Civil Society Organization, known as NGO: defeater or helper?

In the play, unavoidably, there are two main actors: good and bad. They reflect the reality happening in our society. The “bad” always tries to explore all means of trick to defeat his/her opponent. In most circumstances, and often is, if someone is in danger, they try to “help” worsen the situation.

Seeing this scene, I ask myself, for I used to work as an NGO staff, if the NGOs operated in Cambodia are “bad” or “destructor”? That’s why the Royal Government of Cambodia, most of the time, says that “most of them what they do is only to blame or criticize the government of being misconduct in this and that field.” Meanwhile, from the civil society organization point of view, as NGO, they see the government as the one who restricts their freedom of expression and activity. To this, I can view the stand point of both parties: they define the words “who we are?” differently. They, therefore, hardly come to conclusion of the same common; in fact, they bear the same interest of developing and improving Cambodian society as a whole, unless they don’t think so. However, some civil society organizations would argue that “for the government does not provide them a chance to talk to.” As a result, both parties, the NGO and the Cambodian government, work on their own way, and often, try to capture the fault of one another’s.

In developing process, I see, both parties could not be neglected each other. This explains why one is upset of being ignored by the other. They need each other to join hand together to deal with problem. And if they separately define themselves as “different”, then, it would be hard for them to sit down together on the same table and share hardship. In so doing, on one hand, the problem is still there, and they, on the other hand, create another conflict of misunderstanding. In the same token, in term of policy making, if the government itself works alone, the outcome would not be great for it would only reflect one part of society rather than as a whole. As we would hear: two is better than one – two brains could think more critically than one brain; and in one battle field, there will be only loser and winner, it is not good for both for their goal is not to defeat each other but to help develop a country.

Providing a space for the civil society organization to work with is a must task the Cambodian government should consider; while, the NGOs itself should changing its habit, I talk only in Cambodian situation and only reflect to some NGOs as far as I experienced, of blaming the government to constructive criticism, I bet, Cambodia would move forwards faster and a changing society for we have almost 3000 NGOs running in Cambodia.

‘A Threat to Cambodia’s Sacred Forests’

A Threat to Cambodia's Sacred Forests, a documentary by Kalyanee Mam
The New York Times
July 28, 2014

In southwest Cambodia, at the foot of the Cardamom Mountains, is a single dirt road that meanders through the heart of the pristine Areng valley. Ten miles down this road, villagers have set up an encampment to stop a hydroelectric dam project that they fear will destroy their forests, livelihood and heritage.

The Chong people, who are considered Khmer Daem (or original Khmers), have lived in this valley for over 600 years. They grow rice, forage for roots and mushrooms, and fish in the streams and river. In March, a group of young monks traveled over 150 miles from Phnom Penh, the capital, to help them in their campaign to protect the forest, which they consider sacred.

The Cambodian government intends to build a network of 17 dams, hoping that they will generate enough electricity to meet domestic demand, reduce energy costs and export surplus energy abroad. This goal of transforming Cambodia into the power plant of Southeast Asia may promise economic gain, but as this Op-Doc video shows, it also entails significant costs.

The Areng dam would be built by Sinohydro, China’s largest hydropower company. It would flood at least 26,000 acres – displacing over 1,500 people (whom the government plans to relocate to an undetermined area). The area is recognized as being rich in biodiversity; the dam would threaten the habitats of 31 endangered animals.

This dam can still be stopped. Two Chinese companies have already pulled out of the project, citing it as economically unviable. If Sinohydro is held accountable to World Bank environmental standards, which it has adopted, it might pull out, too. Sinohydro and the Cambodian government are currently assessing the viability of the dam; results are expected later this year.

As a Cambodian-American, I am deeply concerned for the future of the Chong and their forest. I fear this David and Goliath battle will end tragically, unless significant pressure is placed on Sinohydro and the Cambodian government to either abandon the project or make good-faith efforts to involve threatened communities and conservation groups in the planning process. While development is essential to the future of Cambodia, the destruction of national treasures like the Areng valley will make that future far bleaker. May the country’s leaders choose their priorities wisely.

END.

