The Curious History Of Cambodia's Beloved Kings | Asia's Monarchies | Real Royalty

Asia's monarchies defy history. In modern era of democracy, worlds of tradition, mystery and ritual command fascination and respect like never before. Asian monarchs are symbols of continuity, living connections to the past that are often loved and loathed in equal measure. Royal families appear an anachronism, relics from ancient times. Yet they still have a grip on their subjects, an aura that can't be replicated by mere politicians as much as they may try. Nowhere is this more true than Cambodia, where the majesty and splendor of the great Angkorian kings still weighs heavily on modern leaders. They are the symbol of the nation. Without symbol, it's like a human being do not have heart. King worship has been and remains the foundation of the modern Cambodian state. Recently, Cambodia has been dominated by the figure of one man, Norodom Sehanok, a man whose career path reads like a work of fiction. King, then prince, prime minister, then film director, king again and now king father. When you're in power for too long, you become corrupt. You become a dictator. Now, corruption and human rights abuses have become so endemic to Cambodia, it threatens to undermine the rebirth of a country that was once the greatest civilization in Southeast Asia. Monarchy in Cambodia has lasted more than a thousand years. It has survived against the greatest of odds, from foreign invasions to colonialism, coup d'etat to communist revolution. Legend has it that Cambodia was formed by the marriage of an Indian Brahmin and a Cambodian princess whose father was a dragon king. The Brahmin shot a magical arrow into the princess's boat that so frightened her, she agreed to marry him. The dragon king then drained the waterlogged kingdom as a wedding gift and named it Kampuchea. The kings of Cambodia can trace their origins to this mythical pair and the influence of India and foreigners in general on the course of Cambodia's history was established. The idea that the king was related to God and only they could decide for the good of the people developed from those ancient times. In those days, the people thought that the king was a demon because the demon was called Jagapong. It came from the ancient times. They thought that the demon was an entity, but it was not an entity that lived on the land, but an entity that lived on the ground. Kings were worshipped as fathers of the nation, providing security and prosperity. During the great Angkorian civilization that lasted from the 9th to the 15th century, this devotion to the kings was so strong, people gave their lives to building and carving the magnificent temples that still exist today. This paternalism continued right into the 20th century when King Sihanouk won independence from the French and called himself the father of the nation. Sihanouk was ousted from power by a coup d'etat in 1970 that eventually gave way to the barbaric Khmer Rouge. Since the 1980s, politics in Cambodia has been dominated by the figure of one man, former Khmer Rouge commander Hun Sen. Cambodia now holds elections and has reverted to a constitutional monarchy. But a culture of corruption, especially amongst the armed forces and police, has been allowed to develop in recent years, something Prime Minister Hun Sen has promised to tackle. Corruption is a major issue in this country. You can see that every report come out from the UN or from any research or international organization that is dealing with corruption. Cambodia is a very poor country. Cambodia ranked almost at the bottom in Transparency International's 2009 Corruption Perception Index. Politicians hoped for a better future whilst living with the nightmare of the Khmer Rouge. 2004 was a turning point in Cambodia's history. After 60 years, the overwhelming presence of Sihanouk suddenly disappeared and Prime Minister Hun Sen moved quickly to fill the void. Sihanouk's son, Sinh Nguyen, continues as a living connection to the god kings of Angkor Wat and the hundreds of temples that still exist today. Angkor Wat even graces the country's flag. Cambodia's entire identity revolves around king worship, derived from that ancient and glorious civilization. For the last thousand years, Cambodians have worshipped their kings as representatives of God. But there's controversy as to whether or not the kings were seen as directly descended from heaven. I think most scholars these days would accept the argument that it was not that the king was himself a deity, but that the king represented some of the spiritual potency of a particular deity, that the king was sacred in certain ways, and that particularly dead rulers and dead royal family members might be represented as deities in the temples. In Cambodian concept, the king represents the god. We call the rite that the Brahmanism have taught us and we conduct, we call devaraja. The devaraja can