Buddhist Identity and the 1973 Cambodian Buddhist Holy War

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Buddhist Identity and the 1973Cambodian Buddhist Holy WarMatthew OLemmon aa Quo Keen in BangkokPublished online: 25 Sep 2012.

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Buddhist Identity and the 1973 Cambodian Buddhist Holy War

Matthew O’LeMMOn

Introduction

“Holy War,” particularly since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., has largely been associated with historical and political rhetoric of the Middle east. Indeed, most people, when pressed, would likely jump to Islam, or the many heretical derivations cloaked as Islam, as the foun-tainhead for holy wars. Although countless such holy wars have occurred in all religions, there has been a tendency to gloss over, if not overtly ignore, the various holy wars of Buddhism. Instead, all too often allu-sions to conflicts against a Judeo-Christian and Islamic backdrop are given, brushing aside the bloodshed exhibited within South Asia and those throughout the history of east Asia or even within the context of World War II.

This report addresses ethno-nationalism and the construction of identity in Cambodia, post-independence, and the justification for war, specifically holy war, and the legitimization of violence through Buddhist doctrine and practice. In 1973, General Lon nol, then the self-emplaced leader of Cambodia following the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk, declared a holy war against thmil, “non-believers,” including communists and others. This short-lived and disastrous episode pitted Theravada Buddhist Cambodia against Communist Khmer and Vietnamese troops—north Vietnamese and Vietcong—who were occu-pying parts of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Although the war was

Matthew O’Lemmon is the research director at Quo Keen in Bangkok, Thai-land. He completed his PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of edin-burgh and conducted fieldwork for his degree in Cambodia, researching the reconstruction of the Buddhist monastery and education system, post-civil war.

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122 Matthew O’LeMMOn

directed against Vietnamese and Cambodian Communists, in reality it was against all so-called “non-believers” and Vietnamese in general.

What the war represents in anthropological terms is more than just a war of Buddhists against non-Buddhists. It represents a model of multi-lateral ethno-determinism: post-independence associations of Khmer identity, history, and Theravada Buddhism, which established an ethnic and historical divide between the perceived rightful rulers of Indochina, the Khmers, and their historic enemy, the Vietnamese. Although Buddhism was the vehicle through which the war against thmil was conceived, its backing and execution found its true momentum in long-held ethnic animosities further shaped through the colonial scholastic lament for a once-mighty kingdom seen in the twilight of its existence. Cambodian identity was thus spurred on by idealized versions of Cambodia’s past combined with a militarized reading of the Buddhist dhamma (dharma) in defense of religion, people, and country.

Buddhism and Holy War

In Western scholarship, there has been a tendency to paint Buddhist nations and their peoples as existing in a benign state of harmony with others (McCargo 2009: 12–13). Indeed, all too often there seems to be an attempt to insist upon it. As Palihawadana claims, “nowhere in the canonical texts can we find an instance where the use of military force is justified or the role of the fighter is idealized” (2006: 72). He goes on to state that “the conduct that is idealized as befitting a true follower of the Buddha is that of a person who never thinks a thought of anger, even when subjected to extreme torture” (ibid.). To this end comes the obvious question: On what basis is a “true” follower defined? Dramatic shifts in interpretation can occur within religions, sometimes from an ultimate authority such as the Vatican in Catholicism, and sometimes without such, as in modern scholarship on the Buddhist canons. However, scholarship and practice—or more precisely, interpretation—are often mutually exclusive.

Modern examples of violence and even war within Buddhism are numerous. Sri Lanka provides the most ready examples of Buddhists taking up arms in defense and in the name of their religion (Tambiah 1992; Bartholomeusz 2002; Keyes 2007). During the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the People’s Liberation Front (JVP), Abeysekara (2002) describes how both sides attempted to appropriate

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Buddhist Identity and the 1973 Cambodian Buddhist Holy War 123

Buddhism to defeat the other. Obeyesekere (2003) also notes how notions of holy war have also been seen in monks like elle Gunavamsa, who believes that soldiers dying for the country will achieve nibbana (nirvana).

