Relooked: The Chams, identity and archaeology

“I write to raise issues that are current and that deal with human lives and solutions to make those lives better. This is where Alison and her two colleagues completely drop the ball.”

I don’t think the authors were or are in anyway arguing against human rights, or helping the Cham people. It seems to me, they believe that you cannot properly make a claim to help people, when you are misapplying the archaeological record to that end. Their response is not an attack on your goals, but your methods.

Your counter argument is somewhat long-winded considering that it is off point, to be brutally honest.

Super-Limp

Before taking apart the basic elements of Mr. Lempert’s latest attempt at a contribution to the world of Cham scholarship and knocking down each of his arguments like so many deeply uninformed bowling pins, I would like to begin by stating that the person typing this document is Alberto Pérez-Pereiro. My colleagues Bjørn Atle Blengsli and Alison Carter have contributed to this text and approved its final formulation. This is important since Lempert’s response to our critique of his article in the Phnom Penh Post was not to address the issues in any substantial way, but rather to engage in a series of ad hominem attacks and attempts at character assassination written as to suggest that he might even have the vaguest idea of who we are. We feel it is important for the reading public to know who we are as individual scholars and why collectively we came to the very same conclusion when confronted with Lempert’s initial essay in October 10th’s Phnom Penh Post – namely, that this man’s untutored arrogance leads him to pose as a champion for human rights and the welfare of Cham people while advocating policies that would certainly lead to disaster for this community if ever they were implemented. Regrettably, this post will likely have to be a long one, but then, one of the problems with actually knowing what you’re talking about is having a lot to say.
Bjørn and I have been conducting anthropological research on the Muslim community of this country for seven and three years respectively. Bjørn’s research has been commissioned by several organizations including the National Bureau for Asian Research, and has covered every region of the country where Muslims live. His works include the most comprehensive surveys of Muslim educational practices as well as Muslim attitudes on a wide range of issues. My own research deals with the construction of Cham historical memory and how this is formed in the context of both diasporic and transnational Islamist ideologies – one of the issues Lempert ham-fistedly attempted to comment on in his first piece. While Alison’s research is not on the Cham specifically, she is an expert on pre-Angkorian archaeology, and she was kind enough to help us by puncturing the flimsy argumentation based on a complete misunderstanding of the archaeological record that lay at the defective heart of Lempert’s initial essay. The three of us speak, read and write Khmer and I also have a certain degree of proficiency in the Cham language. Each of us feels strongly connected to this country in our own way, and all three of us care deeply about its people and its future. For this reason, Lempert’s scurrilous accusations regarding our characters and our commitment to professional ethics and the welfare of the people with whom we work are all the more hurtful and will be refuted with all of the bile and lack of politesse that is called for on such occasions.
Let us first address Lempert’s contention that we are asking people to be silent, to not speak, or that we are in any way trying to stifle a conversation that needs to be had. In our response letter, we clearly said that:

We recognize that Dr. Lempert truly has the interests of Cham people at heart and so appreciate his opening of a discussion on these issues. Nonetheless, we worry that his assumptions concerning Cham identity rest on foundations that are not altogether sound and that the implementation of any cultural program that accepts them as the primary point of departure from which to move policy forward will ultimately lead to serious consequences for Khmer-Cham relations, where the Cham community that Dr. Lempert seeks to champion will be the likely loser.

How Lempert drew from this that we were calling for silence on the issue can only be determined by a licensed reading disability specialist. What is clear from our original text is that we believe there is a great deal to discuss regarding the forms and contours that Cham and Muslim identity will take in the future, and that, as researchers and public intellectuals, we should be a part of that discussion. What is also clear is that we regard Lempert’s stance on these matters to be wholly and completely wrong without significant qualification of any kind. So let’s get to what exactly Lempert’s arguments are in both his PP Post article and his more recent screed.

1. Cham need to be reconnected to their historic Champa homeland and be given opportunities to identify with the ruined temples that bear witness to what was once a significant player among Southeast Asian civilizations.