Mother Nature is an organization that fights for the protection of the sacred Cardamom Mountains of South West Cambodia, the nation's last major forest, while also ensuring the preservation and promotion of the indigenous communities living in the Areng Valley.

Above is a news article from the Cambodia Daily.

Coffee with Love

CHAPTER SEVEN

On the plane, Lee takes out a novel she found and borrowed from the school's library a few days earlier from her backpack. The novel was called "Under the Hawthorn Tree," a love story took place during the Cultural Revolution in China.

Eyes fixed on the book, Lee does not pay attention to what Sothea talks to her. The book totally captures Lee's mind. Unable to grab Lee's attention, Sothea gives up. Reaching out to the pocket of his bag, Sothea takes out his iPod Touch and scrolls for his Favourite Playlist. "Apologize" covered by Kris Allen, the winner of American Idol's Season Eight, is on tune.

While reading the book, Lee compares her situation to Jingqiu, the main female actress in the book. In the book, Jingqiu saw the photo of Old Third with his fiancee which made Jingqiu confused that Old Third's contact with her was not real. Jingqiu thought that Old Third was a kind of guy who wanted to fool around with girl when he was away from his fiancee. Lee thinks the same way about her relationship with Yong. The same as Jingqiu, Lee thinks that Yong just wanted to play around with her when his girlfriend was not around. Yong did not tell her about his girlfriend. Lee thinks that it was not fair. Though she did not ask him directly about having a girlfriend or not, Yong at least informed her about his unavailability. Lee is now angry with Yong, and as a return, she has ignored Yong's calls and text messages. She did not even let Yong know about her trip to Thailand. Lee told herself that she should give him a lesson. At the same time, Lee thought that there was no use to inform him about her departure, since she was nothing to him. After a moment's self-reflection, Lee goes back to her novel.

Bored with her book, Lee flips the book over her laps and looks around. Sothea is into his music. Eyes close, his head is moving back on forth with the rhythm of his song. Lee has no idea to which song he is listening. Turning to other passenger, everyone is taking nap. Silence fills the whole plane, except the crying boy at the far end of the plane to her right next to the wing. The boy probably struggle to sleep under the pressure of the plane and air. Poor the boy, Lee thought. Thinking about the crying boy, Lee recalls her little brother, who is now 3 years old about to run and talk word by word. It would be glad if Rith, his little brother's name, has a chance to sit in the plane. He loves the aeroplane very much. Among his toys, aeroplane is his most favorite. I hope that day would come. Not only Rith can ride the plane, but my whole family, Lee was deep into her imagination.

Lee decides to take a nap too, given that she has no more desire for book or music. Off her eyes, Lee falls into her sleep and leaves Sothea with his music. 

Before long, Lee is woken up by a bad dream. Sweat on her forehead, Lee saw her father is affected by serious illness. He was in his bed, looking weak, physically and emotionally. He was calling Lee's name as if it was his last chance to see the world. Lee starts to cry which wakes Sothea from his music world.

"Are you alright?" Sothea asks in a surprised voice.
"Yes, I'm alright," Lee answers while turns her face away from Sothea to wipe her tears.
"But why are you crying?" Sothea inquires, "Is there anything wrong?"
"No, yes," Lee utters the words.
"What? No or Yes?"
"I mean No," Lee corrects her word, "There is nothing wrong. I just had a bad dream only."
"How bad was it?" Sothea looks worry. "Can your dream be shared? Or you want to keep it for yourself?"
"It's nothing secret," Lee tries to recompose her feelings. "It's about my father. I saw him lying in his bed, severely sick. I haven't talked to him for a month now. I'm not sure if he is doing fine. I'm just worried sick."
"He should be fine," Sothea comforts Lee. "Haven't you ever heard our elderly say about dream? Usually, dream is different from reality. If you saw him sick in the dream, it meant he is healthy."
"Really?" Lee asks.
"Why should I lie to you?" Sothea assures her.
"But why hasn't he called me recently?" Lee wonders.
"Maybe he is busy with his job or maybe he thinks that you are busy with your class that he should not bother you," Sothea explains.
"I hope what you said is right."
"If you want to visit home we can also do that," Sothea suggests. "Cambodia and Thailand are neighbour and it takes only about 45 minutes by flight."
"But I have to assist you with your research?" Lee excites.
"Don't worry. I can manage it by myself," Sothea claims. "Moreover, if you are here with unsettle feelings worrying about your father you can't concentrate on the work either. But conditions are not good."
"That's very kind of you, Sothea," Lee smiles.
"Don't worry. I just don't want you to distract my work." Sothea smiles to her.
"Oh!"
"I'm just kidding," Sothea jokes. "I think you should relax too."
"Many thanks again, Sothea."