In Thailand, the right-wing and politically active monk Kitthiwuttho Bhikku, during the political crisis in the country from 1973–1976, was well known for his view of communism as a threat to Buddhism. He famously called for a holy war against communism in a speech entitled “Killing Communists is not Demeritorious.” According to Kitthiwuttho, as communists attack the nation, monarchy, and Buddhism, their death would not produce negative kamma (karma). In fact, the merit gained from protecting the three was greater than the demerit resulting from a communist’s death (Swearer 1995: 113). Likewise, current violence in the south of Thailand has seen the arming of Buddhist militias, with Buddhist monks decrying attacks on temples and launching public assaults on the government’s response, vocalizing local Buddhists’ worries that they could be driven from their lands by their Muslim neighbors (McCargo 2009: 12).

There were also threats of holy war in the period surrounding Cambodian independence. In 1953, monastic supporters in the headquar-ters of nationalist and republican Son ngoc Thanh near Battambang threatened the French with holy war if the country was not granted immediate independence (Harris 2005: 142). The involvement of monks in the fledgling Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) has also been noted. Former Pali teacher Son ngoc Minh, founder of the United Issarak Front (UIF) in 1950 and member of the ICP since 1945, repeated the refrain of nationalism in defense of Buddhism. Stating that the Cambodian race is of “noble origin,” he claimed that it was not afraid of death in “saving its religion” or in “liberating its fatherland,” and that its struggle, there-fore, was in line with the “aspirations of the Buddhist religion” (Kiernan 1985: 93). Minh’s reference to holy war in this instance is almost as a “holy defense.”

More recently, military conflict has erupted between Thailand and Cambodia over the Preah Vihear temple straddling the border of the northern Cambodian province of Preah Vihear, along the border with Thailand. The 900-year-old temple built by Khmer kings was claimed in a series of land grabs by the Thais during Cambodia’s decline following the end of the great kingdom of Angkor in the 13th century. Borders officially established by the French during their colonization of

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Cambodia ensured that the temple would remain on Cambodian territory. However, neither that nor the 1962 ruling by the International Court and the 2008 award as a World Heritage Site by UneSCO in favor of Cambodia has relaxed claims by the Thai government of ownership of the temple (which, given its placement and geography, is only accessible from the Thai side of the border) (Meyer 2009). The conflict has left soldiers dead on both sides and disrupted trade and tourism within both countries. The claim to the temple is predicated on the fundamental belief by both sides that the structure is an essential part of their respec-tive Buddhist and national identities. Threats and the use of violence are not, therefore, an abstraction but often a necessary outcome in the defense of national identity and its concomitant notions of “race.”

In many respects this follows the “path of the warrior” outlined in the Bhagavad-Gita. The two paths of ahimsa—the ahimsa of monks and the ahimsa of warriors—both adhere to and uphold the rejection of evil; whereas one is spiritual and involves non-violence on every level, the other is political and used to counter evil even if through the use of violence. Indeed, while Gandhian resistance to english colonization in India reconfigured the role of the oppressed and broke down the oppressor/victim binary (Jefferess 2008: 114), it did not dispense with the responsibility for dealing with injustice. Yet the use of violence in the defense of the oppressed and in combating terror brings with it diffuse meanings. Modern conceptions of Hindutva ideology, or respect for traditional Hindu principles among Hindu nationalist militants, came to the forefront in the 1995 elections in Dharavi as the principle of ahimsa was advocated in order to stop the slaughter of cattle (Saglio-Yatzimirsky 2010: 220).

As these modern examples demonstrate, Buddhism, as with other religions, is not free from being intertwined with ethnicity and calls for violence. The traits and historical legacies that bind a people often revolve around religious ideologies that account for cultural practices, individual status, and the legitimacy of power relationships between a non-elite majority and an elite minority. Power relationships are predi-cated on an understanding by elites of the majority’s beliefs and an ability to focus a call for the defense of those beliefs in a manner easily grasped by those outside of elite circles. Within traditional societies like Cambodia, individuals who could appeal to those intertwined beliefs of ethnicity and religion were in a greater position to present persuasive calls for action, calls determined to a large degree by those cultural signifiers separating Khmers from the thmil “non-believers.”

