Thoughts, feelings and emotions that hopefully provoke the purest of minds...Capturing thoughts through written words is like capturing pictures on film or digital camera.
First of all, this is my attempt to understand the basic of human behaviors. I am not a behaviorist nor a psychologist; but through many years working and interacting with the rich powerful men of Cambodia; I would like to reflect and share my thoughts on how things are done in our land.
There are only a few of so called rich and powerful men of Cambodia; but they are powerful enough that their decisions collectively will have direct political, social and economic impacts in contemporary Cambodia.
Through privatization, these individuals who have amassed themselves since communist era to now free market economy with massive fortunes. They continue to thrive because of their sworn loyalty to the ruling party. They control telecom, grain exchange, rubber exports, logging, mining, land concessions, gold, televisions, oil supplies, casinos, construction materials and contracts and power plants..just to name a few.
For those that have distanced themselves from party loyalty; they are shunned and most of times sidelined...bankrupted and eventually out of business for good.
Touched by democratic wind of change, most of these elite businessmen now have succumbed themselves to politics mostly in senatorial seats. Most have left some of their fortunes to be managed by their children.
What we have now is the passing of the torch to the new generation of businessmen and new style of leadership often times educated in the West; yet most decisions are still dictated by the fathers.
For most of these rich elites, their fortunes come mainly from hard works. They are ordinary Khmer Chinese who either left the country during the war ravaged time of Khmer Rouge or those who have gone through the living hell and promised themselves to never again be poor. I have the honor to learn much from these rich and powerful men of Cambodia. I come to admire their sense of business style, conservatism and of course their sheer shrewdness to excelling in whatever they do.
Some things that have always been troubling for me to accept are their egotistical style of leadership where any thing goes in the name of monetary gains for the themselves and the party.
Their lacks of moral values as a direct result of the pressure placed upon them by party politics. Most of times, it cannot be understood from the surface; but my insight has provided a broad understanding of why they behave the way they do and the decisions they make are the way they are with no regards to human dignity or thought to the environments in which they may have impacted such as Beoungkok Lake project, sugar plantation in Koh Kong, Kirirom park, Kbal Chhay..to just name a few.
Behind the facade, these rich individuals are required by the party to pay loyalty dues in kinds and whatever the party needs. I remembered those days when cash was delivered by the boxes to party head quarter. And I still believe that it has not changed very much. Imagine that the ruling party have direct affiliation with your business..some what like a mafia style of businesses.
It is one of the richest party ever assembled in the history of Asia. These rich individuals are constantly thinking of ways to stay ahead of the games so that they can be apart of the crowd. If you fall behind, you will be left out and that is the way many businesses are run; but more so in Cambodia.
It is throat cutting and shrewd and winner often takes all. And you must be an extremely good chess and boule player to be successful plus you need to be able to drink either whiskey or cognac at least 5 straight hours without getting drunk. Friendship and trust often times are earned with these kinds of moments either in the KTV room or on the golf course besides the gambling dens of various high stake casinos and high maintenance girls.
These rich individuals are living lives at their best wit their heads up high, extremely comfortable in their world. They are in control. Many times they forget their senses of where they actually came from. They forget the rules of laws and their respects for humanity. For instances, it is these rich elites that are breaking the traffic laws because they wanted to get to places; so it is upon their discretion that they cut corners, cross red lights, run over people...just to name a few because they are able to buy themselves out of trouble.
When they are less pressured, they become some of the most wonderful human beings ever lived. They are after all the most clever and determined people ever born in this land. They helped to jump start the economy, kept the currency stable, built the products supply lines, built roads, pagodas, schools and orphanage centers.
There are always the good sides to these individuals because at the end they will always remember those days when they had nothing. As one prominent businessman told me, "I came with nothing and will die with nothing; yet never want to be poor again".
As I reflect upon these words, I come to realize that people will forget when they reached their destiny. I can recall some of these rich individuals whom I came to know are no more man than any other men in this world. We are just by nature deeply rooted in greeds, self empowerment, control, to be with the in-crowd, to be counted and to have respect not necessarily by earning it but our sheer selfishness of getting it through the quickest means possible.
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