Monthly Archives: May 2015

FFC and FIFA

29 Friday May 2015

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My dear Kacvey,

Were you surprised/shocked by the news from Zürich of the arrest of more than a dozen of FIFA Executive Committee members and other high officials? Or were you not at all since the corruption in FIFA has already been in the news for many years so far?

Corruption, whenever or wherever it is or happens, is like a bubble; sooner or later it will burst; and the corrupted will be caught and brought to justice.

Here are few questions for you when and if you happened to meet top brasses, military or otherwise, who are involved in the Football Federation of Cambodia (FFC) or the Cambodia Football National Team or the players nicknamed the “Angkor Warriors”:

What would be the position of the FFC in today’s election of the president of FIFA in Zürich?

Would the FFC be independent enough to vote its conscience without obeying the order of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC)?

Would the FFC have the courage and the integrity to condemn the corruption that is now openly known throughout the world? Or would it condone it as it does happen in Cambodia itself?

Would the FFC believe that the current FIFA president is clean enough to fight the corruption that has taken place under his stewardship? Or wouldn’t it be better to “nip the disease in the bud”, as once said Persius in his “Satire 3”?

Kacvey, football/soccer is too beautiful of a sport to be tainted by corruption committed by those who don’t play the game in the pitch!

UPDATE as of Tuesday 2 June 2014:

4 days after his re-election, FIFA President has now resigned. What does it tell us? He who willingly deceives the honest world will sooner or later find out that the honest world is, at last, nobody’s fool!

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/fifa-press-conference-jerome-valcke-embroiled-in-corruption-saga-sepp-blatter-under-increasing-pressure-10292529.html

So, what should the FFC and Khmer football aficionados learn from this huge lesson?!

Kacvey, here are 2 links that could tell you how the corruption in FIFA was discovered:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/28/fifa-expose-british-press-andrew-jennings-sunday-times-corruption-fa

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/03/how-a-curmudgeonly-old-reporter-exposed-the-fifa-scandal-that-toppled-sepp-blatter/?tid=hp_mm&hpid=z3

And to a larger extent regarding corruption:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/fifa-case-should-spur-the-international-community-into-tackling-the-cancer-of-corruption-cameron-tells-g7-10301678.html

The Clash of Two Perspectives

20 Wednesday May 2015

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My dear Kacvey,

Let start by thanking the newspapers “Thmey Thmey” and “The Cambodia Daily” for their service of reporting to the public.

http://www.m.thmeythmey.com/?page=detail&ctype=article&id=26446&lg=kh

https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-says-he-will-be-next-cpp-president-82945/

So, the clash continues between the big nabob and the 1st vice.

Once, it was about “to change” or “to topple” (“Words wars on air” – 20/3/2015). They screamed at each other; they acted up  like spoiled brats in a television show. But nothing “adult” came out of that except the famous “codconculdia.” Big deal! Frogs croak in the pond when it rains!

Now, the clash takes a new turn and veers to the future, their future or the future of their party. And as always, nothing about the future of Cambodia.

The big nabob would make himself future president of his party and future prime minister during the next 6th mandate of the NA. Kacvey, did you hear that?! He has already and smoothly paved the highway for the premiership using the construction and road workers from the nec company. What has happened to the “injected new blood” that he so much bragged about during his party congress?

Meanwhile, the 1st vice tells the young generation to prepare itself to take over and run the party as he and the minority leader are ready to pass the relay stick. This might let the inhabitants of Takeo to wonder:

– did the 1st vice apply the intra-culture of dialogue with members of his party before making such an announcement?

– why did he leave open the political rationale and the time frame for such a transfer, if ever?

– from which pool, the so-called young generation would be chosen to take the reins of the party – the hrp pool? or the srp pool? or the family pool? – as the party as a whole never has a history of democratic elections for leadership or stewardship?

– would the 55 deputies be homogeneous enough for the possibility of imminent emergence of non-controversial figure(s) to lead the party?

– last but not least, would the 1st vice and the minority leader be honestly truthful in this political discourse?

Kacvey, you still have ample time to watch their move until 2018 and to find out how the 2 perspectives will turn out, but like all Khmer who have lived through endless political hyperbole, you continue to go about your own business and to let the frogs croaking in the bottom of the well similar to Zhuang Zi’s tale “井底之蛙” (jing di zhi wa.)

The British Lesson – Part I

10 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in Event, Politics

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My dear Kacvey,

Your interest in the British elections of 7 May 2015 should be commanded and the elections could be used as a case study or a seminar for your poli sci students and also for Cambodian politicians, particularly how Labour lost as a whole and how it lost every seat in Scotland in favor of the SNP. (Not to be confused with SRP, though!)

You also call it a political courage for the leader of Labour to offer his resignation from the leadership of the party as soon as the result of the Labour debacle came in. Even The Guardian, a pro-Labour newspaper offered this title: “Ed Miliband resigns as Labour leader”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/08/ed-miliband-to-resign-as-labour-leader

A sentence that reflects such political courage of a responsible man is his admission that “I take absolute and total responsibility for our defeat.”

Labourites will soon find and elect a new leader, and respect of democracy will continue to go forward in the British politics.

Would you, Kacvey, invite some Cambodian politicians to your class when you discuss the subject with your students. Please!

The case study would be an opportunity to gather hypothetical answers to some questions that have been lingering in the mind of many thoughtful Cambodians:

– Why Cambodian politicians always put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat before entering the political battle?

– Why Cambodian politicians, particularly those who were educated in the French “Grandes Ecoles” or American universities, cannot ever accept electoral defeat? Instead they used all sort of shenanigans or demagoguery to cover up their setback and embarrassment?

