Phnom Penh (Cambodia), 23/02/2009. Young Cambodian woman checking her e-mail in an internet café
©Vandy Rattana
They are young, free and feel like talking about anything without any taboo. These young people are Cambodian bloggers, also known as “cloggers”, the way they self-named themselves. Through the medium of a simple keyboard, they write what very few Cambodians can or dare express openly. Contemporary social issues, love, sex, political opinions, forced evictions... Cloggers will tackle any subject, sharing stories and chatting together without measure, making the most of the Internet, that so-called free space, almost exempt of censorship. The government is only slowly starting to take an interest in that space and would like to see it more regulated via a law, currently under preparation. But till then, the Khmer blogosphere, home to an incredible and surprising breeding ground of opinions, keeps organising itself like busy bees.
Today, internet cafés spring up like mushrooms in the Kingdom of Cambodia but only a few years ago, the Web was still unknown to the majority of Cambodians. Blogs were just not on the agenda. However, someone, who was already used to the European way, launched their own blog as early as 2002 to give news and evoke the sweet country of Cambodia: that person is none other than His Majesty the King Father Norodom Sihanouk .
However, it is not until the middle of the 2000 decade that the Khmer network started developing. Personal diaries and other little posts signed by artists and young Cambodian intellectuals gradually began to appear, but the most convincing starting point seems to be found in 2006 with the establishment of the Personal Information Technology Workshop (PITW) . Five Cambodians, quite into the art of blogging, set out to share their knowledge on that topic via workshops organised in twenty universities throughout the Kingdom. These five ‘cloggers’, deeply involved in the awareness towards new information technology, launched in August 2007 the Clogger Summit, with the collaboration of the Open Forum of Cambodia’s Khmer Software Initiative , an NGO which is also at the origin of missions for the initiation to the Internet in the provinces. This event, among other things, allowed for the first time cloggers, webmasters, media and NGOs to gather together and share, but most of all, debate about their ideas. This is how in 2007, about thirty existing Cambodian bloggers expanded and several dozens of blogs appeared. In the meantime, their initiators took the name of cloggers, as if to mark the identity of a blogosphere defined by strong personality, and showed their determination to use this incredible space of freedom of speech and opinion that Cambodia does not offer them.
Cloggers, who are you?
For the time being, cloggers are still seen as marginal in the Cambodian society. Indeed, in a country where, according to United Nations statistics, 26.4% of inhabitants are illiterate and where a third of the population lives with less than a dollar a day, a minority has access to the Internet or to a computer. According to the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the Internet penetration rate in Cambodia does is no more than 1%. Most cloggers are therefore part of the new middle class. They are under-30 and can be students, artists or working with NGOs. Male and female, both sexes are equally represented on the Khmer blogosphere. Apart from their interest in new communication tools, one common element brings them together: they all speak English.
Serei Bonat, a 19 year-old “clogger” and a student at the Phnom Penh University of Technology tells us that “Some find that we should communicate more in Khmer. It is true that we should preserve our language, but with English, I think there are less chances of being censored. For now, there is no interdiction, but sometimes it seems too good to me to last.” For Prum Seila , another active blogger and a journalism student, “in many respects, Cambodia is still very much cut out from the world. Blogging in English allows people to open up more easily on other countries. By this way, we learn a lot about other nations and other nations can also know us better, know us in another way than through what is broadcast in the media.”
An incredible pool of poets, thinkers and aesthetes
Beyond borders, Cambodia is often considered as a country in suffering, a victim of prostitution, sex tourism and corruption. In such a decor, youth often proves disillusioned and takes more interest in motorbikes and karaoke than in their country’s future or their own career. In that context, the windows opened by cloggers have the effect of a true breath of fresh air. Their cultural references abound: here goes a Victor Hugo quote, or Gandhi there. On his blog, Mean Lux posts his thoughts online, but also articles or other posts he finds here and there, to brighten things up and be happy. His photographs are moving because of their simplicity and their poetical comments. For February 14th, the clogger posted a picture showing the back profile of a couple of kids, walking back from school, with, as a caption, those simple words: “Valentine’s day. Very little good friends on their way home from school. Traffic is so bad buddies, be careful.” Below, another image depicting a heap of trash: “This is how my family make a living.” Not even trying to focus on human misery, the young man is telling, and that’s all.
