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humiliation
Jory, Patrick
ABSTRACT
During the last decades of the absolute monarchy the authorities banned discussion of the l893 loss of Lao
territories, since the image of King Chulalongkorn submitting to French demands to cede Siamese territory damaged
the prestige of the Thai monarchy (42). [...]insult was added to injury in 1962 when in a controversial decision the
International Court of Justice in The Hague awarded sovereignty over the Preah Vihear temple to Cambodia.
FULL TEXT
Reviewed by
Patrick Jory
The Lost Territories: Thailand's history of national humiliation By Shane Strate. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i
Press, 2015.
During a recent overland visit to Cambodia I was completing an immigration form at a border checkpoint near
Anlong Veng in the northeast of the country, just across the Thai-Cambodia border, when a stern-looking
immigration official asked me where I had entered from. I told him the name of the checkpoint on the Thai side of the
border, "Chong Sangam." The official immediately corrected me, giving the Khmer pronunciation, adding in a harsh
tone, "You are not in Thailand now. You are in Cambodia!" Not wanting to jeopardize my visa application I repeated
the name to him, this time according to the Khmer pronunciation. I got my visa.
This incident brought home to me the strength of the feelings that the drawing of borders in mainland Southeast Asia
during the colonial period over a century ago still provokes. In this case feelings on both sides of the border were
particularly raw, because of the escalation of the conflict between the Thai and Cambodian governments over the
sovereignty of the region adjacent to the spectacular twelfth-century Preah Vihear temple, situated on a clifftop
bordering the two countries. The bitterness on the Thai side is well over a century old, dating from its loss of
sovereignty over this region to the French in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Memory of "The Lost
Territories"-including the Lao territories on the "leftbank" of the Mekong river (present day Laos), as well as much of
Cambodia-is deeply etched into the Thai nationalist imagination.
In The Lost Territories: Thailand's history of national humiliation we now have a book that traces how this painful
episode in Thai history has become a central motif in Thai nationalism. Shane Strate refers to this as "National
Humiliation" discourse. It bears a strong resemblance to a similar phenomenon in another semicolonized Asian
county, China, which also seeks to end a "century of humiliation" at the hands of the European colonial powers. The
phrase "Never Forget National Humiliation" has become a staple of contemporary Chinese nationalism (192).
Although more subdued in the Thai case, beneath the surface of Thai nationalism there is also deep resentment at
its humiliation at the hands of the European powers in the colonial period. Strate shows how this resentment has
been a constant in Thai nationalism over the last century, regularly bubbling to the surface.
The notion that "Thailand was never colonized"-by contrast to the remaining countries of Southeast Asia and most of
Asia-is central to Thai nationalist historiography. Strate refers to it as Thailand's "chosen myth" (192). It is so central
that few tourists to the country are unaware of this proud boast, since it features prominently in the tourism literature.
DETAILS
Company / organization: Name: International Court of Justice; NAICS: 922110; Name: University of
Queensland; NAICS: 611310; Name: Association of Southeast Asian Nations--
ASEAN; NAICS: 928120
Volume: 18
Issue: 1
Pages: N_A
Number of pages: 1
e-ISSN: 15325768