The Preah Vihear Territorial Dispute: Arguments from the Cultural Marxists

8/12/2019 The Preah Vihear Territorial Dispute: Arguments from the Cultural Marxists

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The Preah Vihear Territorial Dispute:

Arguments from the Cultural Marxists

the seminar course on “International Conflict and Resolution”, the writer posited in

defiance of the two foreign classmates, one Russian and another German. The discussion was

about the causal relationship between the economic determinants—independent variable—and the

territorial dispute—dependent variable—on which the two foreign classmates deliberately persisted,

i.e. the economic incentives propel the state actors to stir the territorial dispute. Even in the case of

the Preah Vihear territorial dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, the two classmates resorted

to it as the dispute driven by the economic incentives. This work re-examines and simultaneously

counter-argues against the generalized thesis of economic determinism.

Prior to the silhouette of the detailed Preah Vihear case, first, it is of the essence to succinctly

elucidate the epistemology of social sciences. The social world, in accordance with Karl Popper,

is non-static, rather, dynamic, moving, and transforming at every pace. In a simpler and concise

epistemological sentence, the social world is not as the natural scientists lament as objective —the

epistemological methodology animated from the natural science—, in contrast, it is what the social

scientists label subjective—the methodology derived upon interpretations of contexts.1 Thus, it is

of absurdity to establish any universal theoretical frameworks to explain every social phenomenon.

The duty of the social scientists is to contextualize the phenomena instead of theorize any panacea

theory. Henceforth, in the case of the Preah Vihear territorial dispute, the economic determinism

thesis may be of inadequacy to explain the conflicting phenomenon.

Here, in contrast to the mere economic determinism thesis, the cultural Marxists, one of

them widely renowned as Antonio Gramsci, exhort the cultural elements into the Marxist’s

1See how Karl Popper critiqued the traditional Marxists whose objective methodology animated the positivist

natural scientists’ methodology by assuming that the social world is static, repetitive, and stationary inKarl R. Popper, “Prediction and Prophecy in the Social Sciences”, http://keidahl.terranhost.com/Fall/HIS3104/Popper%20Prediction%20and%20Prophecy.pdf, Accessed 28 August 2011.

In

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1http://www.citu.tu.ac.th/ PEERA CHAROENVATTANANUKUL



economic determinism theoretical framework. As Gramsci posited that institutions and “practices

of civil society rather than through the repressive institutions of the State, but that it is ideational

persuasion rather than the threat of physical force which ensures the ‘consent’…”2 In other words,

the hegemonic apparatuses, the concept which has been viewed by Paul Ransome—the author

on the work of Gramsci—as the ideational persuasion, is mostly embellished as the ideological-

implanted mechanisms to constitute consents and consciousness, while the state apparatuses

physically function in the sphere of state authority and legal enforcement. Hence, the ideology that

the state mechanism instills could be nothing but nationalism.

Benedict Anderson proposed that states promulgate the official nationalism to craft nations.3

Nevertheless, Louis Althusser, the French Marxist, went further. Althusser depicted the states as

the ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) which function to foment certain ideologies as Althusser

asserted in his work: “the ISAs ‘function’ massively and predominantly by ideology, what unifies

their diversity is precisely this functioning, insofar as the ideology by which they function is always

in fact unified, despite its diversity and its contradictions, beneath the ruling ideology, which is the

ideology of ‘the ruling class.’”4 This crux is more or less substantial in capping the Thai politics as Pavin

Chacavalpongpun, the former diplomat from Thailand questioned, “Are they (the People’s Alliance

for Democracy5) really fighting to preserve the nation‘s identity and its historical significance? Or

in fact, are they fighting to preserve their political hegemony within the domesticrealm as well as in

2“Hegemonic consent, in other words, eclipses coercion as the primary means of the social control.” See Antonio

Gramsci: A New Introduction (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), pp.138-403Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and the Spread of Nationalism (London:

Verso, 2006)4Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/

althusser/1970/ideology.htm, Accessed 28 August 20115Te People’s Alliance for Democracy is a middle-upper class social movement which has stirred up the issues

of Preah Vihear temple within Tailand for many years. Teir claims are simply to protect the territorialintegrity, regardless of any economic depravity.

