His Majesty King Norodom Sihamoni's 59 th Birthday - CamNet

pean concept,” he said, one that grew out of
necessity to end wars. It is often traced back
to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648: a series of
treaties signed by several European nations
that determined the territories over which
monarchs ruled, introducing the notion of
states and set borders, he said.
European nations imposed this concept
when they built their colonial empires, physically
erecting fences along borders that had
earlier been blurred and of little importance in
regions such as Asia, Mr. Louth said.
Chinese emperors for instance would consider
their territories to extend to states or nations
that had to pay them tributes, he said. And
some authors have theorized that Buddhist
countries viewed their states as mandalas-the
circle representing the universe in Buddhismthat
is, powerful in the center and weakening
towards the edges, these weak edges leading
to conflicts when they overlapped with other
countries claiming that territory, he said.
Whether or not this was the case, China and
Southeast Asian nations were using the notion
of states with physical borders by the late
1940s, and in the mid-1960s Norodom Sihanouk
was very clear about Cambodia’s borders
and the fact that the U.S. at war with North
Vietnam was bombing Cambodian territory,
Mr. Louth said.
Constitutional monarchies with kings as
heads of state and elected officials running
governments came out of efforts over the centuries
to curb the powers of absolute monarchs
who had ruled nations without allowing their
subjects decision-making rights, he said.
The first attempts however involved aristocrats
or the wealthy eager to maintain their
status and benefits, Mr. Louth said.
The Magna Carta charter that English barons
imposed on King John of England in 1215
was meant to limit his abuse of power affecting
them, he said. “They wanted to protect their
own privileges. We are not talking about workers’
revolution or anything like that. We’re only
talking about very privileged people wanting to
maintain their own position,” Mr. Louth said.
King Norodom Sihamoni during Independence Day celebrations last year
4 MAY 14, 2012
It is only in the late 19th century or early
20th century that movements against monarchs
would include the rights for all people
to vote and elect their countries’ leaders, he
explained.
When France agreed to sign the 1863 Protectorate
Treaty at the request of King Norodom
intent on reducing Thai and Vietnamese
influence over the country, monarchs with absolute
powers had been ruling Khmer territory
for centuries. Or at least they had tried to:
There was a long tradition of Khmer princes
fighting and killing each
other to accede to the
throne.
As historian David
Chandler writes in his
book “A History of Cambodia,”
“there was probably
little difference be-
tween the way Cambodia
was governed in the
1860s and the way Angkor
had been governed almost a thousand years
before.... Government meant a network of status
relationships whereby peasants paid in rice,
forest products, or labor to support their officials.
The officials in turn paid the king, using
some of the rice, forest products, and peasant
labor with which they had been paid. The number
of peasants one could exploit in this way
depended on the position one was granted by
the throne; positions themselves were for sale,
and this tended to limit officeholders to members
of the elite with enough money or goods
on hand to purchase their positions.”
The first Cambodian rebellion against the
French in the mid-1880s was, as had been the
case in Europe, the elite class wanting to maintain
their profits and privileges threatened by
France’s administrative measures, Mr. Chandler
explains. In 1916 however, it would be ordinary
Cambodian farmers by the thousands who
protested the heavy taxes imposed by France.
During the Protectorate, France progressively
took all the King’s powers away. But
at the same time, “the French colonists sig-
“The King has rights and
obligations, but no power....
He is, in fact, a head of state
similar to the head of state in the
British...parliamentary system.”
Siv Channa
nificantly boosted the status of the King compared
to the pre-colonial order,” said Caroline
Hughes, director of the Asia Research Centre
and associate professor at Murdoch University
in Western Australia.
“They mixed the iconography of Angkor
with French conceptions of kingship to come
up with an Asian Louis XIV,” whose prestige
would be akin to this 17th-century monarch
who reigned during a golden age of France, she
said.
“The colonial ideal was embraced and manipulated
by Norodom
Sihanouk from 1955 to
1970, in the very specific
context of the Cold
War in South East Asia;
he linked the French colonial
conception of kingship
with modern ideas
about mass politics to
promote a political system
that worked against
the formation of stable party systems that could
represent the interests of the masses,” she said
in an e-mail interview.
The situation created by Norodom Sihanouk
in 1955 was a singular one.
When Cambodia opted to become a constitutional
monarchy after obtaining its independence
from France, Norodom Sihanouk, who
had been king since 1941, stepped down in order
to enter the political arena, reverting to the
title of prince and making room for his father to
be crowned King Suramarit, said Theng Chan
Sangvar, doctor of law.
He founded the political party Sangkum
Reastr Niyum, or people’s socialist community,
which won the 1955 elections.
“It was therefore a prince, former king who
had become prime minister,” Mr. Theng said.
When King Suramarit died in 1960, Norodom
Sihanouk turned palace duties over to Queen
Kossamak, his mother, and assumed the role
of head of state on the international stage, handling
foreign affairs, he said. Norodom Sihanouk
was in fact serving as both head of state
and head of government.
However, since Norodom Sihanouk’s party
was winning about every seat in national elections
in the 1950s and 1960s, this created no
difficulty, Mr. Theng said.
The Cambodian constitution of the 1960s,
last amended in 1964, stated that the King appointed
Cambodian ambassadors and was the
army’s supreme commander. It also stated that
all powers emanated from the King and that
the constitution could not be amended in any
way that would restrict “the rights reserved to
Royalty by this Constitution.” During that period,
David Chandler writes, “[political] dissent
was viewed as a mixture of treason and
lese majeste.”
In the meantime in Thailand, which had become
a constitutional monarchy in 1932, “the
King was used repeatedly throughout the Cold
War as a counterweight to the politics of the
left,” said Australian political scientist Caroline
Hughes. “Ideas about monarchism were mobilized
again and again to combat the formation
of labor organizations, leftist parties or communist
movements.
“I think that kingship has been used...to constrict
mass politics by labeling as disloyal or anti-nationalist
movements that contest status