transform the king to be as a god. Brahmanism was the concept of king worship imported from India. The devaraja was a ceremony of god worship that only the king could perform. The reason why we call it the Cambodian rite is because there are two main reasons. The first reason is that it is a Cambodian rite. The second reason is that it is a unique rite. The two rites are combined to create a unique rite that is unique to Cambodia. In the year 802, this fusing of cultures gave birth to the first king of Cambodia, Jayavarman II. He laid the foundations for a thriving civilization that was to last for 700 years. Jayavarman II and his subjects built their first city in the Kulin Mountains, 45 kilometers from Angkor Wat. The fact that it's one of the highest points in the country is no coincidence. The mountain is important to our people, to our Brahmanism because we need the temple to represent the mountain. So we build the temple as a mountain and we locate the god on the top of the mountain. Every king that followed Jayavarman II wanted to build on his success, to build bigger, grander temples to honor Jayavarman as the founder of the kingdom. Each king would demonstrate his divinity by controlling nature, as the gods did, by digging reservoirs and irrigation channels. For this, the king expected complete subservience from his subjects and a pattern of authoritarianism was established in the country that continues to the present day. People worked tirelessly in the name of the king and god. These were vast enterprises similar in scale to those of ancient Egypt and the Mayan and Aztec civilizations of Central America. This grandiose temple building culminated in the magnificent Angkor Wat, a 12th century temple dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu and built under the reign of King Suryavarman II. It's estimated over 300,000 people worked on the temple, which took over 40 years to complete. Every temple built was a catalogue of the world of the gods and the kings, a documentation of their wondrous exploits. Nowhere is this more evident than at Angkor, where the base reliefs of the temple are lined with depictions of battle and the celestial apsaras, women who danced for the pleasure of the king and his courtiers. This tradition has been kept alive in modern day Cambodia, although now the apsaras dance for tourists as well as kings. As Buddhism took hold in the country from the 13th century, Cambodia's kings began to be seen as representatives of Buddha and not Shiva, Vishnu or Brahma from Hindu beliefs. The first cousin of Suryavarman II, Jayavarman VII has become known as the greatest of all the Angkor kings and was thought to be the first Buddhist king. His temple building was on an impossibly grandiose scale and can be seen as a direct response to the invasion of the Champa empire from present day Vietnam in 1177. Jayavarman VII mobilized his subjects to defeat the Champas and embarked on the largest program of public works Cambodia has ever known. King worship was at its height. The Angkorian civilization was at its most majestic and the extraordinary number of temples and roads, bridges and schools were testament to it. The Angkor king wanted to give Cambodia the opportunity to witness the great achievements of Cambodia and its people. This achievement was not only for Cambodia but also for the people of Cambodia. Not only was it a beautiful place but also a place where the people were very happy and peaceful. And it was also a place where the Cambodian people Jayavarman's own state temple was the incredible bell. a multi-faced building of ascending peaks, each with a face on its four sides. Some believe that these are depictions of Jeroboam himself. The grandeur of the Angkorian civilization and the reverence of its kings started to decline after Jeroboam VII. War between its neighbors in present-day Thailand and Vietnam would come to dominate Cambodia until the arrival of the French at the end of the 19th century. In Angkor, the irrigation system broke down and the capital was moved to Phnom Penh. The dominance of Thailand and Vietnam over Cambodia meant Cambodia's kings were often living in exile or confined to the royal palace. Foreign invaders dominated the royal family and would often appoint the king themselves. Cambodia was in danger of losing its kings and its entire territory. It was only the might of France that saved them. For more than 200 years, the Cambodian crown bounces back and forth between the pro-Vietnamese faction and pro-Thai faction. So almost every single ruler in the 17th and 18th, really through the 19th centuries, was linked more to one side or the other. And so as soon as you get a ruler who's been put on the throne with support from one side, then you've got another faction that's getting ready to throw them over. In 1857, the French arrived in Cambodia and it was their intervention that finally put an end to the rivalry