The Chams – Squeezed out of history?

Anthropologist David Lempert talks about the statelessness of Chams in Southern Vietnam and Cambodia, and argues how the Cham should be reconnected with their heritage.

A homeland for the Chams
Phnom Penh Post, 10 October 2008

It was the Cham who taught the Vietnamese improved rice-farming and silk-production techniques. It was the Cham who may have taught the Khmer gold work, given the Cham-influenced words in Khmer related to gold work. It was the Cham who designed many of the boats of the region and who developed the most significant ports. Though still not clear in Khmer history, archaeologists speculate that it may have been the Cham who jointly gave birth to the Oc Eo – Phu Nan civilisation, who may have supported and even partly founded the Angkorian Empire of Jayavarman II in the ninth century, and who may have played a significant role in the ruling classes of Angkor. Yet, while the Vietnamese are thriving and the Khmer have a state, it is the Cham who are losing their history and their numbers.

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Last year I designed a proposal for a Vietnamese-Cham reconciliation site – a joint heritage and culture museum, to be run with the Cham. I’m happy to share that proposal with others and to offer it as a basis for a similar site in Cambodia.

There are four different sites in Cambodia where such a Khmer-Cham reconciliation site and heritage and culture museum would make sense because of the shared history and shared Hindu-Buddhist cultural past: Banteay Preah Nokor and sites around the Kulen mountains (in both sites there are ninth century towers that suggest Cham influence), and Sambour Prei Kuk as the earlier site, that may have Cham influence. The fourth one is the area around Udong, the old Khmer capital.