I just read on the net that Colin Powell rejected North Korea's demand for any kind of 'rewards' in return for greater cooperation, but I've done MY part for North Korean-Canadian relations simply by having dinner at my North Korean student's restaurant here in Phnom Penh.
How the heck did I end up with a (former) student who is North Korean in Cambodia? Cambodia has always had this weird, pseudo-friendly relationship with the world's most closed-off, Stalinist state; the King has a vacation house there, for God's sakes. Two semesters ago, teaching at the university, I had an eighteen year old North Korean kid in my class, who I assumed was SOUTH Korean, but then I learned, by accident, that he spent most of his life growing up in Burkina Faso Africa, where his father taught Tae Kwan Do to the corrupt Communist government regime. Mama mia. He was a good student, a smart student, but the only book I every saw him carry was a biography, in Korean, of Kim Jong's father. And he once wrote a paper for me denouncing the United States, reiterating his dream of joining the North Korean army, and stating that 'my mother always told me that anyone who doesn't love their country is like sperm in the streets.' I don't know about you, but my mom told me to eat my vegetables...
What I like about living here is that you see all these huge international issues played out on a daily, small-scale restaurant. I go to this North Korean restaurant with a couple of friends tonight, and the food is really good, and the waitresses -- dressed in flowing white robes with blue trim -- periodically interrupt their serving duties to take center stage at the front of the restaurant to dance and sing old Korean songs. It's bloody surreal, and it's bizarre, and yet, there it is. They live at the back of the restaurant, and they can't leave without an escort, and at the end of the night I go up and shoot the breeze with my former student, who is a nice, smart kid brainwashed by an utterly corrupt regime, and so it goes.
There are fifty million North Koreans basically held hostage by their corrupt leader. There is a movie out back home called TEAM AMERICA where Kim Jong is the villian, and he is a puppet, and it is a comedy. But these people are real, and their plight is real, and this is a world where women are forced to work and perform in a restaurant in Phnom Penh, and to have it as part of my normal, daily routine, well, it's a trip. A real, real trip.
This convergence of politics and the personal is what makes living here so fascinating. Back home I can read about Colin Powell negotiating with the North Koreans. Here, I can have a warm, friendly conversation with my old North Korean student, and it is genuine, and it is real, and it is a reminder that all of these global, complex issues you see played out on the news every night have a true, human component than is always more fascinating, always more humane than you could ever image. (Or this St.Catharines boy could imagine, anyways.)
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Canadian politics, Cambodian politics
My brother's friend, Paul Kemp, wrote a book called DOES YOUR VOTE COUNT?, in which he examines whether or not an individual Canadian's turn at the polls actually MEANS anything. By interviewing various Canadian politicians, he exposes a lot of the gaps and loopholes inherent in our political system.
In Cambodia, it's easy to get smug and high-falutin' about our own political systems back home, if only because this place's network of higher governing is so supremely, even galactically, messed up.
Average government workers here, the low-level ones, get paid, on average, 20$ U.S. a month. (Of course, there's a whole network of higher-ups that are makin' the big, BIG coin, but that's for another post.)
That's right. Twenty dollars. What that means is that everybody has to get a second job to help support their family -- tailor, restauranteur, whatever. What that mean is that everyone is one the take, and the only thing that matters is how much money you have in your pocket. The reason why it is so hard to implement new, innovative ways of governing and alleviating the poverty is simply: Who has the time? Who has the know-how? If you're making twenty bucks a month, are you willing to TAKE the time to LEARN the know-how? You don't HAVE the time. You don't HAVE the energy. It's easier to pass the buck and take the bucks. The system is rotten from within. Anyone who wonders why developing countries don't develop, well, do the math.
And yet...
The ideals that countries like Cambodia are trying (in theory) to achieve, the ideals that a country like Canada supposedly represent -- are they, in fact, always put in practice? Canada has had its own share of political, financial scandals. And don't get me wrong -- the Cambodian system has many, many decades until it will be able to successfully emulate what makes Canada so fantastic.
But the democracy we take for granted in Canada has its price, and that price is apathy. Americans get into a frenzy around election time, but Canadians are too often willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's precisely because we're so slack in our political allegiances that the Canadian government has been able to get away with so much. The centralized power that DOES YOUR VOTE COUNT? cautions against, the relative LACK of power that most members of parliament wield, indicates that we have a long way to go before our own political system represents the ideal that the Cambodian people strive to attain.
In Cambodia, it's easy to get smug and high-falutin' about our own political systems back home, if only because this place's network of higher governing is so supremely, even galactically, messed up.
Average government workers here, the low-level ones, get paid, on average, 20$ U.S. a month. (Of course, there's a whole network of higher-ups that are makin' the big, BIG coin, but that's for another post.)
That's right. Twenty dollars. What that means is that everybody has to get a second job to help support their family -- tailor, restauranteur, whatever. What that mean is that everyone is one the take, and the only thing that matters is how much money you have in your pocket. The reason why it is so hard to implement new, innovative ways of governing and alleviating the poverty is simply: Who has the time? Who has the know-how? If you're making twenty bucks a month, are you willing to TAKE the time to LEARN the know-how? You don't HAVE the time. You don't HAVE the energy. It's easier to pass the buck and take the bucks. The system is rotten from within. Anyone who wonders why developing countries don't develop, well, do the math.
And yet...
The ideals that countries like Cambodia are trying (in theory) to achieve, the ideals that a country like Canada supposedly represent -- are they, in fact, always put in practice? Canada has had its own share of political, financial scandals. And don't get me wrong -- the Cambodian system has many, many decades until it will be able to successfully emulate what makes Canada so fantastic.
But the democracy we take for granted in Canada has its price, and that price is apathy. Americans get into a frenzy around election time, but Canadians are too often willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's precisely because we're so slack in our political allegiances that the Canadian government has been able to get away with so much. The centralized power that DOES YOUR VOTE COUNT? cautions against, the relative LACK of power that most members of parliament wield, indicates that we have a long way to go before our own political system represents the ideal that the Cambodian people strive to attain.
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