This was covered in our initial response, but it may be worthwhile to reexamine the relevance of Champa to contemporary Cham. Both Bjørn and I have found that identification with Champa is not universal among the Cham by any means. While some communities, particularly the Imam San community and some communities of Kampong Cham do regard this historic link as immensely important others do not. Moreover, all evidence suggests that among the youth, Champa and Cham ethnicity is less important to them when they are compared with their parent’s generation.

Lempert observes correctly (for a change):

Cham in Cambodia don’t study the history of Champa (the Cham in Vietnam) and of the Sa Huynh. They don’t seem to study the architecture or the art or the ancient crafts and pride of the Cham in Muslim or public schools or their homes.

Now, Cham have their own schools, however under-funded and under-resourced, they do nonetheless manage to teach what the community thinks is important even if not very effectively. Does it not strike Lempert that if they are not teaching these things, it may be because they don’t consider them worth teaching? As we’ve said before, we as researchers may be absolutely overcome with admiration for the glories of Champa and the trappings of Cham culture, but that doesn’t seem to go very far with many Cham today.
When Dai Thanh of the Cham National Federation of Cambodia (CNFC) and World Council of Champa (WCC) proposed to build a Cham culture university in Phnom Penh in 2004, Bjørn and the French researcher Emiko Stock were among the first to support his efforts. However, Bjørn’s research has shown that almost 100%, i.e. of non-Imam San Cham want a Muslim university and not necessarily a Cham culture University. We are not saying that Dai Thanh’s work is unimportant, but for the majority of Cham, it is a modern Muslim university that would help them develop their communities. It is not us as researchers who want this, it is the Cham themselves. Most Muslim education includes some form of vocational training, and in Wahhabii schools, very good secular education. In addition, much research indicates that Muslim education is even empowering for Cham women in Cambodia, where 65% of girls in religious schools have a level of formal education ranging from 6th to 12th grade.

Lempert remarks rather less correctly that:

…most cannot recount the history of their Cham king who ruled the country in the 17th century and where he is buried.

That may be because King Reameathipadei I who ruled from 1642-1658 was a Khmer and not a Cham. He converted to Islam and took the name Ibrahim, but he cannot properly be regarded as a Cham. This may sound like nit-picking over details, but Lempert has a way of playing fast and loose with the facts and then acting as though his fundamental lack of learning does not really impinge on the validity of his assertions. Moreover, if we really think about it, it’s not such a small detail at all. Not all of Cambodia’s Muslims are even ethnically Cham. Many are Chvea, or the descendents of Malay settlers in the country. They do not and have never spoken Cham and regard themselves as a separate group. Where do these non-Cham Muslims fit into Lempert’s grand scheme? Should they also study Cham history? Should they also be resettled in the ‘Cham Homeland’ that Lempert proffers as a solution to the problem of dislocation and disempowerment? Speaking of a homeland:

2. The Cham deserve a homeland, or at least it should be on the table.

This is one of those ideas that get steadily stupider the more you think about it. As with point number one, this was tackled in our response in the Phnom Penh Post, but owing to the fact that this is Lempert’s most dangerous idea and the one that most strongly betrays his lack of comprehension of how this country works and what relations between Khmers and Muslims are like, we will expand on our previous criticism. First things first – what ‘table’ is Lempert talking about? Is this actually being discussed somewhere by serious people – the creation of a sovereign entity to be inhabited and administered by the Cham? In May 2007 a handful of Muslims in the Pursat province were accused of trying to organize a militia in order to retake the Kingdom of Champa and lower Cambodia which now is a part of Vietnam, but this is essentially a fringe organization. Lempert is effectively inventing an issue that no one (a few aging FULRO activists notwithstanding) is even talking about.
Bjørn’s research among Muslim youth shows that approximately 48% say that the most important aspect of their identity is to be a Cambodian national (not Khmer) and 41% emphasize that the fact that they are Muslims is the most important aspect of their identity. This leaves 11% who emphasize ethnicity and these are split between Cham and Chvea Muslims. It doesn’t appear as though an independent or autonomous homeland is all that high on people’s list of priorities here.
What would this homeland even look like? It may be as Lempert proposes:

…an autonomous region for the Cham in an area between Cambodia and Vietnam, such as Kampong Cham

Maybe this is just another one of those pesky facts I’m apt to nit-pick on but Kampong Cham is not in between Cambodia and Viet Nam – IT IS IN CAMBODIA! Cambodia and Viet Nam border each other, there is no unclaimed or unspoken for territory in between. Please see a map, Mr. Lempert.
But what if some space were carved out? Is Mr. Lempert advocating forcible population transfers of Cham into his fantasy Champa theme park on the Cambodian-Vietnamese border? He’d better be, or this place is going to be remarkably free of Cham folks who don’t feel like giving up their settled lives in Western Kampong Cham, Battambang or the Phnom Penh area for some ethnically pure Cham paradise in the bush. Lempert’s comparison of the need for a Cham homeland with the need for Jews to have a homeland in Palestine is almost completely inappropriate. Lempert’s Champa-Homeland is not another Israel, it’s a repeat of Stalin’s attempt at a Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Siberia. In the same way that Stalin thought a Jewish homeland in the USSR would stop the advance of Zionist ideologies at the expense of the official Marxist doctrine, Lempert hopes that this Cham Bantustan will legitimize Champa rather than Islam as the underpinning of Cham identity. It is comparable to the Israel example in one way, however. This is because, much like the establishment of the Jewish state, a Cham homeland is going to require moving people who happen to be living there already. This New Champa is not a ‘land without a people for a people without a land’ any more than Palestine ever was. What of the rights of these people who will be displaced? What of the rights of any Cham who don’t want to move? Are we to believe that after excising a chunk of Cambodia for a Cham Homeland that Khmers are going to be OK with the Cham continuing to occupy quality real estate in Chrouy Changvar, Chrang Chamres or anywhere along the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers? Let’s be serious. The answer is no. But these concerns have no purchase on Lempert. His fervent need to pen his own Cham-flavored sequel to Altneuland has effectively inured him to the consequences that his line of reasoning must necessarily result in for the protection of the rights of Cambodians (not just Cham).
Speaking of rights, as Lempert loves to do, what exactly are the rights of the Cham in this country? Lempert talks about international law as if there were such a monolithic entity as ‘international law’ and declines to be specific about exactly which laws or conventions he thinks apply to the case of the Cham. Lempert says:

By international law, the Cham have the right to
1) full information on their history and ability to visit their own ancestral homeland and learn about their history first so that THEY can make decisions on how THEY want to interpret their history; and
2) some kind of protected homeland of some form given that they have been the victims of a continuing Holocaust, first in Viet Nam and now more recently in Cambodia. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a state. It just has to protect them and allow them linkages with their history and each other.

Let’s take these in turn. 1. Is someone denying the Cham information about their history? My research as well as Bjørn’s has shown that the Cham are not without notions of history. The question is how that history is integrated into a project for the future. Lempert insists that THEY must make decisions and that THEY must interpret their own history. Well, that was exactly the point of our first response piece. They have made these decisions, and for the most part Champa has lost out to Islam. That’s a fact Mr. Lempert. You’ll need to deal with that. What Lempert means by ‘THEY’ is of course not the Cham people themselves, since he’s not interested in what the Cham people actually think, but instead he has in mind some idealized Cham just waiting for a hero like Lempert to sweep him off his feet and carry him back over the threshold of history to Champa – that wonderful land of fragrant eaglewood and unrestricted coastal piracy. Those were the days indeed!
2. According to Lempert, Cambodia owes the Cham people and independent homeland as a way of atoning for a history of genocide. He chides Khmers because:

they [Khmers] offer them [Cham] no political autonomy or special representation.

