Talk:Norodom Sihanouk

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Well, I don't know how it is handled in Cambodia, but in other monarchies kings/queens retain the style "His/Her Majesty" when they abdicate. Gugganij 23:30, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm sure the late Princess Juliana of the Netherlands would dispute that with you. john k 01:22, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I thought the late Queen Juliana retained her titel and her style as well, like the Queen Mum (officially known as HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother). The BBC referred to Juliana as Queen Juliana. Gugganij 19:54, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Juliana and her mother reverted to the style of princess,but normally it has been different (Léopold III of Belgium became "His Majesty King Léopold III" when he ceased to be "His Majesty the King of the Belgians", for example).I think the wider issue here is whether the article should treat the King's announcement of his abdication as having taken legal effect just yet in the absence of legal provision for it to do so.--L.E./12.144.5.2/le@put.com
Thanks for the information. As far as the later point is concerned, I agree. Gugganij 22:15, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

How can you know that Norodom Sihanouk has officially abdicated, there is no official document that I know of stating this... Even his son, Rannaridh has asked his father to reconsider his decision... So as long this is pending (unless Norodom Sihanouk confirms his decision) he is technically the King of Cambodia squash 01:19, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

After previous abdications he reverted to being a Prince so the precedent is set in Cambodia. His successor has been proclaimed by the throne conuncil so the abdication is evidently "legal"AndyL 18:01, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

As for the "Queen Mum" she never abdicated because she was never Queen regnant. Look instead at Edward VIII who ceased being King Edward when he abdicated. AndyL 18:02, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] just two cents

Although I'm not aware of all the subtlties myself, I do know that throughout Cambodian history it has been a fairly common occurance to have more than one king at a time. Sometimes there was a Great King with other kings or sub-king sort of people, close relations usually, to have charge over specific areas. This tradition of a Grand king and lesser king may be similar to what exists now with Sihanouk and Sihamoni. It is certain though that at Sihamoni's blessing and investiture as king he was never actually crowned or enthroned in the traditional Khmer way. NguyenHue 02:20, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)NguyenHue

[edit] Title

His title right now is Samdech Euv (Father King). Though it's not the full, entire, formal version of his title. It's just what people of Cambodia refer to him now. --Dara 02:03, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New Category

Is it possible to create a new category for the Royal Family of Cambodia? There is one for the Monarchs of Cambodia (Category:Cambodian_monarchs), but it is only a list of kings. There are other members of the royal family of Cambodia that have their own entry here but they are aren't or were never kings. It would very convienient if there was a list of all of them on one page. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirik_Matak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norodom_Ranariddh

And I may add future entries for Bopha Devi (Buppha Devi), Queen Norodom Monineath, the late Sisowath Kossamak Nearireath, plus others. So grouping them all in one category may help those that are interested about the royal family of Cambodia. --Dara 02:11, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hello Dara, I crrated some categories for members of the Royal family at Category:Royal_Family_of_Cambodia which consists of:
Category:Cambodian monarchs e.g. Norodom Sihamoni Norodom Sihanouk Norodom Suramarit
Category:Cambodian princes e.g. Sirik Matak Norodom Ranariddh
Category:Cambodian princesses e.g. Bopha Devi
Category:Cambodian queens e.g. Norodom Monineath, Sisowath Kossamak

I see that you which I have a list of all of them on one page, I agree with you. But some people they might not agree and they go and change it. Squash 09:40, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Offsprings...

Can someone put up a list of Norodom Sihanouk's children? There are many, but I don't know exactly how many there are. I just know of Arun Rasmy, Sihamoni, Narindrdarapong (recently deceased), Ranariddh, and Bopha Devi.--Dara 23:00, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] POV issues???

