‘Just Kill Them’
In my last cultural studies class at a local institute, in order to break up the monotony of a difficult text, I assigned some controversial social topics for debate. Homosexual rights got them really stoked as well as abortion and euthanasia but what floored me was their attitude towards illegal drugs. ‘Just kill them’ – drug dealers, that is – was the overwhelming response.
I took pains to point out that attitudes toward drug use were culturally based,that while everyone could agree that crimes like murder were wrong, there was no consensus whatever on the drug issue. I brought up the case of a ten year sentence for possession of one half gram of ganja that had then been recently handed down in Singapore and that the same amount could be purchased legally in the Netherlands for about $3.
Whoa, I responded to their seeming thirst for blood on this issue, you had a regime not long ago that killed more than a million Cambodians because it didn’t like the way they thought, didn’t think their ideas about life were valid or appropriate. Do you really want to kill people who simply disagree with the prevailing culture about this kind of issue. I got through to some that treatment and therapy were better ways of tackling drug use than incarceration but murder was in their hearts for traffickers.
A shame really, since Cambodia is ideally suited to be the Holland of Asia. The level of tolerance for others and their foibles is greater here than anyplace I can think of in the region. And why would they want to emulate the harsh sentences that are found in most other countries in this area when Europe,easily more enlightened than Puritan America, is becoming more tolerant?
They are under pressure from the international community for tougher drug related sentences but fortunately, at least for now, Cambodia’s lackadaisical ability to keep things together, not to mention enforce laws, not to mention rampant corruption – it’s said that major figures in the military own the largest ganja farms (thank you Jesus!) – will preclude major crackdowns.
Every card player, as well as every country, has to play to his or her strong suit.
What options then does poor little Cambodia have for economic development?
One thing is pretty certain: Cambodia is not going to become an industrial powerhouse in any foreseeable future. Its small size, abysmal infrastructure, dearth of local skills and pervasive corruption with it’s hidden costs, all preclude a strong industrial base.
The garment industry, the easiest type of manufacturing for a developing country to get into, which accounts for over 90% of Cambodia?s exports, only came into being in response to the now defunct Multifiber Agreement. In that treaty individual developing countries were given quotas for export to Europe and America.
Most of Cambodia’s garment factories would have preferred locating in China where costs are lower for many reasons, not least of which is suppression of labor rights. As low-cost-country quotas filled they were forced to use countries like Cambodia.
The end of that agreement has seen 10% of the local garment industry vanish. It is possible that Cambodia can remain as a viable competitor based on its acceptance of independent labor unions since it gives certain retailers – The Gap notably – the ability to promote their garments as produced under better conditions.
Cambodia does have a rich natural resource base underlying a relatively small population which could provide the foundation of a food export and processing industry.
A cursory glance at a map of Indochina depicting land elevation shows that Cambodia has about as much low elevation agricultural land as Vietnam with only one-sixth the population. When you consider that Vietnam is a major rice exporter it’s clear that great potential exists in that area.
Cambodia is one of the wettest countries in the region with ample groundwater in many places just below the surface. Relatively modest resources allocated towards pumping and irrigation could make the country a major player in the food production arena. Processing requires quite a bit more capital and expertise but it’s still a relatively low tech industry that shouldn’t be too difficult to pursue. Considering that about 80% of its people live in the countryside and a majority of them are desperately poor, that should be its highest priority.
Angkor being one of the world’s premier tourist destinations makes that also a highest priority focus. Not much to do different on that account; the government merely needs to maintain the archeological park’s inviolability – no leeway there since the international community has ultimate control at Angkor – and try to keep Siem Reap from being trashed in the process of rapid development. As a corollary to Angkor would be the further development of indigenous arts and crafts. Also a no brainer.