Wow! Are we supposed to give people special political autonomy or special representation because of their religious beliefs? We know of at least one country where this practice is enshrined in law. In Lebanon, the offices of President, Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament are reserved for members of the Christian, Sunni and Shi’ite faiths respectively. Each confessional group has their own specially set aside piece of the political pie. How’s that working out by the way? Is this the model Lempert has in mind? Lebanon? Really?
The Cham are not considered an indigenous people here since they have a historic point of origin outside Cambodia. So international norms and conventions referring to indigenous people are not likely to apply. If they do apply, they apply in Viet Nam. Not here. Even their status as a minority (cunceat pheak touc) is not completely clear. As I commented in a blog some time ago, the Cham, like the Chinese or the Vietnamese are sometimes seen as long-term immigrants and guests unlike the hill tribes generally classified as Khmer Leu who are regarded as completely internal to the Cambodian state. The Cham too distinguish between themselves as a civilized people on par with the Khmers and the Vietnamese, and the Jarai and other upland speakers of Chamic languages whom they regard with much of the same paternalism as the Khmer regard the Pnong or the Brao.
What the Cham are, are citizens of Cambodia. Hun Sen has been very outspoken in his support for the inclusion of Cham people in public life and creating an institutional environment that does not discriminate or disadvantage the Cham. His push for Muslim prayer rooms in the Phnom Penh airport and his advocacy of modifying the dress codes of Cambodian schools so as to permit Islamic attire are two recent examples of this. Another example was when the Ministry of Cults and Religious Affairs issued a circular on “maintaining order in the Islamic religion in the Kingdom of Cambodia on October 2, 2001.” It placed restrictions upon mosques, especially in dealings with foreign Muslims. Three days later, however, Prime Minister Hun Sen nullified the document, claiming it impinged upon the freedom of religion for the country’s Muslims. Say what you like about Hun Sen and the CPP, but they do make efforts to include and accommodate the Muslim community in their programs. Also worthy of note: although the Cham do not have a special political representation, they are well represented at the Ministry of Cults and Religions where Islam is an officially recognized religion and all research permits for work on the Cham are first approved by a Muslim official. Incidentally, the king of Cambodia also has a special liaison between himself and the Imam San community centered in Udong.
What this demonstrates is that Cambodia’s Muslims have been organizing and advocating for their interests for a long time, and more to the point, that the Cambodian state however flawed, has institutional mechanisms through which Muslims can articulate their needs and make them legible to a non-Muslim administration. Does Lempert think the Cham were just waiting around for him to show up and fight for their rights? He must think himself a regular David Carradine, swaggering into town setting all them wrongs right before moving on to his next worthy cause. Well the truth is, any attempt to perform any kind of good deed should begin with information – what are the facts on the ground? Grasshopper does not have this information. He is not in touch with the principal political and theological discussions that are taking place among the kingdom’s Muslims. Nor does he seem to know much about Cambodia in general and the kinds of attitudes that Khmers hold vis-à-vis Muslims.
The Cham have on several occasions tried to rebel and claim a sovereign territory in 1597 and also in 1858. It has each time ended in catastrophe and it is our belief that every single significant Muslim leader in Cambodia wants to live in peace with their Khmer neighbors. Bjørn’s research has shown that the tensions between Cham and Khmer are still palpable and that skepticism and even hostility toward Muslims is common. News reports in the Cambodian mass media have played upon these sentiments. It is important not to forget that some Khmer claim that the Cham want to give parts of Cambodia to the Vietnamese. In 2005, the Cambodian Television Network illustrated how the Khmer majority view the Muslim minority. In a series called “Manpower and Destiny,” one of the lead characters was Muslim and he was portrayed as superstitious, drank beer and wore an earring. Complaints from the Muslim community, however, led to a cancellation of the show – just one more example of how the Cham are not quite the powerless downtrodden minority Lempert makes them out to be.
Bjørn’s research (some of which will be released on Hawaii University Press in January 2009) has also shown that a large minority of 37% of Cham students believe Khmers do not like Muslims. In this research, 12% of the study’s student respondents said they have experienced problems with their Khmer neighbors and 40% of the respondents claimed that they cannot practice their religion freely. Bjørn, who spent his first ten months in Cambodia in a Cham village was constantly reminded that the Cham, are guests in Cambodia. It appears that neither the Khmer nor many Cham are completely clear on what the nature of Cham belonging is in contemporary Cambodian society

