The Curious History Of Cambodia's Beloved Kings | Asia's Monarchies | Real Royalty

asia's monarchies defy history in modern era of democracy worlds of tradition mystery and ritual command fascination and respect like never before asian monarchs are symbols of continuity living connections to the past that are often loved and loathed in equal measure royal families appear an anachronism relics from ancient times yet they still have a grip on their subjects an aura that can't be replicated by mere politicians as much as they may try nowhere is this more true than cambodia where the majesty and splendor of the great ancorian kings still weighs heavily on modern leaders they are the symbol of the nation without symbol is like a human being do not have heart king worship has been and remains the foundation of the modern cambodian state cambodia has been dominated by the figure of one man noredom a man whose career path reads like a work of fiction king then prince prime minister then film director king again and now king father when you're in power for too long you become corrupt you become a dictator now corruption and human rights abuses have become so endemic to cambodia it threatens to undermine the rebirth of a country that was once the greatest civilization in southeast asia monarchy in cambodia has lasted more than a thousand years it has survived against the greatest of odds from foreign invasions to colonialism crude hearts to communist revolution [Music] legend has it that cambodia was formed by the marriage of an indian brahmana and a cambodian princess whose father was a dragon king [Music] the brahman shot a magical arrow into the princess's boat that so frightened her she agreed to marry him the dragon king then drained the waterlogged kingdom as a wedding gift and named it campuccia [Music] the kings of cambodia can trace their origins to this mythical pair and the influence of india and foreigners in general on the course of cambodia's history was established the idea that the king was related to god and only they could decide for the good of [Music] [Music] of the nation providing security and prosperity during the great ankorian civilization that lasted from the 9th to the 15th century this devotion to the kings was so strong people gave their lives to building and carving the magnificent temples that still exist today this paternalism continued right into the twentieth century when king cyrnuk won independence from the french and called himself the father of the nation in 1970 that eventually gave way to the barbaric khmer rouge since the 1980s politics in cambodia has been dominated by the figure of one man former khmer rouge commander hun sen cambodia now holds elections and has reverted to a constitutional monarchy under sihanuksan sihamoni but a culture of corruption especially amongst the armed forces and police has been allowed to develop in recent years something prime minister hunsen has promised to tackle corruption is a major issue in this country you can see that every report come out from the u.n or from a new research or international organization that is dealing with corruption cambodia will be the worst place on earth cambodia ranked almost at the bottom in transparency international's 2009 corruption perception index politicians hoped for a better future whilst living with the nightmare of the khmer rouge for us it's not exactly what we dreamed of when we were stranded on the refugees camp on the thai border and cambodian board we thought that we could with a new start have a democracy at least the people will be free to talk i know that maybe peace and stability is at that price but at least they should they should strike a balance 2004 was a turning point in cambodia's history after 60 years the overwhelming presence of sihanouk suddenly disappeared and prime minister hunsen moved quickly to fill the void sun ceremony continues as a living connection to the god kings of angkor wat and the hundreds of temples that still exist today angkor wat even graces the country's flag cambodia's entire identity revolves around king worship derived from that ancient and glorious civilization [Music] for the last thousand years cambodians have worshipped their kings as representatives of god but this controversy as to whether or not the kings were seen as directly descended from heaven i think most scholars these days would accept the argument that it was not that the king was himself a deity but that the king represented some of the spiritual potency of a particular deity that the king was sacred in certain ways and that particularly dead rulers and dead royal family members might be represented as deities in in the temples in cambodia concept the king represent the god we call the right that the brahmanism have touches and we conduct be called developer the developer can transform the king to be as god brahmanism was the concept of king worship imported from india the deva raja was a ceremony of god worship that only the king could perform in the year 802 this fusing of cultures gave birth to the first king of cambodia jayavarman ii who laid the foundations for a thriving civilization that was to last for 700 years [Music] ii in his subjects built their first city in the kulin mountains 45 kilometers from angkor wat the fact that it's one of the highest points in the country is no coincidence the mountain is important to other people to have a brahmanism because we need the temple represent the mountain so we build the temple as a mountain and we look at the god on the top of the mountain [Music] every king that followed jeff armand ii wanted to build on his success to build bigger grander temples to honor jayavarman as the founder of the kingdom each king would demonstrate his divinity by controlling nature as the gods did by digging reservoirs and irrigation channels