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General Lon Nol and the Khmer “Race”

In any other time or place General Lon nol might have been considered a caricature of a Third World general. He was a short, stocky man who adhered to an abstruse form of Buddhism reticulated around the envis-aged strength of his people. He considered himself a “true Khmer” and preferred to be called “Black Papa” due to his dark skin, a matter of pride which for him distinguished real Khmers (Becker 1998: 119). His religious outlook in particular was what set him apart from other promi-nent people in Phnom Penh. His view of Theravada Buddhism was a mix of Buddhist doctrine (or what he believed to be doctrine), mystical ideas, and animist beliefs which would have struck most in the capital as eccentric. His reliance on those beliefs and his indefatigable confidence in the inherent, almost genetic strength of the Khmer people would later be echoed by the Khmer Rouge in their horrific genocide of the late 1970s, who cited the building of Angkor as proof of the Khmer people’s capacity. For individuals like Lon nol, the religion and the people were one and the same: the existence of one was not so much a validation of the other as a logical corollary. It was this belief that would lead the country under his rule toward a short-lived holy war: a belief, one could argue, subsequently paralleled in the late 1970s in the irreligious doctrine of the Democratic Kampuchea regime of the Khmer Rouge.

After Cambodia’s independence in 1953, he was appointed governor of the northern province of Battambang and then chief of staff of the army in 1955, followed by two stints as prime minister in the late 1960s. This career brought with it connections and enemies as the ambitious nol acquired greater power and Prince Sihanouk slowly began to lose his grip on the country. The two, in fact, did not have a cordial relation-ship. According to Sihanouk, Lon nol was “a complete idiot.” “He never understood a damn thing,” he said, and “always stared at me with those ox’s eyes and spent all his time praying. Worse, before he blew his nose he would consult the soothsayers to find out whether the stars were favorable to that activity” (Marlay and neher 1999: 166). The relation-ship never did improve.

After the U.S. deployment of combat troops in South Vietnam in 1965, Sihanouk hosted the Conference of Indochinese Peoples attended by numerous groups including communists from Vietnam and various Cham and other ethnic minorities. These latter groups were sponsored by Lon nol, who was motivated by the idea of unifying them against the

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Vietnamese, backed by his research into the common cultural back-ground of Austro-Asiatic speaking peoples whom he labeled “Austrians” [sic]. He even sent emissaries to the Mons in Burma and several thou-sand Cham on the coast of Vietnam to no avail (Meyers in Kiernan 1996: 257).

Modern critical theories regarding the concept of “race” were, of course, late in coming, particularly in the context of Southeast Asia. nonetheless, Lon nol’s vision of the Khmer race appears to correspond to what Barker (1981) refers to as the “new racism”: narratives of nationhood and patriotism regarding a particular people’s way of life used to justify the exclusion of others. Thus, fears of threats to ways of life and a “common-sense approach” to protecting them are used to justify the processes of racism through a “pseudo-biological culturalism” (ibid., 23). Threats to the nation or patriotism are, therefore, furthered by perceptions of cultural diversity as a threat to an otherwise harmonious society (Dunn et al. 2004: 426).

Although Lon nol’s theories of personhood involved more than just Khmers, they reflected a racialist ideology whereby inner and outer groups were defined according to phenotypical and cultural traits. The constant theme of Khmers as distinct from their southern Vietnamese neighbors was not anti-Vietnamese so much as non-Vietnamese—Khmers and other Mon-Khmer peoples as distinct from the Vietnamese phenotypically, linguistically, and culturally—and particularly in regard to Theravada Buddhism. Despite his overtures to Chams, who are a Muslim people, their phenotypic affinity with Khmers such as the preva-lence of dark skin appears to have trumped the fact that many Vietnamese were Mahayana Buddhist and, thus, closer at least reli-giously to Theravada Buddhist Khmers than were Muslim Chams.