between Thailand and Vietnam for Cambodian territory. We called a friend to our rescue because we were, as you know, from end of 16th century, it was the Siamese attack. And then beginning of 17th century, it was the Vietnamese. So at the end, when the French arrived, Cambodia was reduced to a small territory. The French protection can be both good and bad. If no French, I believe that we have no Cambodia today. In 1863, Cambodia became a French protectorate. And at the beginning, this was a bilateral relationship. The following year, the Cambodian throne was granted to King Norodom and the French allowed him to reign, realizing they could use him to help control the population. The French slowly chipped away at his powers, helped by Norodom's addiction to opium. He was powerless to stop his colonial minders. When France became a republic in 1886, I think, and then they forced the king to sign a treaty. They bring in, they call it canonia in front of the present royal palace. At nighttime, they invade the palace and force the king to sign an agreement to let the French rule the country. French come to protect us, protect our land. But inside of our land that you asked me to say, they come to its brothers too. King Norodom died in 1904, bitter that although the French were helping Cambodia modernize and develop, they were also bleeding the country dry. The French romanticized Cambodia above all their other colonies in Indochina. To them, it was a special place which gave them little trouble and a great deal of resources. Norodom had complied with the French purely to ensure his own and his dynasty's survival. Norodom's half-brother Sisowath took over, someone altogether more sympathetic and sycophantic to the French. Cambodia had become a fully fledged colony. The days of a protectorate were over and authoritarianism became once more the system by which Cambodians were governed. Sisowath died in 1927, by which point the French were firmly in control. Whilst neighboring Vietnam pushed for independence, the French viewed Cambodians as docile, easygoing people. Managing the kings was the least of their concerns. In 1941, the French decided to unite the Norodom and Sisowath branches of the royal family, appointing an unknown new king to the throne. It was a 19-year-old who was related to both lines, Norodom Sirhanok. They believe that since he's young, it's easy to control him, but they make a mistake because he was a lot of problem. I think they have a wrong perception. He said, oh, his prince is very young. His personality is more attracted by women and music and, you know, rising force. He gets some ideas already about how to bring Cambodia to rich independence. French Marucho has said that Prince Sirhanok is crazy, but he's a genius crazy boy. This young prince has some vision about his kingdom. The French had appointed someone who would become a nationalist hero and who would dominate political life in the country for the next 50 years. Post-World War II, the French filtered back into Cambodia after the defeat of the occupying Japanese forces. Elections were held for the first time and the Democratic Party drafted a new constitution that estranged King Sirhanok from the political process. This enraged the young king. Sirhanok began a long process of gaining the people's support and opposing French rule. The French granted the country a new constitution in which constitutional monarchy was adopted and implemented. But even so, given the personality of Narodom Sirhanok, he did dominate the political scene. Sirhanok refused to accept the limitations of a constitutional monarchy. With French support, he dissolved the National Assembly. Then in 1955, with the French preoccupied by events across the border in Vietnam, they finally granted Cambodia its independence. He went to the countryside. He worked for the people. He wanted to take action in order to follow up the king from the Angkor in time. Work with the people in order to gain more power from the people like Jayavarman VII. In 1955, in just one year, Sirhanok persuaded the French to leave, proclaimed independence, abdicated, formed his own political party and won office as prime minister. It signaled his monopolization of power. A cult of personality first started by the kings of Angkor was back in vogue. Sirhanok, of course, has always felt that he knew best for Cambodia. And so when you had elections, when you had a political process, it was always meant if it did not produce the results that he thought were best, then he would try to nullify it. I mean, that was fundamentally his view. People consider King Sirhanok as the father of the independence. You know, I think he's held this part of the historical, you know, even without spending any bloodshed between French and Cambodia. During the 1955 elections, ballot boxes were reported missing. Opposition leaders allegedly harassed, critical newspapers shut down. It