for this the king expected complete subservience from his subjects and a pattern of authoritarianism was established in the country that continues to the present day [Music] people worked tirelessly in the name of the king and god these were vast enterprises similar in scale to those of ancient egypt and the mayan and aztec civilizations of central america [Music] people have to use their own labor to work for the nation not only for the god but for their own obligation so people pay the tax but not really money that we maybe used to say in our present day but we use our labor to work for the people to work for the nation and work for the king finally wait for the god this grandiose temple building culminated in the magnificent angkor wat a 12th century temple dedicated to the hindu god vishnu and built under the reign of king suryavarman ii it's estimated over 300 000 people worked on the temple which took over 40 years to complete [Music] every temple built was a catalogue of the world of the gods and the kings a documentation of their wondrous exploits nowhere is this more evident than at angkor where the base reliefs of the temple are lined with depictions of battle and the celestial apsaras women who danced for the pleasure of the king and his courtiers [Music] this tradition has been kept alive in modern day cambodia although now the absuras dance for tourists as well as kings [Music] [Music] as buddhism took hold in the country from the 13th century cambodia's kings began to be seen as representatives of buddha and not shiva vishnu or brahma from hindu beliefs the first cousin of suryavarman ii jayavarman vii has become known as the greatest of all the uncle kings and was thought to be the first buddhist king his temple building was on an impossibly grandiose scale and can be seen as a direct response to the invasion of the champa empire from present-day vietnam in 1177 jayavarman vii mobilized his subjects to defeat the champers and embarked on the largest program of public works cambodia has ever known king worship was at its height civilization was at its most majestic and the extraordinary number of temples and roads bridges and schools were testament [Music] [Music] own state temple was the incredible payon a multi-faced building of ascending peaks each with a face on its four sides some believe that these are depictions of gervard himself the grandeur of the angkorian civilization and the reverence of its kings started to decline after geovarman vii war between its neighbors in present-day thailand and vietnam would come to dominate cambodia until the arrival of the french at the end of the 19th century in angkor the irrigation system broke down and the capital was moved to phnom penh [Music] people the dominance of thailand and vietnam over cambodia meant cambodia's kings were often living in exile or confined to the royal palace foreign invaders dominated the royal family and would often appoint the king themselves cambodia was in danger of losing its kings and its entire territory it was only the might of france that saved them for more than 200 years the cambodian crown bounces back and forth between a pro-vietnamese faction and protofaction so almost every single ruler in the 17th and 18th and really through the 19th centuries was linked more to one side or the other and so as soon as you get a ruler who's been put on the throne with support from one side then you've got another faction that's getting ready to to throw them over in 1857 the french arrived in cambodia and it was their intervention that finally put an end to the rivalry between thailand and vietnam for cambodian territory we called a friend to our rescue because we were as you know from uh end of 16th century it was a design misattack and then beginning of 17th century it was the vietnamese so at the end when the french arrived cambodia was reduced to a small territory the friend protection can be both good and bad if no friend may i believe that we have no cambodia today in 1863 cambodia became a french protectorate and at the beginning this was a bilateral relationship the following year the cambodian throne was granted to king noradon and the french allowed him to reign realizing they could use him to help control the population the french slowly chipped away at his powers helped by nouridham's addiction to opium he was powerless to stop his colonial minders when france became a republic in 1886 i think and then they forced the king to sign a treaty they bring in they call kanoneer in front of the present royal palace at night time they invade the palace and force the king to sign an agreement to let the french rule the country friends come to protect us protect our land but inside of our land that you asked me to say they come to each brothers too king norodom died in 1904 bitter that although the french were helping cambodia modernize and develop they were also bleeding the country dry [Music] the french romanticized cambodia above all their other colonies in indochina to them it was a special place which gave them little trouble and a great deal of resources noredom had complied with the french purely to ensure his own and his dynasty survival [Music] noridam's half-brother sisowov took over someone altogether more sympathetic and sycophantic to the french cambodia had become a fully fledged colony the days of a protectorate were over and authoritarianism became once more the system by which cambodians were governed sicily died in 1927 by which point the french were firmly in control whilst neighboring vietnam pushed for independence the french viewed cambodians as docile easy-going people managing the kings was the least of their concerns [Music] in 1941 the french decided to unite the noradam and sisawat branches of the royal family appointing an unknown 19 year old who was related to both lines noradom