Historically, Hansen (2004) describes how the “cosmicized” views of identity in 19th-century Cambodia gave way to Buddhist and colonial reforms, and the development of a cultural Khmer identity with Theravada Buddhism remaining at its center. engagement in ritual has also been demonstrated among diasporic Khmers as a means of creating an ethno-religious identity reaffirming what it means to be Khmer (Thibeault and Boisvert 2010). My own fieldwork in Kampot Province elicited responses such as this from a Sino-Khmer informant. He stated that he attended Buddhist ceremonies because, “Like I told you, I’m Khmer, that’s what we do,” despite the fact that he would publicly state different, atheistic views.

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For many Khmers, Theravada Buddhism is thus something that is beyond the meta-symbolism embroidered into their country’s history and is more of a touchstone through which individuals live out their “Khmerness.” These self-evident or axiomatic identities (Obeyesekere 2003) can be seen throughout Khmers’ interpretation and retelling of their history as learned in school or passed down through oral traditions. Accordingly, the place or primacy of Khmers on the landscape of penin-sular Southeast Asia is reified through religion and history. notwithstanding references to kingship, the concept of a religion as being one with the land vis-á-vis those who hold real or historical claim to it brings with it a belief in its protection and defense against foreigners and others deemed a threat.

Militarized Buddhism

Prior to Sihanouk’s overthrow, Lon nol was given approval for the opening of a Mon-Khmer Institute to provide evidence for his beliefs concerning Khmer identity and Cambodia’s moral heritage (Becker 1998: 120). While perhaps eccentric to others, his views found willing listeners among his countrymen, who had for so long endured what they believed to be humiliation at the hands of “foreigners,” specifically the Vietnamese. In 1970 Lon nol called for an “organization for cultural warfare employing traditional Mon-Khmer Vethamon,” or occult prac-tices, known as the Committee for Coordination of Activities of the Khmer-Mon and Khmer-Mon-Polynesian Cultures (Becker 1998: 123); among his more interesting suggestions was the cutting of soldiers’ skin to allow the Buddha to enter their bodies, thus giving them strength (ibid.). Although most urban Khmers would not consider employing such extreme practices, the rank and file of army conscripts came from the countryside, where such acts were not necessarily unknown and could be reconciled with Khmer cosmology as they knew it.

Indeed, Lon nol proved to be proficient in wrapping himself in Buddhist hyperbole. His perception of himself as the country’s pre-eminent Buddhist, the “predestined Buddhist chief of state, leading his people in a religious war” (Ayres 2000: 73) was in line with Sihanouk’s former role as king and protector of the dhamma. Sihanouk was the nation’s god-king whose reign and role was now in the hands of an army general. Lon nol’s “neo-Khmerism,” like Sihanouk’s Sangkum govern-ment, drew upon the nation’s history and glories of Angkor, but coupled

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these with the wider belief of uniting the Mon-Khmer speaking peoples in the fight against thmil (ibid., 73–74). Being “Black Papa”, a “true Khmer” and ruler of Cambodia, his notions of “race,” history, and above all, Buddhism allowed for the conjunction of the three while retaining continuity with the past. Thus, a religious war against non-believers—and non-Khmers—was the logical precursor to the restoration of the country to its rightful place within Indochina, he believed. The impor-tance of history in this regard was not simply that it was the catalyst for nationalism, but more, that it was the Buddhist justification for holy war as the vehicle for ethnic and national renewal.

As with various other religious conflicts, in Lon nol’s war the reli-gious angle gave way to an ethnic angle. Indeed, it would seem that the more ethnically homogenous a religion is perceived to be by its practi-tioners, the more a holy war is likely to morph into an ethnic conflict. Repeated references to “race” throughout these experiences linking ethnicity to religion and vice-versa would continue throughout the 20th century in Cambodia.1

After Sihanouk’s overthrow, Lon nol began outing ethnic Vietnamese and then Sino-Khmers, questioning their loyalty to the country. Monks and officials were mobilized to spread the word to the peasantry of the dangers of Communism with the slogan, “If Communism comes, Buddhism will be completely eliminated” (Harris 2001: 63). While the new constitution was under construction, his notions of racial purity—a notion he shared in common with Pol Pot—finally started to worry elites and politicians, who vetoed passages refer-ring to such ideas, noting that such language would inevitably lead to wars of foreign conquest (Harris 2001: 124–126).