2 http://www.citu.tu.ac.th/

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PEERA CHAROENVATTANANUKUL



the domain of foreign relations?”6

The school textbooks’ primary theme is royal-nationalist7 ideology. The official Thai history

outlines the famished Western imperialists in yearning to acquire the sacred Siam8’s territorial

integrity. Drawing on the Foucauldian-based genealogical work 9 of the Thai leading historian,

Thongchai Winichakul, he argued that Chat or nation meant the birthplace, prior to the Siamese

nation-state system. Thongchai also discovered that, “Formerly, to talk about a country, a governed

spatial unit, the term was either Muang or Banmuang , literally town or village-town.”10

The advent

of the nation-state, according to Thongchai’s findings, incurred the semiological conjunction in

which the “power and values imbued in the terms Banmuang and Chat —common origin, cultural

commonality, soil, and royal sanctity.”11

Since then, from the undervalued territory prior to the advent

of the nation-state to the overvalued territory following the crafting of the nation-state, mingling

with Luang Wichitwathakan’s12

discourse on the territorial sacredness, the Thais become hysteria

on the territorial issues. Furthermore, in the Thai state official history version, Cambodia has always

been labeled as an ungrateful entity, i.e. a traitor to the Kingdom of Thailand. A similar fashion is

Burma which has been lambasted by the Thai official history as an insidious thug whose existence

has always been perilous to every Thai king.

6Pavin Chachavalpongpun, “Glorifying the Inglorious Past: Historical Overhangs in Tai-Cambodian Relations”,

http://www.jpi.or.kr/board/run/download.php?board_id=jpiworld&page=3&row_per_page=15&page_per_block=10&pds_uid=2569, p. 12, Accessed 28 August 2011.

7Te history emphasizes on the “great man theory”, which describes the royal family as a national savior.8“Siam” refers to the former name of Tailand.9Tis Foucauldian approach deals with the exposition of the ontology. In a very simple definition, the

approach seeks to divulge the discourse to which people believe it’s natural.10Tongchai Winichakul, Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation (Chiangmai: Silkworm Books,

1995), pp.133-411

Winichakul, p.13412Luang Wichitwathakan was the most influential creator of the cultural works in Tailand—an exponent of

the powerful nationalist historiography, a novelists of many historical fictions, and a well-knowncomposer of many militaristic songs.

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In May 2008, Noppadol Pattama, the then minister of foreign affairs in Samak Sundaravej

government17

, signed the Joint Communiqué with Sok An, the Cambodia minister of foreign affairs,

in purport to list the temple as the World’s Site Heritage. In such an agreement, the unsettled border

demarcation, 4.6 square kilometers18

, would be mutually managed by the two states, which means

two nations shared the mutual prosperity in tourism industries.

Embedded with the gospel that the temple and the 4.6 square kilometers should rightfully

belong to the Thai sovereignty, Noppadol’s decision was defamed by the PADs as treacherous. His

approval was seen as the conspiracy to trade-off the piece of land in exchange for the concession

for Thaksin Shinawatra’s businesses in the Gulf of Thailand.19 Finally, the PADs stirred the case to

become cognizant throughout the nation so that the Constitutional Court of Thailand overruled the

Joint Communiqué as “unconstitutional.”20

With the ulterior motive of the PAD leaders to overthrow Thaksin’s affiliates, in

correspondence with the Thai Democrat Party as the opposition party in the parliament, the leaders

of both cliques uniformly coalesced to intrigue the conspiracy through the ideational persuasion,

as Pavin Chachavalpongpun articulated, “At the same time, the PAD and the Democrat Party

Nationalism, ourism and Border life], in FahDiewKan, Vol.6, 2008, p.2117Te government had a invidious scandal by which is widely believed to be the nominee of Taksin Shinawatra—

the premier who was ousted by the September 2006 coup.18Te problematic land to which the conservative Tais claim to be theirs due to the Tai state renunciation of

the Annex 1 map which was made in 1904, while the Cambodian state who rigidly adheres to such amap due to the ICJ adjudicated in favor of the Annex 1 Map.

