Review of Cambodia’s Curse

By
Keith Carpenter, NM-TLC Reviewer
– 17 November 2011Posted in: Book Reviews, Cambodia, NM-TLC Reviews

Joel Brinkley, Cambodia’s Curse: The Modern History of a Troubled Land.

New York and Collingwood, Victoria: PublicAffairs Books and Black Inc., 2011.

Pp. xix, 386; illustrations, bibliography, index.

Reviewed by Keith Carpenter.

Cambodia’s Curse was first drawn to my attention by a radio programme aired in Australia in April 2011, where I heard Joel Brinkley discussing his book.  In an interview that must have been part of the publicity for the book’s Australian edition, Brinkley described in some detail a Cambodia that was not the Cambodia that I recognised, even though I had been living in Cambodia in 2009 at the time he had undertaken part of his research.  My recollection of the interview is that he was describing a country mired in the past—with high levels of corruption, most people living as they had 1000 years ago, and limited hopes of breaking out of the present impasse.  The book, when I came to read it, did not make its case quite so dramatically, but no doubt some poetic licence is permitted in your descriptions when you are publicising your book.  Still, that interview gave me quite a shock:  I thought that Brinkley was describing a completely different country to the one in which I had lived and about which I knew at least a little.

This book is a polemic, and at times almost a rant, about the problems that Brinkley sees as afflicting present-day Cambodia.  Brinkley focuses on two issues throughout the book.  The first is his belief that corruption is endemic at all levels of Cambodian society. The second is his dislike of the current ruling party, the Cambodian People’s Party, and the present Prime Minister, Hun Sen.  The flavour of the book is well represented by two extracts from its preface:  “ . . . in the twenty-first century a corrupt, autocratic leader was running the country” (p. xvi) and “ . . . Cambodians remain the most abused people in the world” (p. xix).

Brinkley first visited Cambodia in 1979, sent as a self-described “naïf” (p. xi) by his American regional newspaper to report on the Vietnamese invasion of the country that precipitated the fall of the Khmer Rouge and on the associated refugee crisis.  He next visited Cambodia in 2008 and 2009 as a much more experienced reporter undertaking research.  He wanted to find out if the world had received value from the United Nations intervention in Cambodia in 1992 and 1993 that led to the formation of the present Kingdom of Cambodia.  This book is a result of those latter two visits.

The book is sub-titled A Modern History of a Troubled Land.  That sub-title does not accurately describe the book, which is more of a recent history. It covers Cambodia since the time of the United Nations Transitional Administration in Cambodia (UNTAC) in the early 1990s.  It does not treat Cambodia across the twentieth century, let alone since the beginning of the French Protectorate in 1863.  It does, however, mention events prior to UNTAC to give a context to the present.

This book is “journalistic” in its approach.  It does not offer much in the way of analysis of what is reported.  In reporting what Brinkley has seen, it does not offer a comprehensive view of present-day Cambodia.  It does not deserve to describe itself as a history.  No doubt all the evidence presented can be properly sourced and attributed, but there is more to present-day Cambodia than is treated in this book.  In many ways Cambodia’s Curse represents a contribution to that genre of writing in which the author is surprised, and perhaps even bewildered, to find that some parts of the world are not quite like home, wherever home might be.  Such books often convey a sense that “difference,” however defined, is an offence to the way things should be.

Cambodia’s Curse comprises an introduction, seventeen chapters, and an epilogue.  The main body of the book is roughly divided into chapters alternating between those that outline the recent history of Cambodia and those that contain vignettes of people, mostly peasants, whom Brinkley interviewed during his research visits.  Those vignettes do not paint a pleasant picture, but they do describe the living conditions faced by some of the eighty per cent of the population who live in rural areas.  It is not clear from the book how Brinkley selected the people whom he interviewed and quoted.  It would be interesting to know how representative of the rural population as a whole his interviewees were; there is no context from which to make a judgement.