What else is there then but entertainment and tolerance and openness. With Thailand wishing to turn itself into a Puritan backwater by closing its nightspots at midnight – only a few areas of Bangkok are excepted – Cambodia is poised to experience rapid growth in that sphere. Well, yes, the sex trade will piggyback onto the entertainment scene, but it isn’t called the world’s oldest profession for nothing. The best way to try to keep it honest and non-abusive is to make it legal, as in the Netherlands and many other European countries, so it can be regulated and watched over. That still leaves room for corruption, but there?s always room for that.
Thailand has also become uppity and full of itself and no longer wants to make it easy for riff-raff expats to live there. I’ve got a friend who, after ten years living in Bangkok, now must leave every 30 days to renew his visa. His income is far too low to qualify for a legitimate working visa. Welcome to Cambodia!
Cambodia is the easiest place I know of to live and work. This is smart policy since, with rare exceptions, expats only come here if they have independent income or something to offer the Cambodian economy that cannot be supplied locally. Besides, it offers Cambodians a taste of world culture and cosmopolitan lifestyles and possibly replaces a bit of the brain power lost in the Khmer Rouge era.
Finally, getting back to the title of this piece, by summarily executing 2500 ‘suspected’ drug dealers, Thailand has made it abundantly clear that the likes of me aren’t welcome. While I have nothing to do with methamphetamines – the target of their mass murder – or any other hard drug, my drug of choice, which I consider benign except for the tendency towards throat irritation, is lumped together with all the rest.
Digression: I had a conversation around the time of Thailand’s war on drugs with an expat who lives there, who defended their murderous ways by saying that yaba is really bad. Ok, I agreed, it’s bad, but by executing people without giving them the right to defend themselves it’s almost certain that hundreds of those murdered were either innocent or guilty only of very minor offenses or had merely been blacklisted by someone in the local police who wanted to serve a grudge.
And along similar lines as my ‘just kill them’ students, the Thai people reelected the murderous Taksin Shiniwatra by a landslide.
In talking to locals about ganja who remember the times before prohibition,which only came in with UNTAC in 1993, I’ve heard comments like, ‘we used to smoke it when we couldn’t afford tobacco’, or, ‘we used it to flavor our soup.’
Either way, use of recreational drugs, as with prostitution, is best left to individual choice. Everybody has a right, or should have the right, to choose their own poison.
There are plenty of bad things that people do that are either legal or totally ignored. What could be worse than being a down-and-out alcoholic, lying in the gutter in your own vomit and piss? And I’ve heard stories of Cambodian parents who’ve gambled away life savings, turning their middle class families into paupers. Is that somehow more acceptable than popping a few uppers a day?
Longevity in America is set to decline from mass obesity, should we ration fatso’s food intake? There’s no reason to single out this one or that one for excessive punishment. If society considers some to be serious problems then the only fair, reasonable, cost-effective, workable approach is through non-coercive education.
Most importantly, there is no way to stop people in a free country from doing what they want.There’s no way to dictate likes, preferences or desires in a place where people have the freedom to think and act according to their inner voices. Freedom and suppression of recreational drugs are mutually exclusive concepts.
Look at the US where almost all corporate jobs now require drug tests. And acme of irony and hypocrisy, you can stagger into your drug test soused to the max, so drunk you can barely stand, and pass your test easily, but if you smoked a joint a month previously you are unacceptable, a danger to your fellow workers, a scourge on society.
Prohibition, by causing very high prices and by extension criminal involvement,only exacerbates the problem. The students in my class need no discouragement through prohibition to not use drugs. They got society?s message and are true believers. The international community, which Cambodia depends on for a large part of its revenue, would never allow Cambodia to have too lenient a policy towards recreational drugs. Fortunately corruption will keep the ‘just kill them’, attitude from causing excessive harm.
And hopefully, though I don’t harbor a lot of optimism on this point, the world will come to its senses and start treating adults as adults and let them decide for themselves how to live their lives? and that that happens before a lot of Cambodians are killed for involvement with drugs.
Stan Kahn
www.tripeast.com