tend to be asked the same questions.

“What is it like there?” Or “Why do stay there?”

Cambodia 25 years on: Leadership Without Regrets

Do you remember Cambodia's 1998 elections and the post-election violent crackdown?
Yes, of course I do and for more reasons than most.  Apart from the fact that I had worked to help make sure the elections took place, I also witnessed live-fire on protesters including two badly injured maybe dead monks by Wat Langka pagoda. 

It’s hard to believe but it is now 25 years since I landed in Cambodia.  I had left Rwanda and was supposed to be on my way to Haiti.  Fate however intervened.  I saw a job in the Cambodia Daily one day, applied for it and started work the next day.  I joined the work of Human Rights from the fields of Human Resources and Development.

Sadly I have to say that 25 years on, the work of Human Rights Defenders in Cambodia is needed as much today as it was 25 years ago – more so in some areas, less so in some.  Why is this?

The Prince’s Cubby Hole

https://www.knightfrank.com.kh/offices/prince-phnom-penh-tower

This blog is a sequel to one about:
the saga of dealing with the UK Home Office and its "brimful of brilliant people."

The British Embassy and Ambassador uses the title “UK in Cambodia” for its social media.  I wonder though if there’s much more Cambodianess going in to Britishness than the other way round?  I often muse about this whenever I see the remarkable efforts and sacrifices made to drum-up trade compared to what at one time would have been our once top British values – democracy, good governance, and human rights. I suppose “When in Rome do as the Romans do” is being applied along with “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”.

From Riches to Rags

Schools and Schooling/Trust and Abuse

It’s Pchum Ben in Cambodia the annual festival to remember ancestors.  My sleep has been disturbed by the partying from the night before that faded-out just as the very early morning chants began from the Buddhist pagodas.  I had the radio on but the BBC World Service was repeating a programme I’d heard before. There was still two hours to go until dawn and breakfast.  I was wide awake, so embarked upon one of those streams of consciousness you try to drift off to sleep.

Kept from House and Home

The UK Home Office gave my wife just two weeks to get out of the UK in November 2021 as soon as it abolished its Red List of countries for Covid19 travel restrictions. That meant both of us kicked out as it would be grossly unfair for the wife to travel alone. It did this irrespective of circumstances in the UK with the Omicron variant surging at that time; those en route or in Cambodia, and her Covid vaccination status that it ruled as "irrelevant". See Note 1 below.

An Alnwick chum beaten out of house and home

Most people never wonder what it is like to have to leave home. We mostly assume that we will be able to return and to be welcome back.  We expect to resume life as it was before our foray away.