was a model of authoritarian politics that continues in Cambodia today. However, Sirhanok was genuinely popular and Cambodia became relatively well-off. In the 1960s, events taking place in neighboring countries threatened Cambodia's stability. Sirhanok boldly declared Cambodia neutral in the Cold War, but it teetered on the brink of communism as the influence of China and North Vietnam grew. I think American accuse him of being the Red Prince, but he has to work for the interest of Cambodia, not for the interest of either Cambodia, the communists or the US. The weight of our homeland, they don't mind about it. They are more patriots for dollars than for Cambodia. In 1963, Sirhanok took the bold step of cutting off American economic assistance, thereby allying himself in their minds with the communist side. Whenever you see discussion of Sirhanok, you always see the word mercurial, right? I mean, it's always used to refer to, and he was. Everybody, even the most sympathetic observers of Sirhanok's time in power have to recognize that this very, very strong personalizing of any perceived insult, any perceived slight, that this made a lot of his policy stands very problematic. Sirhanok managed to maintain good relations with Cambodia's former occupiers. And in 1966, French President Charles de Gaulle honored Sirhanok with a state visit to Cambodia. He wanted to see himself as a statesman, as someone that was going to be respected and be able to kind of play with the big boys. But he did not have the temperament for that. He didn't have the sort of self-restraint for that. And so that meant that after a certain point, I think fewer and fewer people really took him seriously. ♪ Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪ Sirhanok became increasingly vain and bored with politics. And in a bizarre career move for a former king and current prime minister, decided to throw all his energy into directing and starring in his own feature films. And while Sirhanok was playing at being a movie star, by the end of the 1960s, the Vietnam War was threatening to spill into Cambodia. In March, 1970, while Sirhanok was traveling abroad, military commander Lon Nol staged a coup d'etat against the government. Many, including Sirhanok himself, believed that the coup was sponsored by the CIA. Lon Nol wanted to replace me as a head of state. And the Lon Nolians, since they were very corrupted, they wanted to be more corrupted without being disturbed by blames from Sirhanok, et cetera, et cetera. So they decided together, Lon Nol, Seri Mata, Nixon, and Kissinger, to wipe me out. I don't think General Lon Nol would do anything without any US backing. I know that some US diplomat told me that they were not aware. I may believe them because there are so many center of powers in the US. I mean, the State Department may not know what the CIA was doing or the FBI are doing. While Sirhanok and his father, the nominal king, took refuge in China, American warplanes dropped 100,000 tons of bombs onto Cambodia in the hope of wiping out the Viet Cong activities in the country. It was a brutal, illegal campaign, sanctioned by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Sirhanok was desperate to return to power and allied himself with a growing band of communists who were taking over the Cambodian countryside, the Khmer Rouge. In 1973, he even wore their trademark scarf on a secret visit to their training camps to garner support. The people supported the Khmer Rouge because of him. It was a common struggle. He did not call the Khmer Rouge to join him. He called for all the Cambodians to join his struggle against what they called at the time the imperialist Americans. They were accusing our former king as part of the reason why the Khmer Rouge came to power in the first place. Without Sirhanok's support, this killing field would not ever happen. Sirhanok believed that if the Khmer Rouge were able to seize power, he would be reinstalled as king. This proved to be without foundation. On April 17th, 1975, the Khmer Rouge invaded Phnom Penh. I was playing soccer with other kids and there were a lot of people running to the street and say, the Khmer Rouge came in, the Khmer Rouge came in. I saw the first time the tank came into the circle and I saw some kids on the tank with black clothes and they were frown faces, but they have guns. On the day of 17 April, 1975, I was in Phnom Penh. I have seen a lot of Khmer Rouge enter Phnom Penh. They told my family by loudspeaker, could you please go to countryside only three day and you can come back after three day. You cannot stay in Phnom Penh because there will be immediately US aircraft will come to drop bomb. Not three day, more than three year, nearly four year. The Khmer Rouge declared Cambodia had entered year zero and that 2000 years of history had ended. So had money, markets, education, religion, books and property. It was arguably the most