19Noppadon is the lawyer of the Shinawatra family. However, the accusation made by the PAD could not

substantially be validated even today.20According to the 2007 Constitution of Tailand, section 190: “A treaty which provides for a change in the Thai

territories or the Thai external territories that Thailand has sovereign right or jurisdicon over such

territories under any treaty or an internaonal law or requires the enactment of an Act for its

implementaon or aects immensely to economic or social security of the country or results in the

binding of trade, investment budget of the country signicantly must be approved by the NaonalAssembly. In such case, the Naonal Assembly must complete its consideraon within sixty days as

from the date of receipt of such maer.” i.e. the court must rule in accordance to the law. Nonetheless,ordinarily, the constitution empowers the representatives to approve any agreement due to the rationaleof convenience.

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refreshed indignant historical relations between Thailand and Cambodia.”21

The question goes, how?

According to Pavin, the PAD leaders and the Democrats “aroused a sense of nationalism among the

Thais. Proclaiming themselves as defenders of the Thai nation, the PAD and the Democrat Party

reproached Thaksin and his cronies for their willingness to sacrifice Thai territories in exchange for

personal benefits. They then connected the Preah Vihear issue to the loss of Thailand‘s territorial

integrity and the failure of the state.”22

Disregarding the economic interests between Thailand and

Cambodia, Sondhi Limthongkul, the PAD core leader, aroused the PAD masses by vehemently

opinionating that, “Our sacred mission is to protect our motherland and take back Thai territory.”

His might-is-right diplomatic tongue also blurted that, “(Thailand should) invite Cambodia to

bilateral negotiations. If the dispute cannot be settled, Thailand would… mobilize Thai troops, push

Cambodians back from Thai territory…and Thailand would pay any price to protect its sovereignty,

even at the cost of war.”23

Pavin further satirized the PADs and the Democrats’ bad politics as

evidenced in his work: “The PAD’s wish came true. One Thai and three Cambodian soldiers died

in an exchange of rifle and rocket fire when their troops clashed on the border in October 2008…

Throughout 2009-2010, such actions between the armies of the two countries have occasionally

occurred, leading to a number of deaths and casualties from both sides.”24

Aside from the PAD leaders and the Democrats’ being successful in toying with the

nationalistic ideology to agglomerate the demonstrators on the street, another mental factor in

explaining the utmost sentiment of the Thais and the Cambodians is incisively stated in the work

of John A. Vasquez and Brandon Valeriano: “It seems that states rarely go to war over tangible

21Chachavalpongpun, p.15

22Chachavalpongpun, p.16. Pavin Chachavalpongpin also proposed that the PAD leaders and the Democrats

rendered the Khai Chat (national traitor) discourse. Tey, according to Pavin’s perspective, resurrectedthe Cambodians’ image to the Tais as a permanent adversary.

23Prachatai.com, “Sodhi Limthongkul’s Solution to the Preah Vihear dispute”, http://www.prachatai.com/english/

node/732, Accessed 28 August 201124Chachavalpongpun, pp.17-8

6 http://www.citu.tu.ac.th/

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territorial issues and territorial disputed solely for economic reasons; rather, they fight when the

territory under question is infused with intangible qualities or is tied to ethnic factions.”25

Since the advent of the Siamese/Thai nation-state, unlike the European nation-states which

deleteriously struggled against one another in, what Phillip Bobbitt coined, the Epochal War and

the Long War.26

Instead, Thailand became the nation-state not more than a hundred year, i.e. the

experiences of the Thais in the disastrous war are of apprenticeship. Unlike the Europeans’ historical

mentality, their fear of the devastating wars prompts them to economically integrate. Even the long-

fought over the territory of Alsace-Lorraine, Germany and France compromised in exchange for

the mutual economic benefits in founding the European Union. Principally, the Europeans do detest

the deathly squads which may occur to their citizens whereas the South East Asians do not. Why?

