January 23, 2008
The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 5: Development is on the doorstep...
John Vink
It has been seven years now that the area along the Bassac river in Phnom Penh has been under intense pressure from real estate developers. Seven years that I document the mutations of a territory where thousands of people were scraping a living thanks to the proximity of the center of town. They all have small jobs. They all have precarious living conditions. They make a couple of dollars a day collecting tin cans or scrap metal, selling shells, sugar cane or their virginity.
© John Vink/Magnum Photos
During rainy season the place is flooded, muddy. The people sleep with rats feeding on the pile of garbage thrown from the upper floors of the "Building", built by architect Vann Molyvann and once a showcase for modernity. But it is also the area where Kong Nay, the famous "chappey" player, the bluesman of the Mekong, is living.
E'Phutang, former heavyweight khmer boxing world champion, had his gym there, and most of the pictures in my book "Poids Mouche" were made there. Despite their resistance they all will have to move, clear the area, go and live 20 or 30km from the center of town to relocation sites designated by the authorities.
© John Vink/Magnum Photos
If they are lucky they get some kind of a compensation like a 3mx6m brick compartment (not really a house) or a few thousand dollars. That's today. A few years ago the whole slum would burn down in a couple of hours. How the fire started nobody would know for sure. Or people would be dumped in an empty rice field without sanitation, water, school, market, leaving NGO's to cope with the mess. My estimate is that over 15000 people will have been kicked out to allow the construction of what will become the new Phnom Penh, trying to catch up with Singapore, Hong Kong or Bangkok in terms of high rises...
© John Vink/Magnum Photos
It seems as if the lessons learned during all the social struggles over the last two centuries have still to penetrate the minds of Cambodians, those with power that is. Cambodia went straight from colonialism to a war, with a short intermission of prosperity, and then to plain horror. Today it is finally learning about development but also about 19th century paternalism...
Links:
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 1: UNICEF in Cambodia
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 2: Can Cultural Identity go private?
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 3: Arrest of Ieng Sary
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 4: Gathering Pace
» John Vink's website
» John Vink's Magnum portfolio
» John Vink's Magnum In Motion story "Terre Rouge"
» John Vink's feature: Cambodia. 2000 - 2002. The Quest for Land
Published on the Magnum Blog on January 23, 2008
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