Cloggers: a new thorn in the government’s side?
More than just diaries, these blogs are also used by many Cambodian youngsters as a way of expression for their political opinions and sometimes even to fill up gaps left by the media. Among the Web’s most famous Khmer activists, [Sopheap Chak INSERT LINK TO KA-SET ARTICLE] appears as a leading character. Aged 24, the young woman started running a popular clog in 2007, all the way from Japan where she is doing a Master in International Relations. There, she talks about current affairs, about what she is experiencing and learning about the land of the rising sun, but always keeps an eye on Cambodia. She recently wrote a post about her fears regarding the Bokor Park after the government authorised its exploitation, especially in farming, and put forward the fact that the decision was against Cambodian environment laws. But apparently, not everyone liked those positions. After a comment about corruption, Sopheap did an op-ed contribution for the English-language newspaper The Cambodia Daily and put down her opinions in writing. A few days later, she read on the website KI Media , who published the op-ed, a comment advising her to “go before she gets killed”. “People often ask me if I am scared at the idea of receiving threats of attempts of intimidation”, Sopheap says, “or how I would react if I was asked to stop. My answer is always the same: if we silence these attempts, they will spread. Besides, as long as we are neutral and independent, we must not fear to use our right to freedom of speech.”
Exploitation of governmental passivity
Up until now, the government has remained relatively tolerant facing the existence of those clogs. For some, expressing oneself in English and on the Internet still prevents the government from taking too much interest in it. An anecdote, recounted by journalist Geoffrey Cain on the blog Global Voices , simply expresses, on its own, how badly the government missed out on the impact of the Internet today. In May 2008, the Cambodia Daily decided to publish, on top of the daily paper, a supplement on Burma, The Burma Daily . Very rapidly, the government ordered the newspaper to cease publication, fearing it might offend the Burmese junta. The Cambodia Daily” then asked the Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith, if they could publish this supplement on the Internet. To the amazement of all, the Minister replied that “Online, yes, this is OK”.
However, this passivity started to fade away and since the end of December 2008, the blog Reahu.net has been fuelling debates. After putting online photo-montages of bare-chested Apsaras, the Minister of Women’s Affairs threatened to shut the blog down. Today, it appears impossible to access the website from Cambodia and Thailand, where the blog also made the headlines.
A law soon to be enforced?
Are high-ranking authorities possibly starting to worry about what goes on the Khmer network? They might well be. A law is currently under consideration regarding the regulation of the Internet and audiovisual content . Among other things, it stipulates the obligation for Internet Service Providers (ISP) to apply for a licence at the Ministry of Information. Since they are the ones who allow internet users to connect to the network and access data, the authors of the Draft law reckon that the ISP must also be accountable to the Ministry, as broadcasters, just like data producers are. Here again, the goal is to forbid the broadcasting of pictures and obscene sounds... “We don’t know the content of that law yet, so we cannot tell whether it is good or bad”, Thrum Bun, a famous and very active clogger, explains. It can also bring positive elements. For my part, I think it is too early to tell whether Cambodia is going to follow the path of repression like China or other Asian neighbours like Thailand and Vietnam.”
What future for clogs?
Unlike many rare species in Cambodia, cloggers seem to be fully expanding. Internet connections work better and better and besides, even though not all of them have a computer in their vicinity, many Cambodians do possess a mobile phone. Specialists predict that following the example of many developing countries and neighbouring Asian countries, Cambodians will go straight to the ‘mobile Internet’ and skip computer use. This perspective makes one feel optimistic about the future of clogging.
[Also: read our interview with Chak Sopheap INSERT LINK TO CHAK SOPHEAP ITW on KA-SET], published on Ka-set on 02-03-09
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