The war itself was short-lived, anti-climactic, and a disaster for the country. The Cambodian government under Lon nol’s orders attacked Vietnamese and Khmer communists throughout the country. Attacks on military forces begat attacks on non-combatants, with ethnic Vietnamese targeted and killed by Cambodian troops. Throngs of youth joined in the holy war, as reports of massacres of Vietnamese in the countryside made world news (Ayres 2000: 73).

Lon nol’s first offensive, Chenla I in 1970, sought to recapture lands to the east that had been occupied by the Vietnamese following Sihanouk’s overthrow.2 The Vietnamese had little patience with Lon nol’s military aggression, and following the prince’s removal they discarded any agreement to neutrality pursued by his government. The

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Cambodians managed to fight the Vietnamese to a draw over the reopening of a road from the capital to the eastern town of Skuon which Lon nol later declared a victory. In 1971, following a stroke which failed to douse his aggressive military stance, Lon nol mounted his Chenla II offensive, which ended in utter defeat by December of that year. His troops, many recruited, trained, and put into service in 24 hours, proved to last only a fraction of that time in combat (Chandler 2000: 91–92).

Vietnamese and Khmer Communists routed the troops, and while there were individual units and commanders that fought bravely, the thmil forces proved greater than the power of the mystics and amulets Lon nol surrounded himself with. After, the offensive Lon nol’s govern-ment went into a decline as refugees flooded into the capital (Chandler 2000: 92–93). Whatever conception of Buddhism his troops had, the strength of battle-hardened Vietnamese Communist troops with years of combat experience became quickly apparent to both sides. The gains of the communists would result in an almost unstoppable momentum, and with it the eventual collapse of Cambodia.

The holy war, though, was in reality the pretext for something larger. Ultimately this would result in the racial ideology and policies of the Khmer Rouge. However, the racist and ethnocentric notions espoused by the Democratic Kampuchea regime of Pol Pot did not emerge from a vacuum; they were part of larger, more substantive beliefs festering within many Khmer circles for some time. The notion of Angkor and its historical place in Southeast Asia was seen as the model upon which post-independence Cambodia could be based, and the successive govern-ments—Sihanouk’s Sangkum, Lon nol’s Republic, and Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea—all attempted to define what that meant for the country and what its rightful place in the region should be via theories of Khmer identity. The war may have been its own sideshow; however, it was perhaps the final albeit anemic attempt at resetting the cosmological clock to a more dominant era.

The Growth of Nationalism and Multilateral Ethno-determinism

What may appear to be a short sprint by Lon nol towards religious conflict was actually the slow march of ethnic determinism wrapped in dhammic language and Buddhist symbolism. Tradition, religion, language, and phenotypical traits are some of the more familiar

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designators of commonality. But it is commonly held and culturally defined historical catalysts relative to each society that shape a people’s perception of what is and what is not part of their collective identity. These catalysts, be they historic battles, individuals, or creation myths, help galvanize a populace around shared ethnic and/or national ideals and pave the way for social action.

However, they require conduits through which social action, particu-larly in the form of nationalism, is realized. Although previous events in the 19th century can be pointed to as the initial rumblings of Cambodian nationalism, two 20th-century examples are often considered its foun-tainhead. The first is the newspaper nagaravatta (Angkor Wat), published in 1936; the other is the “Umbrella War” of 1942, involving thousands of laypeople and monks demonstrating against the French colonial occupation (edwards 2007: 5). Both share common links of history and religion: nagaravatta, or Angkor Wat, the most obvious symbol of the country’s glorious past as well as its oldest continuously-used religious structure, and the involvement of monastic cadres in demonstrations against French colonization and threats to traditional ways of life.

