King Norodom Sihanouk has died

[Kev Bar]

It's with a pretty complicated form of sadness, I pass on the news that one of modern history's most colourful and unique characters has died.

[C. Flower]

Tell us more, KB ?

[Kev Bar]

100 years-ish Of pure history. I'll try do him justice tomorrow.

[Kev Bar]

The little prince meets Machiavelli meets Mao meets Buster Keaton meets David Norris.

Then there is the list of those he actually met.

[TotalMayhem]

Pol Pot's puppet king is dead? Requiescat in pace.

[Slim Buddha]

It's with a pretty complicated form of sadness, I pass on the news that one of modern history's most colourful and unique characters has died.

That´s a very understated way of describing him, Kev!

[Kev Bar]

Pol Pot's puppet king is dead? Requiescat in pace.

Pol Pot would have cut those strings in 79 were in not for the Chinese expressing occasional interest in Sihanouk's health.

From a journalist's point of view, Snooky was just such pure copy.

[Kid Ryder]

From a Cambodian citizen's POV though, Norodom Sihanouk was mostly a costly disaster and a poseur of a very high order. Outside of pro-monarchy fetishists and his friends among the comfortable classes, I'd imagine there's not a lot of mourning for him going down.

[Kev Bar]

From a Cambodian citizen's POV though, Norodom Sihanouk was mostly a costly disaster and a poseur of a very high order. Outside of pro-monarchy fetishists and his friends among the comfortable classes, I'd imagine there's not a lot of mourning for him going down.

If I cld only make it into the comfortable classes, I'd lighten your load and buy you a ticket for a trip to Phnom Penh.
A trip which would help you shed some light on your profound ignorance.
And that which animates it.
You'd be quite surprised at the numbers of Cambodians who hold varying degrees of reverence for Sihanouk.
And the numbers transcend any attempt at frozen codification and moral high ground presumption.

The man, while being many things, was way more exceptional than dilettante.

Only those with a truly spurious view of the world can believe that you can have a political career of that length and breadth by being a mere poseur.

In Sihanouk not alone did centuries collide but ideologies at their most virulent.

Privileged and pampered aside, he survived through sheer brilliant perseverance.

He was there with them all. Mao, Deng, Suharto, Nehru, Nixon, Kissinger, Ho Chi, Daddy Kim.
He was a star of the non aligned movement.
Then there was Maggie and Ronnie and then Mitterand.

He seemed thrilled to share the cavalcade with Mitterand.

Then there was his son who should have won the first election in 93

But Hen Sen had the guns.

And the Khmer Rouge, withering on the vine, were seduced by Hun Sen before they could be reactivated by Hun Sen's co-prime minister and son of Sihanouk, Norodom Ranariddh.

Hun Sen won.

He bought up the Khmer Rouge mainstream.

As the hardline imploded with murderous vengeance.

Here's the inrtrepid Nate Thayer on that tragi-comic end.

http://natethayer.wordpress.com/2012...nt-he-created/

So the billionaire communists won over the socialist leaning royalists.

And Sihanouk retired to play a PR monarch role as father of the nation.

The country was finally at peace and had the stability of the tyrant.

There was no real room left for Sihanouk to move - and he was getting old.

So he bailed - leaving progress to the cruel dictate of the tyrant.

And he went back to making movies.

Pretty crap.

But still, he made movies.

And he played sax.

And sang.

In very many languages.

And wrote endless letters to journalists who had aroused his ire or interest.

Who was sometimes a buffoon.

Who was always engaging.

Who lived a life packed full of more drama and intrigue than any script would deem credible.

Who was a feudal lord - a divine King - in a country where AKs and bicycles were still 40 years after his coronation the only sign of the modern world.

Out in these centuries old villages WW111 was fought by puny proxy.

One thing that came from the sky that didn't bring death.

Sihanouk.

Helicopter largesse in a water-buffalo world.

[Spectabilis]

Brilliant post, Kev Bar, cryptic and poetic as usual. I will re-read as I know how much knowledge and experience you had of that period and place. Thanks.

[Kev Bar]

“I may live in Peking rather than Phnom Penh, but I'm still the same old Sihanouk. A little original, or bizarre if you prefer. A little misunderstood, or incomprehensible if you prefer. But his convictions are intact and his personality's unaltered. For instance, I haven't become a communist: I continue to define myself as pink rather than red. I've not sewn my mouth shut: I continue to shout wha
t I think about everything and everyone, without thinking of the consequences. And I've no intention of ending up as an exiled playboy.”--In Peking, June 1973
‘I don't want to become a kind of Hirohito who produces cameras, or an Elizabeth of England who cares only for horses. Even less do I want to turn out like Juan Carlos, who's just a ghost of Franco. I have no personal ambitions”--- Peking, June 1973

[Kev Bar]

Pol Pot's puppet king is dead? Requiescat in pace.

More from Nate on this issue - am trying to get the manuscript from him.


Sihanouk's alleged support for the Khmer Rouge was far more complex than is popularly portrayed. No One can doubt he always had the interests of his country foremost. Although, like all of us, not that far ahead of his own legacy. Excerpts of Sihanouk's manuscript of his times as a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge. See album for more pages
Excerpts of Sihanouk's manuscript of his times as a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge.

[Kev Bar]

He was a libertine and a francophile, a filmmaker and a painter, a serial husband and father and philanderer, a cherubic but ruthless god-king who liked to putter about in the garden. He played the sax in his own jazz band. He loved to eat. He once served Champagne to a visiting U.S. secretary of state. At 10 a.m.


Nate:
Mr. Thayer said Monday that King Sihanouk was “indisputably a master politician both domestically and internationally, able to juggle internal forces and global superpowers to keep his country at peace.”

“Cambodia remained an oasis of peace while Vietnam and Laos were engulfed in war and Thailand to the west was a land-based aircraft carrier,” Mr. Thayer said.

“His role in Southeast Asian politics remains unique and unmatched. He was the most transparent of politicians, really. He never tried to hide his faults nor accomplishments. Without Sihanouk, it could be argued, Cambodia would no longer be a nation state.”




http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/...?smid=fb-share

[Kev Bar]

PHNOM PENH, Oct 15, 2012 (AFP) - The body of revered former Cambodian king Norodom Sihanouk, who died in Beijing aged 89 on Monday, will go on display in Phnom Penh for three months before a lavish state funeral, a government spokesman said.
The body is set to arrive in the Cambodian capital on Wednesday afternoon, followed by a mourning period until October 21, Khieu Kanharith told AFP. "(The) funeral will be three months later."

Looks like I may be able to live up to a serious pledge made 20 years ago that I and a few others would return for the funeral.

[Count Bobulescu]

Here’s an appreciation that ran earlier today on NPR.

http://www.npr.org/2012/10/15/162955...ct-of-cambodia