3. Champa, Angkor and the Khmer Rouge period are part of one single narrative that explains the situation of the Cham today.

Lempert weaves back and forth between the Angkorean period and the Khmer Rouge régime without stopping to think of the particulars of each of those contexts and whether or not they continue to be relevant. For someone who advocates so strongly that history and not religion should be the lynchpin of identity, Lempert is astonishingly unversed in regional history. Lempert says things like:

… the Cham are now a stateless people in Asia, mostly converted to Islam – following the religion of the one group that offered them any resources and dignity as they were forced to flee the Vietnamese for their lives over the past centuries…

Does he mean that other Muslims were offering resources to the Cham migrating to Cambodia? Perhaps this is the international body he refers to as the ‘Muslim World’ in his first article. Muslim aid giving of the type he suggests doesn’t occur until the ’90s. There was at the time nothing like the system of Islamic charities and aid networks that are supplying today’s Cham with a steady stream of support.
Or take this one:

At least half of the world’s Cham now live in Cambodia, where they fled the earlier genocides from the Vietnamese and sought to create a republic with the help of Malayan Muslims; ultimately concentrating in Kampong Cham and along the country’s rivers.

Is he referring to the rebellion in the late 16th century? This was about setting up an independent Muslim kingdom – not a republic. Republican government would not be introduced to the region for a few more centuries.
Or finally:

If you are looking for images of the country’s ethnic groups in Cambodian history, the place to actually find them is on the friezes of Angkor Wat and the Bayon, and those of Banteay Chhmar. But these depictions are largely of imperial supremacy of the Khmer, with groups like the Cham being defeated by the Khmer. When it comes to the Cham, these protected ancient friezes reinforce the victimisation of the Cham rather than offer a solution to protect them.

Are Khmers really making pilgrimages to Angkor Wat to consult the wall carvings for advice on how to treat the Cham? Does he even believe that most people, Khmer or not, could, without prior preparation and training in the artistic styles of the period even recognize who the Cham are in those images? This is another example of Lempert’s lack of rigor when it comes to handling the data, which he uses to justify his wild assertions.