The book deals extensively with the problem of corruption in Cambodia.  Brinkley describes the way in which various officials enrich themselves at the expense of those who need to access various services.  Foreign aid funds some of this corruption; Brinkley devotes a substantial part of the book to detailing the large amounts of foreign aid that have been wasted in Cambodia since 1993.  He returns to this point at several times throughout the book, and he describes in some detail a number of the annual donor meetings at which the record of waste and misuse proved no obstacle to the promise of additional aid.

Brinkley notes the prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Cambodia, which he ascribes to the experiences of many people during the Khmer Rouge years.  He notes that this disorder, which could be described as reaching epidemic proportions, is not being treated, as Cambodia lacks the resources even to begin to deal with the problem.  Brinkley quotes studies suggesting that untreated PTSD is being passed from one generation to the next. The author suggests that the prevalence of PTSD could explain some of Cambodia’s continuing economic development problems thirty years after the Khmer Rouge were forced from power.  Brinkley also suggests that the causes of Cambodia’s indifferent development record lie in its history and culture:  a culture of helplessness and a tendency to resist change.

Politics and political machinations occupy a large part of Cambodia’s Curse.  It treats Sam Rainsy, the leader of the eponymous political party, in considerable detail.  Since the self-destruction of the Funcinpec party of Prince Norodom Ranariddh, the Sam Rainsy Party has been Cambodia’s second most important, after the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP).  Brinkley suggests that Sam Rainsy plays more to an international audience than to his putative constituency in Cambodia.  The ruling CPP and it leader, Prime Minister Hun Sen, are also treated in detail.  But Brinkley offers little analysis of what the CPP stands for, of its factions, or of its history. The dislike with which Brinkley appears to regard Hun Sen ultimately becomes a distraction; it is not clear what purpose the repeated circling back to expressions of this dislike is meant to serve.

One does not have to be an apologist for Hun Sen and the Cambodian People’s Party to acknowledge that they have given Cambodia fourteen years of stability since the factional fighting of 1997—longer, in fact, if one were to count from the UNTAC-organized elections of 1993.  The greatly improved state of the road system in Phnom Penh alone is evidence of one of the benefits of this stability.  While much in the recent political history of Cambodia, as it relates to the Cambodian People’s Party and Hun Sen, offers ample cause for concern, the view presented by Joel Brinkley is rather one-dimensional.  As an example of another view, Milton Osborne suggests that Hun Sen might be the better politician than some of the alternatives.

Too often, . . . critics of Hun Sen have been reluctant to acknowledge his energy and political skills, not least his capability as a natural orator, and too ready to overlook Ranariddh’s lack of these skills. (Osborne 2008, p. 197)

Brinkley devotes considerable space to a discussion of the infamous grenade attack on a demonstration and meeting outside the National Assembly building in March 1997 (Chapter Six).  He outlines the attack and the subsequent investigation by the American Federal Bureau of Investigation to determine the perpetrators of the attack after a US citizen was injured in that incident.  The investigation, which was cut short, did not reach any conclusion, but Brinkley hints that the investigators had been close to identifying the perpetrators.  The same chapter also discusses the factional fighting of July 1997, which Brinkley describes as an attempted coup by Prince Ranariddh and Funcinpec. The episode left Hun Sen and the Cambodian People’s Party firmly in control.  This chapter illustrates an advantage of the journalistic approach of Cambodia’s Curse.  It treats these events in reasonable detail and in a balanced manner, with sources clearly cited.

Cambodia’s Curse is not a modern history of Cambodia.  It is a polemic framed by the country’s recent history, largely since the end of the UNTAC intervention and the national elections of 1993.  While the book describes some of the entrenched problems that face Cambodia, it does not give a comprehensive view of its contemporary condition.  For readers seeking an introduction to Cambodia and some understanding of the country, there are better sources than this book.  Readers who already have some knowledge of Cambodia are likely to find little in Brinkley’s book that they do not already know.

Keith Carpenter, formerly a senior executive in the banking sector, works from Sydney as an economic and financial analyst (www.economic-analyst.com).   He served as a research advisor in Cambodia for several periods between 2003 and 2009.  He earned his doctorate in monetary economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Reference
Osborne, Milton. Phnom Penh:  A Cultural and Literary History. Oxford: Signal Books, 2008.