This article from The Economist is worth pondering upon:

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21650568-unlikely-rapprochement-after-long-stand-faithful-couple

– Why Cambodian politicians always start with the premises that the “other” party or parties have to be defeated?

– Why Cambodian politicians always like to measure the “other” party/parties weaknesses against their own strength, but never their own weaknesses against the other party/parties strength?

– Why Cambodian politicians think that they are made of stone and live forever as leaders? Do they know that stone has no soul nor brain?

– Why Cambodian politicians are so afraid of life-after-politics? Do they know that life-after-politics do exist in the case of many ex-world leaders such as, just to name a few,  Clinton, Blair, Hu Jintao or Sarkozy? Do their countries sink into the abyss without them?

As a token for their attending your seminar, you may wish to offer them this piece of wisdom from Malcolm X: “There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.”

Speaking about shenanigans or demagoguery, the latest is the joint communiqué of 8 May 2015 between the big nabob and the minority leader on a so-called code of conduct for the culture of dialogue, abbreviated here as “codconculdia”. What an engagement indignant of politics and respect towards Cambodia and its people. Schoolyard kids could do a better job than that.

So, they agreed not to use a set of rude or insulting words or phrases against each other such as, and inter alia: traitor, leader of the thieves, communist dictator, Vietnamese puppet, Vietnamese head with a Khmer body, Vietnamese puppet, nation seller, and even an old Khmer proverb: “teuk leurng tréy si srâmoâch, teuk hoâch srâmoâch si tréy.”

Kacvey, how low men could be to publicly issue such a nonsense and frame it as a material of high intellect, thinking and commitment? Don’t they know the existence of words such as: semantics, allusion, metaphor, synonyms, analogy, insinuations, similitude, connotation, etc … which allow words or phrases to be expressed differently?

In “Vietnamese head with a Khmer body”, what would happen if the word “Vietnamese” is replaced by the word “French” to become “French head in a Khmer body”? Would this be considered “insulting” or “rude” towards those KCPB?

Or a “banana”, equivalently! Yellow on the outside, white on the inside!

By the way, Kacvey, for friends of yours who are fans of “The Three Kingdoms”, there is a Chinese idiom with similar connotation: “身在曹营心在汉“ which literally means “live in Cao camp but have the heart in Han camp.”

“Codconculdia”, to hell with it!

Is This A Sign Of The Political Fatigue?

08 Friday May 2015

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My dear Kacvey,

You may certainly recall the letter titled “Ad interim” on 19 February 2015. Since then, nothing much has happened strangely, but a lot of incoherent and sometime contradictory undercurrents has surged beneath the water of the Mekong at the level of the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk.

Messages have been sent out directly or indirectly by the big nabob to different audiences about his future leadership of his party as well as his premiership, his nasty feelings about the first vice, his threat to bury the culture of dialogue if some “rescuers” continue to criticize his party or its members, his order to censure the critics and even his refusal to pay his losing bet on an international bout. On top of that, and in no uncertain terms he has subscribed an expensive insurance policy with the new nec that guarantees the victory of his party at whatever elections that may come, near or far.

The messages intentionally bear some strategic indicators like a fisherman who throws different baits at once to test the presence of fish in the lake.

On the opposition side, a lot of broken pots and pans have been strewn all over the place, and really dirty linens have been washed in the public places … and without detergents! Cracks are everywhere: within the party with defection and internal severe critics, among their supporters in the US and Canada, as well as in France, crowds supporting them in the provinces or elsewhere getting thinner and thinner. The 2 heads of the “rescue”snake are biting their only tail and venom is starting to re-enter the veins of the body. Do the 2 heads know what is going on around them and in their own organization and backyard, besides knowing what they only want to know?

What and who are they “rescuing” now? Would and could this be the new slogan: “Rescuers, please self-rescue!”

The opposition has now become a tamed-opposition or even a non-opposition. The only opposition it is doing is to oppose any critics levied against it; or their members are opposing among themselves or against each other. It is indeed convoluted, but when the opposition changes its nature, it changes its principles, its core value and its integrity. The rest is just logical consequences. Qui sème le vent, récolte la tempête.

So Kacvey, how do you make that out? Simple!

– The minority leader, always carrying the wreath of the self-appointed president of his own ex-party has found his niche in his old-political-enemy’s realm, therefore has no longer need of anybody else. Having reached a safe harbor, he can now burn the bridge or even sink the boat that once carried him. Gratitude to the electorate is a vain word, in Khmer politics.

– Once upon a time, the ruling party named a Majority leader who also holds the Interior portfolio. Such a Majority leader is supposed to be the partner of the minority leader in the culture of dialogue around … a pot of prâhok of cod!

Kacvey, what has happened to the Majority leader? Why has his spot been taken over by the big nabob himself? Why has he been so quiet? Why has he allowed the minority leader to upstage him on the national level? Has he been now paying the price for a chef-de-cabinet who was accused of killing a rich merchant? Intriguing, beguiling or provocative substitution, isn’t it!

– At the same time, one can also wonder what has happened to the 4 other pillars of the ruling party/government: the chairman of the council of ministers, the minister of national defense, the minister of foreign affairs and the minister of information? Have they now become de facto 3rd or 4th tier below the minority leader? Do they so easily allow an undesirable intruder into their coop?

– The next national elections in 2017 and 2018 being still a long, long way to go, are the main and permanent concerns of those whose personal ambition for leadership has no boundaries; they only want to lead but they do not want to serve. They create a constant and perpetual atmosphere of electoral campaign, so that they build up excuses for not working and doing the jobs that the electorates expect from them. Cambodians are not only betrayed during the elections, they are betrayed everyday, every week, every month and every year.

Kacvey, do you sense a Khmer overall mood of “political fatigue” in the street of any town or village in Cambodia?