REBUILDING A PEOPLES IDENTITY

AND CULTURAL TREASURE:

LESSONS FROM THE SOPHIA MISSION

By Yoshiaki Ishizawa
2017 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee

Presented at the 59th Ramon Magsaysay Awards Lecture Series

30 August 2017, Manila, Philippines

Cambodia in Turbulence due to the International Political

Situation: Rebuilding the Nation from Scratch

The year 1975 marked a major turning point in the history of

present-day Cambodia, a nation whose misfortunes arose on
March 13, 1970. Five days after the head of state at that time,
His Royal Highness Prince Norodom Sihanouk, had left Phnom
Penh, the National Assembly voted to depose him, and this in
time led to the formation of the government of Lon Nol, who
was noted for his pro-American stance. However, that regime
collapsed on the withdrawal of the U.S. forces, thereby enabling
the liberation armies to assume control of Phnom Penh, on April
17, 1975.

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Political chaos in Cambodia had already erupted in 1970. The
Pol Pot regime (1975-1979) that followed after, carried out a
mass slaughter of over 1.5 million intellectuals, and this in turn
sparked off a civil war between four distinct factions, namely
the forces of the Hanoi-backed Heng Samrin (who assumed
power in 1979), Pol Pot, Sihanouk, and Son Sann, a strife that
continued until 1993.

Yet, in the background though, nations such as Japan, Australia,

and Indonesia among others, were actively campaigning for
peace, and this in turn lead to the first round of peace talks in
Paris, on December 1987. Peace eventually prevailed in
Cambodia in 1993, but by then the nation found itself
confronted by five major challenges, namely, the enabling of its
recovery from the trauma of the civil war, its rejoining the
international society, its re-orientation from a socialist to market
economy, the re-establishment of its ethnic cultural identity, and
the rescuing of its people from poverty.

Diplomatic links between Japan and Cambodia:

An Overview from the 1980s to the 1990s and 2000s

With a view to undertaking the groundwork for peace

negotiations in Cambodia, Japan, with the cooperation of
Australia and Indonesia actively approached both His
Excellency Prime Minister Hun Sen and His Royal Highness
Prince Norodom Sihanouk, through official and unofficial
channels. In due course a meeting between the two parties was
held in the outskirts of Paris in 1987, later talks were held in

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Tokyo between Prince Sihanouk and Prime Minister Hun Sen in
1990, and this in time led to the Paris Peace Conference of
October 1991. The Paris Peace Accord enabled the Heng Samrin
regime to emerge from international isolation, and in the same
year, the Supreme National Council (SNC) was constituted from
the four factions. Japan resumed diplomatic ties with Cambodia
after a lapse of 17 years, with the appointment of Mr. Yukio
Imagawa as Japans Ambassador to Cambodia. In 1992, Yasushi
Akashi was appointed Chief of Mission of the United Nations
Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), and he
conducted successful peacekeeping operations (PKO), with the
support of Ambassador Imagawa. Ms. Sadako Ogata, the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), (who also
happens to be a former professor of Sophia University), also
made dedicated efforts to achieve an early return of Cambodian
refugees to their homeland.

These are some of the successful examples of post-war Asian

diplomacy led by Japan:

Humanitarian Assistance and Cultural Restoration Projects

undertaken since 1979

a) Campaigning for the Rescue of Refugees and Angkor Wat

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Sophia University was established on the founding philosophy
of Men and Women for Others, with Others. Consequently,
we felt ourselves incapable of turning a blind eye towards the
sufferings of the nations inhabitants, during the civil war that
commenced in the 1970s. The Cambodian people had
experienced total loss, and were leading lives of anguish and
despair, and hence we of the Sophia Mission felt that we could
not ignore their need.

We adopted two principal goals, one being to extend

humanitarian aid towards the assisting of Cambodian refugees,
and the other to assist in cultural restoration, via the rescue of
Angkor Wat. In 1979, Sophia University launched a campaign
to extend helping hands of love to Indo-Chinese refugees, and in
December of the same year, a former president of Sophia
University, namely the late President Joseph Pittau S.J., led a

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two-week donation campaign for refugees from Indochina,
within the streets outside Shinjuku railway station in Tokyo. The
money thus accumulated was used to forward food and medical
supplies to refugee camps in Khao-I-Dang and Sa Kaeo in
Thailand, and student volunteers were also dispatched to a
center that accommodated war orphans.