This relationship between the kingdom’s past glories and its place as a French protectorate also needs to be considered alongside its colonial occupiers and their position in a post-World-War-II world. France, like Cambodia, had a glorious past filled with great achievements. However, as a country conquered by the nazis, the comparison that French author-ities made of Cambodia’s weakened present state to the glories of Angkor must have seemed ironic, even disingenuous to what would be the future Khmer elite. This, coupled with the French reliance on Vietnamese immigrants to staff colonial positions in place of Khmer nationals, only further exacerbated an already shaky relationship. The stage appears to have been set for the convergence of circumstances ripe for the fomenting of nascent nationalistic ideals. The glorification by French colonizers of a once mighty past; the stress on that past as compared with an impotent present; the domination by its neighbors, chief among them the Vietnamese; and the reliance on newly arrived Vietnamese immigrants to staff French colonial administrative posi-tions—all of these were factors that helped to create future nationalistic ideals among future Khmer leaders.

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In defense of the French focus on Angkor and the previous Khmer kingdoms, it would be difficult not to examine and compare such an obvious symbol of the country’s former glory with what French colonial administrators and academics had come into contact with. Indeed, Angkor Wat is the symbol of the nation and has appeared on every Cambodian flag—including that of Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea—since independence. Mentions of Cambodia invariably conjure up images of Angkor; however, this is alongside the other image that Cambodia evokes: that of the country’s horrible experiences under the Khmer Rouge. Just as the French compared Angkor with the country’s later decline, so too does virtually every modern book or article on Cambodia compare Angkor with Democratic Kampuchea; avoiding the comparison would almost seem a failure of research on the part of the writer. In this light, we need to understand that the French comparison was not unrea-sonable any more than is modern research comparing the kingdom’s ancient past with the events of 1975–1979.

The focus on the twilight of a once powerful kingdom also put new emphasis on the way Khmer intellectuals saw their own cultural prac-tices and history, and forced them to confront images of their country. The lack of an expectation by the French for Khmers to modernize, and their expectation of Khmer “authentic” practice, as verified by colonial scholars, drew out diverse native discourses on Khmerness in an esca-lating nationalistic post-independence environment (edwards 2007: 11–12). The mission civilisatrice of the French entrenched idealistic images of Khmers via historical sites of the “lost kingdom” which tour-ists could digest during their travels through Indochina. The fact that French scholars authenticated practices and beliefs, as opposed to relying on Khmer interpretations, spurred debate within Khmer circles as to what was “pure” Cambodian tradition, with elites vying for association with those images validated by foreign scholarship. The bulk of infra-structural development occurred in Vietnam, but this too could have added to the notion of Cambodian cultural superiority: images of Khmer exoticism authenticated by French scholars, held up by Khmer nation-alism and reconstructed according to the “neo-Khmerism” of Sihanouk and later Lon nol.

The weight of this history combined with constant reminders of its atrophied present represents a model of what I call multilateral ethno-determinism. This is a process by which multiple groups or individuals

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reach similar fundamental concepts regarding their ethnic identity, which over time coalesce around a common strategy of self-determination driven in part by a reaction to an outside element and by an evaluation of their place in history in relation to that element.

Figure 1. Multilateral ethno-determinism

By “multilateral,” I am referring to diverse groupings within a society that differ in size according to economic, religious, political and other conditions.3 Imagine an ellipsoid (1) as the geographical space in which a given population resides;4 this could be a country or an ethnic enclave within a larger country. The arrow on the right (2) represents the passage of time, the history of a given area. The smaller circles within the ellip-soid (3) represent various groups or factions in that space experiencing time and creating history. If we define history as the linguistic represen-tation of time, i.e. distinct from a mechanized representation, we can more accurately understand time as the totality of events within a space as it is experienced by a population and put into words reflecting their understanding of those events through their particular cultural prism.