Silence ensues between them. Lee turns her face to the window, looking into the dark cloud. Still, her heart aches, thinking about her father. Sothea puts his earpieces back and press the "Play" button and get back to his music.

The crying boy is now sleeping in his mother's arms. The the flight attendants occasionally walk around to check their customers. The whole plane falls into deep silent, into deep stillness. The light is totally out. Midnight is approaching.

To be continued...

Globalization and Free Trade: Environmental Friendly?

Globalization and Environment

Some scholars proposed that globalization is an “engine of wealth creation… that will fund environmental improvement” (Carter, 2007, pp. 272-273). I think so but it applies to only some extent and to particular small proportion of people around the globe – the rich! Mol (2003) argued that “economic globalization” has since resulted “the increased transport of raw materials, commodities, semi-processed materials, parts, finished goods and waste, greater energy consumption and more pollution – plus the risk of major environmental accidents” (Carter, 2007, p. 273). By this, it reflects me that the environmental problem nowadays is not a natural phenomenon, but is the result of human’s activity. For instance, global warming, ozone emission, acid rain, air pollution, water pollution, waste all are the “achievement” of globalization of which we suppose to develop our world, yes, maybe in term of economy rather than environment.

From the liberal institutionalists’ point of view (Carter, 2007, p. 274), they believe that global governance could help resolve environmental problems. Then, it must be the task of Kyoto Protocol and other form of international agreement created to address the global environmental issues. It sounds good in each protocol’s regulation. But the questions are that: how much has this protocol, Kyoto for instance, achieved? Does the global governance, as stated by the liberalists, have enough capacity to enforce other members to follow? Then why does United States refuse to sign the Protocol while she is one of the big shareholders of smoke producing country? Or maybe she knows that the Protocol will not work!

Free Trade and Environment

Neo-liberalism stated that “free trade contributes to economic growth, which generates the wealth necessary to fund environmental improvements… and market liberals make a brave and perhaps overly optimistic assumption that firms will spend their extra wealth on greener technologies such as pollution abatement equipment, rather than just taking it as profit…” (Carter, 2007, p. 275). Whatever they indicated are just their “assumption,” and in the reality and interpretation often are different. Let’s have a look on “investment theory”: cheaper labor, resource availability are the elements that attract investors. In practices, investors will not invest somewhere with higher cost expenditure for they find it difficult to compete in international market. Meanwhile, it reflects to “industrial flight” of which signifies that industry owner would move their business from higher environmental standards to another country particularly with lower environmental standards, at the same time, to avoid pollution abatement cost (Carter, 2007, p.277). This also responses back to “comparative advantage” theory.

From my point of view, I do not truly believe that the investors are willing to invest in any country whose law and regulation are stricter than the others. They, always, and most of the time, as also described in theory, look for somewhere could support them with cheap labor and less strict rule and regulation, as so to generate more profit. In case the targeted country could not provide them convenience of cheaper cost expenditure comparing to other countries, in competitive advantage theory, they will, of course, move to the cheaper one. In contrary, if the comparison is almost the same in their own country, then, why would they have to spend extra money moving their business or factory oversea? Also, Thai electric company will not invest hydropower dam in Burma if the cost is the same if the company invest in Thailand and if the project is environmental friendly.

I am mostly being negative to these theories, often I regard these as “Western Context,” or maybe has my country – Cambodia – experienced a lot of abuses by foreign countries who have “more power and economic development” over decades; and am I traumatized by those “sound-good” theories and, still, we are now being exploited by those richer countries.

Can we choose both, economic growth and environmental protection, at the same time? What mechanism should we apply to achieve both aims? Or shall we forget environmental protection first for our people are now poor and being starved?