cernook they believed that since he's young it's easy to control him but they they make a mistake because he was a lot of problem i think they held a wrong perception he said oh his prince is very young his personality is more attractive by women's and music and you know rising force he gets some ideas already about how to bring cambodia to rich independence french martial i said that prince yanuk is a crazy but he's a genius crazy boy these young prince have some vision about his kingdom the french had appointed someone who would become a nationalist hero and who would dominate political life in the country for the next 50 years [Music] post-world war ii the french filtered back into cambodia after the defeat of the occupying japanese forces elections were held for the first time and the democratic party drafted a new constitution that estranged king sehanuk from the political process this enraged the young king began a long process of gaining the people's support and opposing french rule the french granted the country a new constitution in which constitutional monarchy was adopted and implemented but even so given the personality of the random syanuk he did dominate the political scene cyanuk refused to accept the limitations of a constitutional monarchy with french support he dissolved the national assembly then in 1955 with the french preoccupied by events across the border in vietnam they finally granted cambodia its independence he went to the countryside he worked for the people he wanted to take action in order to follow up the king from the encore time work with the people in order to gain more power from the people like jayavarapan 7. [Music] in 1955 in just one year cyanuk persuaded the french to leave proclaimed independence abdicated formed his own political party and won office as prime minister [Music] it signaled his monopolization of power the cult of personality first started by the kings of uncle was back in vogue cyanuc of course has always felt that he knew best for cambodia and so when you had elections when you had a political process it was always meant if it did not produce the results that he thought were best then he would try to nullify it i mean that was fundamentally his his view people consider us kingston as the father of the independence you know i think he's helped this part of the historical you know even without spending any bloodshed between french and cambodia during the 1955 elections ballot boxes were reported missing opposition leaders allegedly harassed critical newspapers shut down [Music] it was a model of authoritarian politics that continues in cambodia today however cyanuc was genuinely popular and cambodia became relatively well-off [Music] 1964 1964-65 at that time we are rich than singapore so this is why he became very popular among people in the 1960s events taking place in neighboring countries threatened cambodia's stability cyanuk boldly declared cambodia neutral in the cold war but it teetered on the brink of communism as the influence of china and north vietnam grew i think american accused him of being the red prince but he has to work for the interests of cambodia not for the interests of either canada the communists or the or the u.s the uh faith of our homeland they don't mind about it they are more patriots for dollars than for cambodia in 1963 sihanouk took the bold step of cutting off american economic assistance thereby allying himself in their minds with the communist side whenever you see discussion of sienna q you always see the word mercurial right i mean it's always used to refer to and he was everybody even the most sympathetic observers of cyanuk's time and power have to recognize that this very very strong personalizing of any perceived insult any perceived slight that this really um this this made a lot of his policy stands very problematic cyanuk managed to maintain good relations with cambodia's former occupiers and in 1966 french president charles de gaulle honored cyanuk with a state visit to cambodia he wanted to see himself as a statesman as someone that was going to be respected and be able to kind of play with the big boys but he did not have the temperament for that he didn't have the sort of self-restraint for that and so that meant that after a certain point i think fewer and fewer people really took him seriously [Music] became increasingly vain and bored with politics and in a bizarre career move for a former king and current prime minister decided to throw all his energy into directing and starring in his own feature films i used to read international press some articles will mention uh seeing luke my name or sometimes they call him a playboy i was not sure that time what is the playboys is all about i was confusing that the playboy maybe a boy that liked to play with many things and while cyrnic was playing at being a movie star by the end of the 1960s the vietnam war was threatening to spill into cambodia americans were in trouble in vietnam and cambodia was supportive of the north vietnamese and the vietcong so the americans had to do something to ensure that cambodia stopped supporting the north vietnamese and the vietcong so they had to overthrow the damsel in march 1970 while cyanuk was traveling abroad military commander lon norm staged a coup d'etat against the government many including cyanuk himself believed that the coup was sponsored by the cia the london audience they were very ambitiously lonely wanted to replace me as a head of state and the london audience since they were very corrupted they wanted to be more corrupted without being disturbed by the uh blames from siharoo etc etc so they decided together to wipe me out i don't think general longnell would do anything without any u.s backing i know that some us diplomats told me that they were not aware i may believe them because there's