Derek Tonkin

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THE recent tensions in Thai-Cambodian relations are seen in Europe primarily as a reflection of the transition in Thailand from the reign of a monarch who is greatly revered in Thai society and highly respected internationally to an uncertain future that is difficult to predict. It should not be forgotten that the young King Bhumibol Adulyadej felt himself very much influenced by and beholden to the Thai strongman of the time, Field Marshal Phibul Songkran, whom the occupying Japanese suspected of harbouring monarchical aspirations of which they, as devout monarchists, did not approve. Following the coup by Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat against Phibul in 1957, only a few weeks after I first arrived in Thailand, the young King Bhumibol established his independence from Phibul’s patronage and, with Sarit’s strong support, became first the national and then the international personality whom we know today, set above politics at the apex of a trinity of Nation, Religion and Monarchy.

Thai revanchism had its heyday in the late 1930s and during the Second World War when arch-nationalists such as Luang Vichit Vadhakarn nurtured pretensions of a Greater Thai nation to include all Tai ethnic groupings in French Indochina, Burma and southern China, and even further afield. It was on the wave of such pan-Thai pretensions that Phibul erected the “Victory Monument” in Bangkok to celebrate a brief Thai military victory over French forces in Cambodia, which led to the wartime occupation of western territories in Cambodia.

Yet relations at the local level between Thais and Khmers in the border regions have historically been friendly and hospitable, with both Thai and Khmer spoken widely on both sides of the border. Around Surin in Thailand, you are more likely to hear Khmer spoken than Thai, though many native Khmer speakers in Thailand do not know the Khmer alphabet, and all will have learned Thai at school. Trading relations, employment and intermarriage across the borders have been traditional and have helped to reduce tensions even at times of serious diplomatic disputes that have flared up in the capitals Bangkok and Phnom Penh.