According to Karl D. Jackson, he elaborated in his work that, “After the process of decolonization,

the traditional polity was transformed into what some specialists have called ‘bureaucratic polities’.

Even though formal political institutions existed in theory, in reality, most of the states in Southeast

Asia were ruled by small elite circles operating on the basis of patronage networks. This had the

effect of institutionalizing a highly private and informal political culture. Thus, even today, a set of

social etiquette exists which has its basis in indirectness and social harmony.”27

Hence, no wonder why the Thais and the Cambodians have been so tempted to wage war. It

is a repercussion of the bureaucratic polities, which the inner circle elites implant certain mindsets,

25John A. Vanquez and Brandon Valeriano, “erritory as a Source of Conflict and a Road to Peace”, in eds., J

Bercovitch, V Kremenyuk, and I.w. Zartman, Te Sage Handbook of Conflict Resolution (London: SagePublication, 2009), p.205

26Te Epochal War is the war Bobbitt coined to refer to the era which elaborated the transition from the pre-

modern states to the deadly struggle among the European Kings/queens whereas the Long War is theperiod which he alluded to the First World War up until the end of the Cold War. See. Phillip Bobbitt,the Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History (New York, Vintage Books, 2002).

27

Karl D. Jackson “Bureaucratic polity: a theoretical framework for the analysis of power and communications inIndonesia,” in Karl. D. Jackson and Lucien W. Pye, eds., Political Power and Communications in Indonesia.(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 3-22.Cited in Gilian Goh, “Te ‘ASEAN Way’ Non-Intervention and ASEAN’s Role in Conflict Management”, http://www.stanford.edu/group/sjeaa/journal3/geasia1.pdf, Accessed 29 August 2011

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i.e. nationalism and hatred history. For this cause, the masses that have always been relying on the

leaders and have less political decision-makings are easily conveyed by their leaders’ oratorical

persuasion.

The solutions that the writer would like to propose could be divided into two phases, the

short-term phase and the long-term phase. In the short-term phase, the policy the writer would like

to propose is to proctor the Thai-Cambodian border by keeping the stalemate between the two states,

for instance, halting the Joint Boundary Commission of demarcation as well as any attempt to share

the interests within the area because it may instigate some chauvinists to resort to war. The inter-

phase between short-term and long-term, Thailand should establish the relations with Cambodia in

other frameworks such as in technical assistance, economic co-operation, and the likes. This strategy

could urge some patriots to realize the material interests which are far more beneficial than the

intangible depredation over the pieces of land which constitutes the negative-sum game. The long-

term policy is to amend the national history of both nations. The historiographer should re-write the

history to converge one version of the Thais with another script of the Cambodians. This would help

both nations to further co-operate in the coming ASEAN Economic Community. Moreover, this

measure could ease the historical vindictiveness between the two nations which could help facilitate

the future mutual utilizing of the territory.

In sum, the economic determinism thesis is somehow convincing. Nevertheless, it is a non-

panacea theory, particularly in the social world. Therefore, the conflict resolutions toward any case

study should be researched in a context-specific base so that the solutions could be implemented

effectively. Myopically apply one panacea framework is figuratively resemble to try to plant cactus

in every type of soil.

By : PEERA CHAROENVATTANANUKUL


CITU Review 3/2012

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The Preah Vihear Territorial Dispute: Arguments from the Cultural Marxists