radical, ill-conceived communist revolution in human history. Having previously courted the Khmer Rouge support, Sihanouk found himself betrayed. He was arrested in the Royal Palace. Phnom Penh at that time, no people, no crowded. So he cannot see anything. About the people in the countryside, he cannot view at all. For many Cambodians, the suffering and horror of the labor camps in the countryside lives on today. I miss my childhood. I grew up during the war times. I never been a Cambodia. I never had a toy to play with. I never have a real family. I don't have fathers, many sister, aunt and uncle to call. Right now, when you look around, the growing of new society, people have their family. So it's upsetting. I was very close few time to having a really bad dream and I don't know what to do with it. I got up in the middle of my dream and choked, I choked, I literally choked twice in my life and I was very close, close to choke myself to death. I accused my sister of eating the stolen food from the dead body of her own husband. So to prove that she did it, they took her to hospital and performed the operation, cut her stomach open and she died. The Khmer Rouge are thought to have killed almost 2 million people, 20% of the Cambodian population. It was genocide on a massive scale. Same the movie killing fear, documentary man history got movie killing fear. It is true. Okay. It's a born victim to die here. The teacher victim here. Maybe they're calling the girl, the young, this one. Very sad, bad man. My father, my uncle died, my sister, by starvation of food. I got sad. To the Cambodian people, my family is an angry people. I cannot forget. In 1979, the Khmer Rouge sent Sihanouk to Beijing as their ambassador. The Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in order to oust the Khmer Rouge who fled to the countryside. Sihanouk was to remain in China for the next 12 years, waiting for his people to embrace him as their leader again. Most Cambodians welcomed the Vietnamese forces with open arms as a relief from the horrors of a genocidal regime. Millions of people returned from the refugee camps across the Thai border. They hoped for a new beginning, but what they found was a country on its knees. ♪ Arise, my country ♪ The Khmer Rouge had devastated the rural economy. The rice harvest had failed and the people and army left starving. Exiled in China, Sihanouk refused to negotiate with the Vietnamese invaders. People he had previously considered allies. You do have this very clear sense that the Vietnamese betrayed the Cambodians by invading and doing all of these things. However justified that invasion might have been. And I think he did have a feeling that the old sort of camaraderie, which he had enjoyed with the Vietnamese leaders back in the early 70s, that that was gone. The Vietnamese installed a young, former Khmer Rouge commander as prime minister, Hun Sen has remained in power to this day. The Vietnamese finally left Cambodia in 1989. Sihanouk returned to his country in 1991. After years of devastation and war, he was seen as the only way to unify the country. Monarchy was a bridge to a history that had been lost for more than two decades. After a period of reconciliation managed by Sihanouk and the United Nations, elections were called in 1993. It was a turning point in 1993. Sihanouk could have been president of Cambodia and he would have had much power, but he made a mistake because of personal reasons, family reasons, he missed an opportunity to make a real comeback to the political scene. Sihanouk considered running for office under his own royalist party, Phan Tsepek. In the end, he let his son, Prince Ranaret, stand. It was to be the beginning of the end of Sihanouk's long dominance of Cambodian political life. After the very clear unifying role that he played, I think he legitimately expected that he was going to probably at least dominate the political scene. I think it is possible that he underestimated Phan Tsepek. He was, for some reason, hoping that Phan Tsepek, which was at the time led by one of his sons, would give him power or support him after the election to bring him to be the leader of the country. But it was a struggle between himself and his son. Many wanted Sihanouk to run for president, but his own son blocked the move. Sihanouk is so unique with such a character, being so charismatic. He would have done great things for the country. He would not allow the country to go down the drain as it has. The elections of 1993 were considered free and fair, and it was decided that Cambodia would have not one, but two prime ministers, Phun Sen and Prince Ranamit, and that the country would return to a constitutional monarchy under the unifying influence of Norodom Sihanouk. The decision made at that time to return the monarchy to Cambodia would be the best choice for the country. Cambodia is very fragile nation. And when we have a monarchy, it's