so many center of powers in the u.s i mean the state department may not know what the cia was doing or the fbi are doing while syranuk and his father the nominal king took refuge in china american warplanes dropped a hundred thousand tons of bombs onto cambodia in the hope of wiping out the vietcong activities in the country it was a brutal illegal campaign sanctioned by secretary of state henry kissinger cyanuk was desperate to return to power and allied himself with a growing band of communists who were taking over the cambodian countryside the khmer rouge in 1973 he even wore their trademark scarf on a secret visit to their training camps to garner support the people supported the marrow because of him it was a common struggle he did not call it the khmer rouge to join him he called for all the cambodian to join his struggle against the what they call at the time the imperialist americans they were accusing former king as part of the reason why the khmer rouge came to power in the first place without seeing no support this killing field would not ever happen siena believed that if the khmer rouge were able to seize power he would be reinstalled as king this proved to be without foundation [Music] on april 17 1975 the khmer rouge invaded phnom penh i was playing saga with other kids and there were a lot of people running it to the street and say the khmer rouge came in the community came in i saw the first time the tank came into to the circle and a lot of people i saw some kids on the tank with black clothes and they were frown faces but they have guns on the day of 17 april 1975 i was in phnom penh i have seen a lot of my youtube interpretable they told my family my last speaker could you please go to countryside only three day and you can come by after three days you cannot stay in phnom penh because there will be immediately us aircraft will come to the bomb not three days more than three years nearly four years the khmer rouge declared cambodia had entered year zero and that two thousand years of history had ended so had money markets education religion books and property it was arguably the most radical ill-conceived communist revolution in human history having previously courted the khmer rouge support cyanuk found himself betrayed he was arrested in the royal palace phnom penh in that time no people no crowded so he cannot see anything about the people in the countryside he cannot be you at all for many cambodians the suffering and horror of the labor camps in the countryside lives on today i i miss my childhood you know i grew up during the war times i never been a kid i never had a toy to play with i never have a real family i don't have father's mini sister on an uncle to call right now when you look around the new growing of you the growing new society people have their family so it's upsetting i was very close few times to having a really bad dream and i don't know what to do with it i got up in the middle of my dream and choked i choked i literally choked twice in my life and i i was very close close to to choke myself to death [Music] i accused my sister of eating the stolen food from the dead body of her own husband so to prove that she did it they took her to hospital and performed the operation cut her stomach open and she died [Music] the khmer rouge are thought to have killed almost 2 million people twenty percent of the cambodian population it was genocide at a massive scale same the movie clincher document history good movie killing feel it is true okay this is a born victim to die here the teeth with him here oh maybe the calling the girl the young this one very sad bad man my father my uncle died my sister by starvation the food i got this set the two day the cambodia people my family is an angry bird no cannot forget [Music] [Applause] in 1979 the khmer rouge sent cyanuk to beijing as their ambassador the vietnamese invaded cambodia in order to oust the khmer rouge who fled to the countryside cyanuk was to remain in china for the next 12 years waiting for his people to embrace him as their leader again most cambodians welcomed the vietnamese forces with open arms as a relief from the horrors of a genocidal regime [Music] millions of people returned from the refugee camps across the thai border they hoped for a new beginning but what they found was a country on its [Music] knees [Music] the khmer rouge had devastated the rural economy the rice harvested failed and the people and army left starving [Music] exiled in china cyanuk refused to negotiate with the vietnamese invaders people yet previously considered allies you do have this very clear sense that the vietnamese betrayed the cambodians by invading and doing all of these things however justified that invasion might have been and i think he did have a feeling that the old sort of camaraderie which he had enjoyed enjoyed with the vietnamese leaders back in the early 70s that that was gone the vietnamese installed a young former khmer rouge commander as prime minister hunsen has remained in power to this day the vietnamese finally left cambodia in 1989. [Music] cyanuk returned to his country in 1991 after years of devastation and war he was seen as the only way to unify the country [Music] monarchy was a bridge to a history that had been lost for more than two decades [Music] after a period of reconciliation managed by cyanuk and the united nations elections were called in 1993. it was a turning point in 1993 xianu could have been president of cambodia and he would have had much power but he made a mistake because of personal reasons family reasons he missed an opportunity to make a real comeback to the political scene considered running for office under his own royalist party fansipec in the end he let his son prince ranaret stand it was to be the beginning of the end of long dominance of cambodian political