2005: Where Did the Year Go?
So another year has drawn to a close; a new one looms on the horizon like a passing ship to Robinson Crusoe. Will it bring pirates to murder and plunder, or is it a luxury cruise liner that will whisk one off to paradise and the promised life of milk and honey?
As I look back over the past year I wonder what has changed? What is better, what is worse and what despite our best efforts (and truck loads of cash) has remained exactly the same?
The start of 2005 saw a pledge of US$504 million in direct aid and about half as much again in indirect aid and services in kind to Cambodia.
Unfortunately, the various year end statistics are not out yet, from either the United Nations, the NGO Community at large, or Royal Government of Cambodia sources; so I can not yet compare how this years US$millions have affected things like; the literacy rate, the HIV figures, child mortality or any of the other quality of life indicators – although you can be sure that I will be addressing those things once the figures are; compiled, collated, submitted, queried, recollated, resubmitted, approved, signed off, published and then released.
So until I have some hard data to flog I will have to make do with musing over some news highlights that tickled, baffled, entertained or just plain amused me.
* 214 new generals were created and the RGC had to payback US$2.8 million out of US$6.9 million that had allegedly been misappropriated from the World Bank as part of a demilitarisation project.
* Despite millions of dollars being sent or pledged for the Khmer Rouge trials we still find the country falling short by more millions of the required sum; however, UN Big Wigs did condescend to pop by in December and have a chat about it. Personally I am of the same opinion as Prince Ranariddh on this one, use the US$55M to build roads or schools or something useful, and try these old men in a National Khmer Court for about $3:50 and damned be the judge who even thinks of taking a backhander over the result.
* Several, long delayed, laws did manage to get themselves through the National Assembly; The Commercial Enterprises Law for example was not a bad piece of legislation, it meets a requirement for Cambodia?s WTO membership as well as reassuring potential foreign investors that there are at least some laws to fall back on and define business roles and relationships. It also sketches out ideas for a Cambodia Stock Exchange, which Ministry sources claim could be here as soon as 2010, hmm. Its detractors claim that it sketchy in parts, but I feel that it is a step in the right direction and we can not expect perfection overnight.
* Back at the beginning of the year, The Iron Man had an amusing ‘bite the hand that feeds you’ moment or two when he spoke out about NGOs that only represent a small number of people and not the Country as a whole, the most memorable quote from the speech for me was him saying ‘if you want to implement your policy, please wait until you are appointed to be Prime Minister’ which he then followed by a warning for them to not interfere with government activities.
* Then of course we come to the opposition, or more accurately Sam Rainsy; parliamentary protection suspend he flees the Country, leaving several of his colleagues to face the music, does a ‘woe is me’ tour of his supporters in the West, meets with some reporters, goes on TV and then spends the next six months promising to come back, but not actually managing to get on a plane. Just as the year draws to a close, he is sentenced in absentia by the Khmer courts, thus virtually guaranteeing that he will not dare return. Now I actually had a little sympathy for him when all this started, but I believe that he made a big mistake in not returning to Cambodia once he had been out in the West and had his say. His failure to return for so many months has sealed his fate, his party is rudderless. The only way out of this lock that I can see is for him to resign as party leader and for the SRP to change its name and elect a new leader. In fact, I will go as far as to make my prediction of Mu Sochua as the new party leader. Though I would not care too hazard a guess as to the new party name.
* The new ‘Riverside Pencil Supermarket’ opened. It is, of course, not on the riverside but I guess that it is closer to the river than the original Pencil on Street 214. I had high hopes for it when I went in the opening weekend, but now several months on it still seems half stocked and half hearted. The surprise in culinary shopping ended up coming from the oft maligned (oft by myself) Lucky Supermarket on Sihanouk, with the introduction of its new Deli counter. While stock on there can seem to come and go without explanation, it has provided several unexpected treats over the last six months; Stilton cheese, Toulouse sausages, Duck Pate en croute, to name but a few.
A final curious thing that happened this year, is that as part of the deep research into NGO (in)activities I do for my weekly column here on 440, I discovered the origins of the phrase ‘namby pamby’ it seems that strangely enough, we owe the origin of this phrase to a public argument between the poets Alexander Pope and Ambrose Philips at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Pope hated Philips because political opponents such as Joseph Addison praised the latter?s rustic verses above his own. A friend of Pope’s named Henry Carey wrote a lampoon about Philips poems in which he invented the sardonic nickname, Namby-Pamby, based on Philips’s given name, and used it in the title, ‘Namby-Pamby: Or, A Panegyric on the New Versification.’
After discovering this little literary gem, I decided that the phase was far too good to use against the run-of-the-mill Dr Weird Beard and Ms Lentil Weaver culprits in the NGO community, they did not deserve that level of sophistication or literary recognition.
So with 2005 wrapped up in a neat little bow – for now – I wish you all ‘Good Health, Good Luck and Success in this coming year.’
Lord Playboy
The views in this column are entirely those of Lord Playboy (of Phnom Penh, Sonteipheap and that muddy patch of ground next to the school;) they are in no way are representative of Khmer440, its editors or staff, of any Ministry of the Royal Government of Cambodia who employs Lord Playboy, of people who think silk weaving cooperatives for one-legged trafficked lesbians are businesses , of employees of Bar 104 who have cornered the Country?s stocks of Wonder Bras, of those blessed NGO workers who were handing out Santa Hats to street children, or my favourite Khmer mechanic who forgot to charge me for a new battery and then turned up at my house with a black eye to ask for the cash. Damn, things will be different when I am running the Country.