not a strong institution in this country. It make people feel a bit better that we are on the right track and we are not going to kill each other. However, Prince Ranamit and Phun Sen proved awkward bedfellows. Their own armies became involved in open conflict. To compound this, the Khmer Rouge was still active and laying hundreds of thousands of mines in the countryside. Cambodia was once again in turmoil. Throughout the 1990s, King Sihanouk's influence waned while Prime Minister Phun Sen's power grew. He was unhappy for so many years. You will see that from 93 on, you will heard from time to time, he put up this statement, critical of government. And always compare the regime or the government to the past. Until one time, our Prime Minister able to find a way to shut him out. I will not describe what the Prime Minister said, but he did a good job. Phun Sen followed a model of rule that began with the Angkorian kings and was developed by Sihanouk. I won't stop. I won't stop if ASEAN continue interference into internal affairs coordination. Elections take place, but voters are allegedly coerced into voting for Phun Sen's People's Party. Opponents are said to have been undermined and tortured. Cambodia had finally found peace under a monarchy again, but it's peace at a price. History will tell that when you do not have freedom of expression, when your opponent was scared that cannot live in society, you had to take refuge in the forest and to organize a struggle against you. Then you have only one party system, no freedom of expression. Then what do you call that kind of system? I accept to have some restrictions on freedom in exchange for a strong monarchy that defends national interests. But if the monarchy is symbolic, totally powerless, something that is used to endorse a dictatorship, so this is a big disappointment. Whilst Phun Sen consolidated his power, in 2004, Sihanouk surprised everyone by suddenly abdicating in favor of his second son, Sehamony, someone untainted by the corrupt politics of the country. He was a ballet dancer based in Prague and was somewhat surprised to get the call to the throne. I am very happy to be a member of the People's Party of Cambodia. I am very happy to be a member of the People's Party of Cambodia. I am very happy to be a member of the People's Party of Cambodia. It was a shock to the nation. Sihanouk hadn't warned anyone of his decision. It seemed like an instinctive move by someone who'd only thought of his own grip on power before, but was now thinking of his country's future. When he advocated, he had thought thoroughly that that was the best solution, because after him, he would not know what would happen. So he has to secure for this peace and stability a kind of a smooth transition from him. I mean, it's difficult to succeed him, because he's still for the people a god-king. 2004 marked a turning point in Cambodia's history, the beginning of a future without Sihanouk. However, the past inhabits the present like a bad dream. The country desperately needs closure. It has suffered so much, particularly under the brutal Khmer Rouge, and the scars still fester with those who survived. In 2009, leaders of the hated Khmer Rouge stood trial to bring an end to the worst chapter in Cambodia's long history. The trial, it provides a foundation to Cambodia to build up one, to move on and to decide their own future. It's a process and a final judgment of the crime committed overall by the Khmer Rouge. And from there, Cambodians will have to decide what to do with this. They might want to have a truce commission. They might want to have this report. They want to have a Buddhist event to cremate all the bones. They might want to have a big parade. They might want to have recognition in every provincial town with a plaque saying how many people have died. Cambodia is finally coming to terms with its history. From the grandeur of Angkor to the maneuverings of Sihanouk, there's been an innate feeling of greatness amongst the Khmer people, based on the majesty of their kings. Cambodian people have been through many generations. You're talking about communists, you're talking about royalists, you're talking about republic. We've been through all. So are we people enough to experience all this? What they concern is only they want peace. The horrors of the past, a lack of good governance and corruption, have left Cambodia disastrously poor at the start of the 21st century. But it is a nation that's back on its feet, with pride, grace and humor, united under the figure of their beloved king. I'm proud to be a Khmer. I've been a Khmer since 2009. Khmer still need to be recognized as a nation, as a tribe, as a special fish, as a symbol. It's not the end of the world. The monarchy in Cambodia has survived the most tumultuous period in its history and has helped guide the country to peace. And to most Cambodians, it is this peace that matters most.