The arrow on the left (4) represents a countervailing force such as a foreign occupier that is perceived as going against history as understood by a population, thereby agitating elements within a geographical space and necessitating interaction where there might otherwise be none. Various groups within a society will have their own views as to what is and is not part of their identity. However, smaller, more elite circles within a society will often broaden their interpretation to fit that of the larger, non-elite circles represented by the smaller arrows (5) radiating

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from the center of the ellipsoid. Thus, elite circles may seek to demon-strate a commonality with the majority and thereby define identity as something that the majority recognizes. As elite circles within any society also tend to be the most educated or have the most access to education, they are also, aside from being the minority, the groups which outside forces generally interact with the most in formulating policies that can be understood by the greatest number of people.

All social movements are of course determined by sets of social and cultural circumstances that are not easily reconcilable; the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. in the 1960s would not have occurred in a similar manner as it would had it occurred in Cambodia. nonetheless, we can identify elements within societies that act either alone or in conjunction with one another to varying degrees when confronted by an occupying force and will reconcile their differences to acceptable levels in an effort to define themselves according to their perceived place in history and the geographical space they inhabit in reference to that force. The degree to which their nationalistic ideals are reconciled is dependent on their level of interaction and the necessity of that interaction.

In post-independence Cambodia, many within elite circles did not agree with Lon nol and took exception to the racial angle he expounded. However, interaction was essential given the necessity of reaching wider circles within Khmer society, something that Lon nol’s clique could easily do given that the backbone of the military came from outside the capital and shared Lon nol’s anti-Vietnamese views. Intertwining Khmer ethnicity with Theravada Buddhism, and a devout adherence to animistic elements via magical amulets and folk specialists and their powers of divination, became vehicles through which Lon nol sought to purify Cambodia of the Vietnamese aggression he and others believed had whittled down their people and country over the centuries. Indeed, this shared animosity may have been a greater source of commonality than religion, and the true source of inspiration for many in heeding the call to holy war.

Institutionalized Buddhism

Other, more historical aspects of Cambodian society may have also contributed to the conflict. Administering a society through the mode of institutionalized Buddhism, with Buddhism acting as a principle guide in the direction of government institutions, raises the issue of Indic law and

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with it, its principle guiding force, the dhamma. The dhamma, according to O’Flaherty, “is the fact that there are rules that must be obeyed; it is the principle of order, regardless of what that order actually is” (O’Flaherty in Geertz 1983: 199).

Within the hierarchical order of nature, the principle of dhamma and adherence to it is of particular importance for those of high rank (Roberts 2008: 121–122). The Code of Manu states that “destroyed dhamma destroys, protected it protects” (ibid.). This establishes particular duties as defined by rules for individuals in specific situations according to their given status—guardians of the dhamma must guard it and in return it guards them (Geertz 1983: 199). Prior to colonial rule, the foremost guardian, the king, was the ultimate arbiter, or as Geertz states, “It is, to put the basic principle of Indic legality in an Indic nutshell, the dhamma of the king to defend the dhamma” (ibid., 200). Thus, the more ancient Brahmanic notions of status and function and their relation to specific roles within society helped to cement notions of violence against one’s enemies as fulfillment of the dhamma.

The cosmic doctrine of duty compelled one to fulfill obligatory movements of action, and in a warrior sense, this meant destroying one’s enemies. The Buddhist ruler as defender of the dhamma and protector of social order leads to the justifiable use of violence in defense of either. In other words, one could postulate that there exists a cosmic compul-sion on the part of the ruler to commit violence, and by extension that branch of his rule used in its prosecution. This was certainly the case for Kitthiwuttho Bhikku in Thailand, whereby the killing of communists to protect Buddhism was a meritorious act, a short step in the rationaliza-tion of holy war to declaring the killing of other such non-believers to be meritorious, regardless of the actual threat they pose to the religion. Their very status as communists/non-believers was seen as indicative of the threat they posed and of their inevitable attack on Buddhism. In this vein, holy war even in the preemptive sense can be declared to be not only justified but even required.