life after the very clear unifying role that he played i think he legitimately expected that he was going to probably at least dominate the political scene i think it is possible that he underestimated one cent he were some for some reason hoping that fonsenberg which was at the time led by one of his sons would give him a power or would support him after the election to bring him to be the leader of the country but it was a struggle between himself and his son many wanted cyanuk to run for president but his own son blocked the move is so unique with such a character being so charismatic he would have done great things for the country he would not allow the country to go down the train as it has the elections of 1993 were considered free and fair and it was decided that cambodia would have not one but two prime ministers hunsen and prince ranami and that the country would return to a constitutional monarchy under the unifying influence of noradam seahawk the decision made at that time to return the monarchy to cambodia will be the best choice for the country cambodia is very fragile nation when we have a monarchy is not a strong institution in this country it makes people feel a bit better that we are on the right track and we are not going to kill each other however prince rana red and hunsen proved awkward bedfellows their own armies became involved in open conflict to compound this the khmer rouge were still active and laying hundreds of thousands of mines in the countryside cambodia was once again in turmoil throughout the 1990s king influence waned while prime minister hunsen's power grew he was unhappy for so many years you will see that from 93 on you will heard from time to time he put up the statement critical of government and always compare the regime or the government to the past until one time our prime is able to find a way to shut him up i will not describe what the prime just said but he did a good job hunsen followed a model of rule that began with the ankorian kings and was developed by syrinok i i won't stop i've also if asean continues interference into international internal affairs coordination elections take place but voters are allegedly coerced into voting for hunsen's people's party opponents are said to have been undermined and tortured cambodia had finally found peace under a monarchy again but its peace at a price history will tell that when you do not have freedom of expression when your opponent will scare they cannot live in society you have to take review in the forest and to organize a struggle against you then you have only one party system no freedom or expression then what you call that kind of system i accept to have some restrictions on freedom in exchange for a strong monarchy that defends national interests but if the monarchy is symbolic totally powerless something that is used to endorse a dictatorship so this is a big disappointment whilst onsen consolidated his power in 2004 sia nook surprised everyone by suddenly abdicating in favor of his second son ceremony someone untainted by the corrupt politics of the country he was a ballet dancer based in prague and was somewhat surprised to get the call to the throne [Music] it seemed like an instinctive move by someone who'd only thought of his own grip on power before but was now thinking of his country's future when he advocated he had thought so roughly that is the best solution because after him he would not know what would happen so he has to secure for this peace and stability a kind of a smooth transition from him i mean it's difficult to succeed him because he's still for the people the god king 2004 marked a turning point in cambodia's history the beginning of a future without sihanouk however the past inhabits the present like a bad dream [Music] the country desperately needs closure it has suffered so much particularly under the brutal khmer rouge and the scars still fester with those who survived [Music] [Applause] [Music] in 2009 leaders of the hated khmer rouge stood trial to bring an end to the worst chapter in cambodia's long history a foundation to the cambodia to build upon to move on to decide their own future it's a process and the final judgment of the crime committed overall by the khmer rouge and from there cambodian will have to decide what to do with this they might want to have a truth commission they might want to have this report they want to have buddhist event to cremate all the bone they might want to have a big parade they might want to have recognition in every provincial town with the plaque say that how many people have died [Music] cambodia is finally coming to terms with its history from the grandeur of anko to the maneuverings of syrnok there's been an innate feeling of greatness amongst the khmer people based on the majesty of their kings cambodian people have been through many generations you talking about communist you talking about royalists you talking about republic we've been to all so happy people enough to experience all this what they concern is only they want peace [Music] the horrors of the past a lack of good governance and corruption have left cambodia disastrously poor at the start of the 21st century but it is a nation that's back on its feet with pride grace and humor united under the figure of their beloved king [Applause] [Music] foreign the monarchy in cambodia has survived the most tumultuous period in its history and has helped guide the country to peace [Music] and to most cambodians it is this piece that matters most

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Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, cambodia, Sihamoni, asian monarchies, real royalty family, cambodian history, cambodia monarchy, kings of cambodia

Id: gjfBT9M-aZw

Length: 49min 34sec (2974 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 27 2021