How to Plan a Conference (Round Two)

The peace conference 2013 was sort of my pet project (much as I enjoyed round-one). It wasn’t my project (these sorts of things are always done in committee, it’s the Mennonite way), but I grew quite attached to this project. 

This year we introduced “Do No Harm.” This tool based on Mary Anderson’s book (of the same title) to help practitioners examine how aid in conflict areas can cause more harm than good. It’s since been expanded and renamed “local capacities for peace.” We wanted to help our local partners identify resources that either connect people or divide people in areas where they work. After all, we want to leave people better than when we started to work with them. It’s much easier said than done.

Developing this material started months in advance. We boiled down ideas into simple lessons so that everyone could take away something. The process also involved finding a facilitator willing to teach the material in Khmer. We finally settled on the executive director of one of our partner organizations with a background in this material. Also, we were proud to have a female facilitator to demonstrate our support for female leaders in Cambodia (Cambodia doesn't have many women leaders). Together with her, we adapted the content further and translated parts of it.

Late August 2013, we finally pulled off the conference. We had all 14 local partners send two people with a total of 28 people across all our sectors from education to agriculture. Many had attended last year’s conference and I felt immense satisfaction as people shrieked happily upon seeing friends they had made last year. This familiarity set a comfortable relaxed tone which would have been impossible last year.

This year the conference was hosted in Sihanoukville, a location which has featured repeatedly during my Cambodian story. It’s the most popular conference destination. Cambodians like to feel they went somewhere and did something on a conference or workshop, and so we complied with this expectation.

Like last year, the workshop was held in Khmer. Our partners love this aspect of the program. It means that I cannot help with much, but you see how much more comfortable participants feel when they are speaking in their own language. Overall, they responded well to the content. Many of the urban participants working in peacebuilding seemed to grasp the ideas easily as it wasn’t too far outside concepts they were already familiar with. Some of the rural participants working in agriculture or education struggled with a theoretical framework that didn’t seem immediately applicable to their daily work. For this reason, we may need to do a follow-up, or break the content down even further (the challenge of working with so many partners with such varied backgrounds!).

However, people loved the fellowship of the conference. We spent time at the beach together and friendships were forged or furthered over seafood and fried rice. One afternoon we played group games on the beach which entertained the conference participants and others watching on the beach. 

Overall, it was a fantastic learning experience. The continuing political instability plaguing us since the July elections didn’t dissuade attendance, as feared. Conferences take a lot of work to organize and to further complicate things, Cambodians have a lot of expectations. Balancing preferences with a small budget and logistical realities is an art which I prefer to avoid entirely. But when it comes to reflecting on impact and strategies for doing-no-harm, it always makes for a good time. 

How to Visit Diamond Island

Some of Diamond Islands Wonders

I’ve been meaning to write about Diamond Island. It’s a odd Cambodian development projects I’ve felt sporadically compelled to follow because it’s so utterly bizarre to me. It's bizarre because you wouldn't see this in the West, and because the money and motivations behind it feel mysterious and possibly questionable.

China is somewhat famous for its planned cities; entire cities built from scratch on a grid designed to be hyper-modern but end up mostly uninhabited. There same desire for modern planned cities has pervaded the Cambodian elite and provided the seed for Diamond Island. The project is funded by the Cambodian elite with Chinese money.

Diamond Island is built into the Mekong River. It began on silt and is continually being expanded into the river though land reclamation. When I arrived in Cambodia three years, there were large conference halls used for weddings (labeled A-F), and some benches along the four-lane roads. There was a park of Greek-like statues, and some Korean-like fast-food joints. Less than three weeks after I arrived, there was a stampede on a bridge to the island. That bridge was later torn down (to displace the bad spirits) and two new bridges were built to provide more access to the island.

Since then, Diamond Island has expanded. There is a theater, several expo halls, a driving range, a gym, a water park, a “city hall” and two small children's amusement parks. There are significant housing plans; high-end housing for the 3% with subdivision names such as “Elite Town.” Some homes are styled after turn-of-the-century Paris complete with bell towers. More plans are in process; skyscrapers clearly modeled off Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands.

On evenings and weekends, the youth of Phnom Penh come to Diamond Island in full force to drive the wide streets on their motos. This is how you should visit Diamond Island, driving around on a moto in order to be seen while your hair blows in the muggy air. Many of the roads are lined with trees and park benches. These benches are the only place that I know of in Phnom Penh where young couples come to engage in some G-rated physical contact. Families set up picnics on the concrete or in the parking lots and hang out (there’s not much grass in this very Asian development project).

Diamond Island stands out to me because the services available on this premise are completely random; a driving range? Secondly, there is little “Cambodian” about it. The architecture is European or simply concrete blocks. There are no beautiful things based on old things. Also, the money comes from China and it's built by Chinese companies. 

