King-Father Sihanouk

Since it was my last chance to do so, I went out to take photographs of Phnom Penh. Pictured here is Independence Monument, which was built in 1958 to celebrate Cambodia's independence. Sort of. It's actually mroe of a monument to King-Father Norodom Sihanouk, who has led a very interesting life.

King-Father Sihanouk (whose title translates literally to something like "Sacred Compassionate Sacred Lord Sacred Great Hero", but whose subjects call him, roughly, "Prince Papa") was educated in France. The French picked him to be king in 1941, figuring that he would be easy to control. Post-war, as the communist movement began to agitate for independence from France through violence, Sihanouk kept control of the country by promising to achieve independence peacefully--and he more or less succeeded, going into exile and refusing to return until the French agreed to leave. Two years later, in 1955, as Cambodia struggled with democracy, Sihanouk abdicated the throne in favor of his father, and formed a political party instead.

Cambodia retains elements of the Hindu king-as-god concept even today, and so it's not surprising that Sihanouk's political party was overwhelmingly popular. Sihanouk became Prime Minister, and later had himself named head of state for life.

During the Viet Nam War, Sihanouk attempted to walk the thin line between support for Communism and overtures to the United States. He reached out to China and North Viet Nam, while brutally crushing communist movements within Cambodia. Inevitably he faltered, falling too far to the left, and the U.S. supported a coup that replaced him with an extreme right-wing government under Lon Nol. Sihanouk sided with the Khmer Rouge in their efforts to overthrow Lon Nol, but upon their success, he was confined to house arrest.

After the Khmer Rouge were removed from power, Sihanouk was in limbo. But in 1993, he was again named King, as part of a UN-brokered peace agreement. He abdicated in 2004, and is now living in self-imposed exile. Unsurprisingly given his history, the Guiness Book of World Records identifies Sihanouk as the politician who has occupied the most political offices.

While Sihanouk was an able politician, he was also a rather curious leader. He spent a surprising amount of energy on filmmaking, directing more than a dozen motion pictures, all based on his own scripts. His films include "See Angkor and Die", about a young man with a terminal illness who returns to Angkor to spend his last days; and "An Ambition Reduced to Ashes", about a prince who can save his country, but who will lose all his power if he has sex. I heard somewhere that he's working on a new movie, "Sorry Madam, but I Am Homo", about a man in an arranged marriage who is gay (Sihanouk is a semi-outspoken supporter of gay rights).

Despite, or possibly because of, his rather odd history, Sihanouk remains beloved today. Many people consider him part-deity--when the Khmer Rouge tried to convince the people that he was unnecessary, they were allegedly met with responses like "without the King, it will not rain and our crops will die."

Incidentally, taking that Independence Monument photo was a bit of an adventure. My camera equipment isn't very expensive or interesting, at least to me. But I guess in Cambodia, it's fairly unusual--within minutes of setting up a tripod, four or five Cambodian guys, some with their own cameras, had gathered around me and were discussing my lenses. I became a little uncomfortable when they started grabbing things and playing with them, even though they were very friendly about it, so I smiled and moved on.