Our Angkor Wat rescue team traveled to Cambodia in the

aftermath of the civil war in the 1980s, and on arrival they began
a program for the development of human resources. This was
done with a view that such resources play a vital role in cultural
restoration, and serve as crucial bastions of the nations
reconstruction. This program enabled the local inhabitants to
regain courage and hope.

The preservation and restoration of the Angkor monuments

serves also as a significant project for the rebuilding of
Cambodias ethno-cultural identity. In our campaign for the
rescue of Angkor Wat, we were inspired by the fact that the
monument has been a symbol of ethnic unity, and besides, since
independence in 1953, it has even featured on the countrys
national flag. Our appeal for a return to the peace of Angkor
Wat in order to rebuild the nation met with an overwhelming
response, and we even went a step further by offering to train
conservation officers and stone masons in stone processing
skills, in order that the people of Cambodia may handle the
restoration of Angkor Wat on their own. Recently however we
purchased land in Cambodia and erected the Sophia Asia Center

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for Research and Human Development in 1996, as an expression
of our commitment to the local cause.

The Launching of the Angkor Wat Rescue Project in 1993

In December 1993 we began preliminary investigations, since

the new government of Prime Minister Hun Sen requested
restoration work to be carried out on Angkor Wat. The work was
launched alongside the training of Cambodian conservation
officers, with the full-scale dismantling of the causeway
commencing in 2000. Young people from nearby villages had to
acquire the basics of stone-cutting in order to attain expertise in
stonemasonry work, and it took a total of 8 years for them to
grasp the necessary stone processing skills. The restoration work
was carried out by a total of 60 individuals, who included 25
trainee stonemasons, 30 workmen, and 6 trainee
architects/archaeologists.

Conservation officers and others rammed the earth and carried

in around 6,000 laterite and sandstone blocks, in order to erect
12 steps of retaining walls and two layers of paving stones in the
causeway, by October 2007. Through this restoration work,
Cambodian trainees acquired skills, discovered emotional links,
and discerned once again the masonry techniques of the period
of Angkor Wat. The experience evoked within them a deep
feeling of confidence and ethnic pride.

In November 2007, the restoration work on the first 100-meter

stretch of the 200-meter western causeway was completed, and

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at the opening ceremony local residents were present, along with
a deputy prime minister of the government of the Kingdom of
Cambodia.

Restoration of Cultural Heritage: A Significant Ripple

Effect

a) Conservation and Restoration of Heritage Sites: An activity

geared towards the Continuance of Traditional Cultures.

Our aim is to engage in research activities and establish firm

links of trust with the local people, through the preservation and
restoration of cultural heritage sites. To this end, we conduct
academic research that is related directly to heritage, that is,
heritage site conservation and restoration, while also at the same
time investigating traditional technologies that were used at
those sites. This is done in order to offer assistance also at the
personal level, namely via the training of engineers and
researchers.

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Heritage site conservation and restoration has two aspects, one
of which is to transmit these cultural assets to forthcoming
generations. Conservation and restoration involve more than
merely mending what is broken, or what is on the verge of
breakage. We need to do more than merely restore what is
damaged and transmit it to future generations. True restoration
cannot be achieved unless we examine and acquire an accurate
grasp the material, style, and age of the structure, since
restoration work that is not based on sufficient academic
research, could easily lead to the destruction of the essence of
the original. Even if conservation and restoration are deemed
technically feasible, yet the work would not be viewed as
genuine without knowledge of the history of the structure, a
knowledge gained via the humanities and social sciences.

b) Heritage Conservation and Restoration Elevate Academic

Research to a Global Level

With reference to this issue, I feel one must admit that Heritage
Conservation and Restoration constitute a science that
transcends the bounds of multiple disciplines. I wish to stress the
fact that it presents us with an ideal means to attain academic
advancement, in the humanities, social sciences, and
architectural technologies. We can easily grasp this when we
consider the conservation campaign undertaken with regard to
the ruins at Nubia in Egypt. There, an appeal was made to rescue
the Nubian monuments that lay submerged in the Nile, and this
successfully won the sympathy of a large number of people.
Thereafter, as a result of conservation and restoration activities

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carried out at the site, the archaeology of Egypt managed to
attain a world standard.

Similarly, the project for the conservation and restoration of the

Borobudur Ruins that was initiated in 1973, was pursued over a
period extending around ten years. It provided a stimulus to
studies on archaeology, history, and several other related fields
in Indonesia, sparking off a rapid expansion in academic
research within the nation. This led to a fascination for research
in cultural heritage, that was by not limited to just Egypt and
Indonesia. Rather, that mood of appreciation pervaded the entire
world, transcending national boundaries.