With each of Lempert’s pseudo-academic arguments handily consigned to the dustbin of contemporary Cambodian studies, all that remains is the stern business of clearing our professional and ethical reputations and exposing Lempert for the fraud that he is.
Nothing screams “I’m losing an argument!” like calling your interlocutor a Nazi. Or, a Nazi collaborator, sympathizer or stooge. Sometime the person will say that you are ‘standing idly by as evil happens’, suggesting not only that you are lacking in moral fiber but that you are lazy too. In Lempert’s case he prefers to compare us to those who would have remained silent during the Nuremburg trials rather than speak out for justice. The Hitler card comes in many variations – many more subtle than this one… For the record, Alison’s family is Jewish, both of Bjørn’s grandfathers fought the Nazis during their occupation of Norway and my own parents participated in the Paris Uprising of 1968, so even the slight intimation that I or my two colleagues have fascist sympathies or leanings is not only an insult to us but an odious affront to our families as well.
Lempert would have the public believe that we tacitly approve of genocide or the violation of the human rights of Cham people. He then says quite explicitly that we are in violation of ‘the code’. Like ‘international law’, Lempert allows this to remain a sort a murky set of rules determined primarily by his own intuition as to what is good and bad. We can only hope that he is referring to the Principles of Professional Responsibility of the American Anthropological Association. My colleagues and I are familiar with this document and conduct our research in accordance with it. To suggest otherwise is a serious charge for which it is assumed the accuser should have at least a modicum of evidence, but, as with all of other contentions reviewed in this essay, he has no grounding for this either. That said, it remains a libelous charge, clearly made with the intent of discrediting us as professionals, damaging our reputations and preventing us from doing our work and an apology should be forthcoming.
A critical part of ethics is about taking responsibility for the predictable consequences of our actions. In order to determine what those consequences are, we need to be informed and aware of the situation we are navigating. Ignorance is not ethical, Mr. Lempert. Neither is there anything noble about not caring about the consequences of one’s actions. The idea that we are trying to keep Cham quiet so as to appease the Khmer is preposterous. Firstly, because it assumes that there is a call for a Cham Homeland emanating from the grassroots to silence at all. This doesn’t exist. It is a figment of Lempert’s hero complex. Secondly, we simply don’t see Balkanization of the type Lempert advocates as a reasonable or workable solution in the near or long-term. This idea is disastrous. It is truly amazing how someone could be as blind as Lempert to not see that adding more insecurities to the Khmers’ already well developed sense of victimhood at the hands of their neighbors, will only make things worse. All three of us want to see Khmer and Cham live peacefully together and hope that over time, dialogue between the communities will be improved so as to overcome feelings of mistrust and apprehension. This, not bunkering ourselves in separate homelands is a practical and ethical program for the future.
Alison went ahead and struck back at some of Lempert’s foul vitriol in an earlier blog post, but it needs to be taken up here as well. Lempert’s obscene allegation that Alison’s participation in our letter was motivated by her desire for more money for research is particularly shocking for all who know her, since she has long been an active member of the Cambodian Students Association of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has participated in the Center for Khmer Studies Sre Ambil lecture series, has authored several articles in Touchstone highlighting the professional and artistic achievements of Khmer researchers and artisans and is affiliated with Heritage Watch. Anyone familiar with Alison’s work would have understood immediately that her call for a more developed archaeology of the Cham was meant to encourage us to think about ways in which Cham could be brought into positions at educational and research institutions that would allow them to make their history intelligible to their own community as well as the rest of the world. Only a person completely ignorant of Alison’s dedication to her discipline and her colleagues could possible dare to imagine that this was an attempt for her to line her pockets. But of course, Lempert doesn’t know Alison – or me, or Bjørn, but he didn’t let that stop him from attempting to defame us.
We are very troubled that Mr. Lempert is associated with the Center for Khmer Studies and the Luce Foundation, and ask whether these organizations are aware of Lempert’s unprofessional manner toward other researchers and the extent to which his research, if it can be called that, is fraudulent. Mr. Lempert, every single one of your claims is not only false, but also without basis of any kind. You don’t appear to have any data upon which to make even wrong conclusions, much less right ones. What do you do exactly? Where do you work? No Cham has ever mentioned you to either me or Bjørn, and while the geographic area in which I work in is relatively small I still hear about other researchers working in the region. Bjørn has worked in every province in the country and he hasn’t heard of you either. Nobody seems to know you here… perhaps you’re not making an impression… but that’s just as well. You came out of nowhere to scrawl some drivel in a local paper and insh’allah you will go back to where you came from soon – never to push your lunatic Cambodia-as-Yugoslavia thesis on us again. If you would like to post an apology for impugning the professional and personal ethics of my colleagues and me, you know where to post it. If you’re not ready to be a man and face up to the fact that your research in this country is without merit and that you are totally unable to engage in a civil discussion with three anthropologist who tried to set you straight, then please, don’t bother writing any response at all. My colleagues and I are busy and would rather not spend any more of our valuable time dealing with your efforts to mislead the public or to characterize us as anything other than the committed anthropologists we are. Let’s let this be the last time my colleagues and I have to revisit this sordid affair – shall we?