From what I can understand, many Cambodians see this space as a sign of a shiny impending modernity. Even while they will never live in such housing in their lifetimes, even while 80% of the population is rural and poor, Diamond Island is considered beautiful and new. For now, such opulence signals a possible better future.

Will this be a success? If you build it, will they come? Will I return in 10 years to skyscrapers and women in authentic Prada? Or will one bad flood on the Mekong wash this entire project out to sea? Who knows. I wonder if anyone knows. 

How Social Media Changed Elections

A new methods of connectedness emerging.

Perhaps you've heard rumors of how social media is replacing traditional news forums. I'm a serious online news person, I live online, but even for me, the idea of social media as the way of the future seemed ridiculous. Until July 2013.

Cambodia ranks very low on freedom of expression. The government controls most of the Khmer language newspapers and TV stations and tightly restricts publication. When major opposition leader San Rainsy returned from exile, tens of thousands of people flooded the streets blocking major city roads, throwing Phnom Penh into hysteria. Instead of reporting on this massive news story, the news channels played cooking shows and music videos, immune to the reality that the political balance of power was in jeopardy. 

With TV and print locked down, smaller voices must find alternative methods of spreading messages. In the internet age, this is amazingly possible. The Cambodian opposition quickly realized the potential and popularity of Facebook. The ruling party for whatever reason hasn't learned to leverage this tool the same way. Much has been written about the role of Twitter in the Arab Spring. Twitter hasn’t caught on in Cambodia. However, Facebook is by far the most popular website and people use it avidly, particular youth. Major events are shared in real-time; photos, videos, articles and others. 

The elections saw Facebook take off in a shocking way and promoting massive civic engagement. Cambodians were excellent photographing “irregularities” and sharing these images online. Eventually, I learned which feeds to follow and I learned about events and movements that would otherwise have gone unreported. I started logging into Twitter's #electionkh daily to get the scoop. Deliberately searching out news online via social media still feels foreign, but I'm amazed by this possibility. 

Someone pointed out that news from social media isn’t impartial; that it comes unverified with biases. There is merit to this criticism  The internet is full of crazies with uncorroborated stories, like that guy on that website who tells you that that aliens have infiltrated your vacuum cleaner. Formal journalism is vetted and researched for validity, which can’t be said of the guy who posts on Twitter (or even me as a blogger).

However, in a country where the scales are so overwhelmingly tipped in the favor of a single party, you have no option but to collect whatever information possible from whatever sources. You must take government news with a grain of salt. You take social media news with a grain of salt. Somewhere in there, the truth is probably still missing, but at least you know the rumors. 

This post is for Cambodian Elections 2013

Last Sunday, Cambodia went to the polls. National elections only happen once every five years. This one was big. This one is still not resolved.

Cambodia has a King but he is only a figurehead. The real power rests with the Prime Minister. The current prime minster has been in power almost 30 years. He is currently the seventh longest sitting head of state (who is not a monarch). The current Prime Minister has stated he will be Prime Minister until his mid-70s. Currently, he's 60.

Cambodia has been a functionally a one-party system since 1993. This party is known as the Cambodian People's Party or CPP. For a brief time, a royalist party rose to prominence and there was a power-sharing deal, but this lasted for a year before a violent power struggle returned the country to a single-party/leader system. The current party receives heat for human rights and corruption abuses. The opposition parties never succeeded at amassing momentum or providing a strong alternative voice. It's an uphill battle for them to put a few people in parliament.

This election, there was plenty of drama, with both parties suggesting a return to civil war if they didn't win. The opposition parties merged into one single opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, known as the CNRP. The had a rocky start but they were powered forward by the return of the exiled opposition leader San Rainsy. Rainsy is a darling for his vocal speech against the current system. While a conflicted man, he is the face of the opposition. His return just days before the election (he was granted a royal pardon for supposedly politically motivated crimes), propelled thousands of people into the streets and was followed up by energetic rallies and thousands of supporters. It was the most momentum the opposition has seen in it's history.

Formal campaigning may only occur for one month. The month was fever pitch and only grew in intensity. Both parties had supporters out on motos by the hundreds in t-shirts and flags chanting their slogans. There were billboards and stickers over a meter long on cars. The CPP has vastly more resources, renting flat-bed trucks with live music driving around town. They also set up concerts at markets, and decorated their district offices like it was Christmas. The CPP controls most of the media, but the CNRP controlled social media in one of the most fascinating sociological phenomenons of the election.

Last weekend you could taste the passion in the air, sort of like a football match where it could blow at any moment. Thankfully, it did not. People went back to their home provinces and voted, emptying out the city. With one minor situation, the election occurred peacefully.

However, the CNRP did extremely well! They garnered 55 parliamentary seats (up from 22) to the CPP's 68. Now people are worried. Investigations are being demanded. The outcome is uncertain. The lesson seems to be that life isn't fair. We can only wait and see.