Hence, we see that projects oriented towards the conservation

and restoration of heritage sites, could, through the utilization of
local skills and expertise, trigger off a major ripple effect in
academic research, developing, advancing, and deepening the
technology of conservation and restoration. This would embrace
aspects linked to historical research as well, and besides, a major
contribution of such ventures would be the development of the
local areas.

c) The conservation and restoration of cultural heritage

educates us about the pride of the local people, in the
context of world history

Cultural heritage sites are areas symbolizing the pride of the

common man, who values them as vital facets of his own
history. The conservation and restoration of cultural heritage is

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significant, owing to the fact that it provides the local people
with the inspiration necessary to evaluate their own culture
within the framework of human history, and thereby affirm their
cultural uniqueness. Each ethnic group seeks to base its
distinctiveness on its cultural heritage, and hence an academic
elucidation of such heritage sites would serve as a source of
pride to individuals of that specific ethnic group. The feeling of
pride one experiences through such academic research, is never
biased or one-sided. Rather, it is a feeling open to the world,
unfolding the history of a people within the framework of world
history.

The conservation and restoration of Cambodias cultural

heritage, and what we can learn from such undertaking, will not
only serve to inspire the Cambodian people, but they will also
generate a significant ripple effect among ethnic groups, by
arousing their own cultural pride and confidence. For any ethnic
group, detailed deliberations concerning their cultural heritage
will serve as an incentive towards rediscovering their
uniqueness. Academic investigation of such heritage would
serve to evoke within them a deep feeling of pride, and this will
in turn lead to the creation of an ethnic identity. Unlike
globalization or homogenization of the world, cultural heritage
research and projects geared towards its conservation and
restoration will present us (both tangible and intangible cultural
assets) the local heritage of distinctive individuality, ethnic
traditions, and arts that are specific to a nation or region.

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Chronology of the Sophia Missions Human Resource
Development Activities

1) Three priests of the Society of Jesus (Fr. Riestch, S.J., Fr.

Gomane, S.J., and Fr. Larne, S.J.) established the AUVIT
(Amiti Universitare entre Vietnam-Japon-Thailande) in order to
engage in student exchange activities (1960-1964).

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2) Sophia University launched a campaign entitled Extending
helping hands of love to Indochinese refugees, under the
leadership of President Joseph Pittau, S.J., and student
volunteers were sent to refugee camps (1979-1982).
3) Intensive lectures were conducted at the Royal University
of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, and the dispatch of lecturers was
carried out (1991-2015).
4) The Sophia Asia Center for Research and Human
Development was instituted in Cambodia, and Area Studies in
Southeast Asia was established (1996 to the present).
5) Human Resource Development Activities for conservation
officers to work at the Angkor monuments was started. This
includes architecture and archaeological exploration trainings
(1991 to the present).
6) Degree programs were started. Graduate school courses for
conservation officers were offered. Six candidates acquired
doctorates, and 11 acquired masters degrees from the Graduate
Program in Area Studies at Sophia University (1996 to the
present).
7) The excavation of 280 statues of Buddha at the Banteay
Kdei monument was carried out; it is one of the greatest
discoveries of the century (during 2001 and 2010).
8) Construction of the Preah Norodom Sihanouk-Angkor
Museum (2002 to the present).
9) The 100-meter stretch of Angkor Wats Western Causeway
was restored in Stage 1 (1993-2007).
10) The Angkor Monuments received the ISO (International
Organization for Standardization) 14001 (Environmental
Management) certification (2003 to the present).

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11) The Center for Education on Angkor Cultural Heritage was
established in 2009, with the aid of a grant received from the
Cultural Grassroots Projects of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of Japan (2009 to the present).
12) The Sophia mission was selected for the Foreign Ministrys
ODA Project, for the Improvement of Equipment used for the
Restoration of the Western Causeway of Angkor Wat (Cultural
Grant Assistance). All the equipment arrived at the restoration
site of Angkor Wats Western Causeway (2015 to the present).
13) Prof. Yoshiaki Ishizawa gave a lecture on Sophias
Current Development of Human Resources in Cambodia at an
international symposium conducted on the topic, Between Past
and Future, the Mission of the Catholic Church in Asia: The
contribution of Sophia University, at the Pontifical Gregorian
University. (This was an event conducted as part of Sophia
Universitys Centenary Commemoration).
14) Stage 2 of the Angkor Wat Western Causeway Restoration
work (100 meters on the western side) commenced (2016 to the
present).

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