Rationalization, of course, can lead one to any path of action one desires. However, when coupled with other variables, such as historical chauvinism and ethnic hatred, there is the potential for a deterministic form of belief, one predicated on nationalism and commonality of purpose, i.e. the reinstitution of lost grandeur. Cambodia’s current devel-opment and the influence of outside powers on the manner and pace of that development will likely be issues which will prompt younger

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Khmers to re-evaluate Buddhism’s role in shaping modern conceptions of Khmer identity. As former Khmer Rouge leaders are now being tried for their crimes, it remains to be seen whether the ghosts of past conflicts and the specter of new ones such as with Thailand over the disputed Preah Vihear temple in the north of the country will elicit extremist rhetoric from Buddhist circles. Although Buddhism is often depicted as a non-violent religion, like all religions its canons are inter-preted and actualized by its practitioners. Further research is needed in identifying those practitioners and groups that give rise to ethno-deter-minism within Buddhist societies and their impact on nationalism and the role of Buddhism in defining national and/or ethnic identity.

Conclusion

This report has focused on Buddhism, holy war, and identity in Cambodia post-independence, and the influence of colonial reforms and scholarship on nationalism and latent ideas of Cambodia’s place within Southeast Asia. A multilateral ethno-deterministic model was used to help in the understanding of how multiple factions within the country could be drawn into a conflict driven by ethnic animosity yet catalyzed through religious devotion. Perhaps there is a parallel with a post-Versailles Germany; that is, the idea that a nation had somehow been robbed of its rightful glory by other, lesser peoples and that its true future, as foreshadowed by the past, lay in its inevitable greatness. A strategy of self-determination against “non-believers” motivated by an understanding of their rightful place within a region as presaged by history allowed for an interpretation of Buddhism—however convo-luted—that legitimized a call for action. As the war in neighboring Vietnam slowly brought the country into conflict, the ideals of Buddhist socialism initiated by Prince Sihanouk were furthered by General Lon nol, who wrapped nationalistic sentiment, ethnic and historical chau-vinism, and canonical interpretation into a call for holy war against communists and specifically the Vietnamese.

While its adherents and champions often cite the lack of evidence of a justification for violence within Buddhism, the truth is that, like any religion, its canons have been employed by a wide variety of groups and individuals ranging from monks and scholars to socialist movements and military generals to justify the use of violence and war in its name. In reality, the 1973 Buddhist holy war was merely a backdrop against

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which broader issues of identity were displayed and molded through the lens of ethno-nationalism. Its growth or perhaps refinement after inde-pendence was driven in part by colonial reforms put in place by the French such as in education, and French research on the great kingdoms of Cambodia’s past compared to its atrophied state from the mid-19th century through the twentieth.

This left a country in which the impact of modernity was felt more in the capital than the vast countryside, allowing for the perpetuation of and reliance on images of the past held up by elites in the center. The idea of a holy war was, therefore, not a radical idea for a countryside steeped in the oral histories of the country’s former greatness, particu-larly when put in terms of the Buddhist dhamma and Brahmanic concepts of duty combined with the ultra-nationalist rhetoric of the nation’s top military commander and self-declared Buddhist messiah. The political instability and growing conflict with Vietnamese and Cambodian communists in the country, punctuated by the Buddhist mili-tarism of Lon nol, in many ways was representative of the nation’s concluding attempt at defining Cambodian identity as synonymous with Buddhist identity before the advent of the scorched-earth policies of Pol Pot’s anti-religious Democratic Kampuchea.

Notes1. Democratic Kampuchea, the Khmer regime that ruled in Cambodia during

the genocide of 1975–1979, in many ways also represents the model of a holy way, one that had at its base the two components seen in other reli-gious wars in Southeast Asia: an orthodox ideology in the form of commu-nism, and a common enemy, the “non-believers” (including non-Khmers) in that ideology.

2. “Chenla” is the name of the second of the three great kingdoms of Cambodia—Funan, Chenla, and Angkor.

3. I am not using a traditional top-down view of society, in that such a model tends to display various groups as having little or no contact with one another. In reality, elite and non-elite groups tend to interact on an ad hoc basis, with certain individual members of those groups interacting with one another and influencing relations between groups as a whole.

4. My choice of an ellipsoid is to acknowledge the dynamic nature of culture as opposed to the use of a rectangular plane suggesting a beginning and end.

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Documents

Buddhist Identity and the 1973 Cambodian Buddhist Holy War