Does anybody else see any POV issues here. I've just read through the entire article. Upon first reading, it seems very skewed towards giving an overly positive view of Sihanouk. For example the last paragraph talks about a "lifetime of fighting for independance for Cambodia". I've done a fair amount of study and concur with many who believe that Sihanouk is a very shrewd politician but overall a very inept leader. It seems he has spent a lifetime fighting to make sure that he gets/keeps power. The article puts a postivie slant on every area of Sihanouk's life and mentions nothing about Sihanouk's many, many failures. --WilliamThweatt 22:53, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Make any changes that you feel are justified, and NPOV. However, let's keep some sense of proportion: the failures of Sihanouk are nothing in comparison with the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. Also, perhpas Sihanouk has "spent a lifetime fighting to make sure that he gets/keeps power", but so have Roosevelt or Churchil in their own countries. Nothing particularly special about it. Finally, most Cambodians remember fondly Sihanouk's regime (at least those old enough to have lived before 1970), a time of relative peace and prosperity compared to what followed after 1970, so his leadership skills must not have been so totally bad after all. I am not a Sihanouk's apologist, but just hopping we avoid the extremes of presenting Sihanouk as either a perfect leader, or a real-evil-not-yet-uncovered. PS: I wrote only the linguistic/etymology part of this article, nothing else. Hardouin 13:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree about the sense of proportion. A politician is, afterall, just a politician no matter what country you look at. I was in no way saying that Sihanouk was "evil", as you put it. I'm just saying this article seems overly positive toward him. I'm sure that after the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, it's easy to look back to the "good-ole-days" when Sihanouk reigned with nostalgia. However, his independent reign lasted from the early '50's to 1970, just over 15 years. While this may have been a time of relative peace and prosperity (key word being "relative"), Sihanouk probably had very little to do with it. He writes in his own memoirs that he was not concerned about affairs of state and spent this time carousing after women and obsessing over his own movie production company, while various factions (Son Ngoc Thanh, the Khmer Rouge, etc) manuevered to overthrow him. At best it can be said that Sihanouk was coasting on the foundations and bureaucracy that the French laid down and it was inevitable that he would run them into the ground and loose his country. Since 1970, he continues to constantly switch allegiances to which ever side will allow him to keep a public face. As I said earlier, a very shrewd politician, but overall, an inept leader. Some good sources are his own memoirs, David Chandler's A History of Cambodia and Milton Osborne's Sihanouk.--WilliamThweatt 23:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
It wasn't just since 1970 that he switched allegiances. He has done that during his entire public life. During the "good-ole-days" he would tack back and forth between left and right politicians at home...and the communists and non-communist blocks overseas. He preserved his own position by playing everyone inside and outside cambodia off against each other. The guy is a master manipulator and his memoirs should not be trusted at face value. His political "system" could only last as long as he could balance the left against the right. As to "peace and prosperity", it was never what it seemed. Many people's impression of the country was based on what they saw (the capital) rather than the country as a whole. 205.188.116.199 06:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] citations for material removed as "unsourced nonsense"

These are citations for a number of recent edits that whose accuracy was questioned and which were removed from the page. I'm giving citations from Philip Short's "Pol Pot: anatomy of a nightmare". The source is well-regarded, widely available and has extensive footnotes.

  • For an account of Pol Pot sending Sihanouk to the UN in during the Vietnamese invasion, See (Short p. 396, 402-404).
  • For an account of Pol Pot's attempt to seek political asylum in the US, his rejection by the US, France/etc and the eventual deal struck where China took him, See (Short. p. 403)
  • Hun Sen's being an ex-Khmer Rouge official is well-known.
  • For an account of Sihanouk's resignation in 1976, see (Short p. 334)
  • For an account of Sihanouk's lifestyle in Cambodia during the rule of the Khmer Rouge (air conditioning, his deserts) see (Short p. 335)

205.188.116.199 06:16, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I very strongly object to the use of Short as the sole source for the accounts of Sihanouk's resignation. Short is far from "well-regarded" and his "extensive footnotes" are primarily interviews with former Khmer Rouge officials. Short barely has a working knowledge of spoken Khmer and doesn't even read Khmer. His book is seen by most as one-sided and contrary to history. Here's an extract of a review by Yale University:

  • "Short is unable to read Khmer and keeps a distance from Cambodian victims. From his faulty pronunciation advice to his reliance on Khmer Rouge sources, Short's use of evidence at a remove does not stand up to scrutiny. There are too many factual errors to list, but more often he ignores existing documentation to privilege the unprovable." (see whole review here)

I reverted to the historically accepted version and included Short's "version" as an alternative account in a separate paragraph. I am tempted to remove all material taken from Short, as it is not reliable, but I will wait and see what others may think.--WilliamThweatt 15:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with you on several points.
  • First, the book has been very positively reviewed by others. For example, David Chandler who is at least as credible as Ben Kiernan and had his review published by a much more mainstream publication. [1]. David Chandler has the following to say about Short's sources and footnotes: "Mr. Short has made excellent use, for example, of Vietnamese, Chinese and French archives that were largely inaccessible to me. He has also profited from the newfound volubility of many former Khmer Rouge cadres who, since the demise of the movement in the late 1990s, have become eager to talk about their part in it - perhaps to sidestep their culpability for its horrors."
  • You have wrongly attributed the Kiernan review to Yale University. It is no such thing. The author is a professor at Yale and has used a website at Yale, but that review is from the Times Higher Education Supplement. The obscurity of his platform says itself something about the review. Kiernan is a very controversal figure based on his actions in the 1970s and the political viewpoint he brings to all his work. His most solid objections to Short are (unfortunately) related to the historical dispuates between the Vietnamese Communist Party and the Khmer Rouge. The flaws that Ben Kiernan lists are all to do with promoting the idea that Vietnam was always the friend of Cambodia and that the Cambodians involved in the Viet Minh in the 1950s were independent of Vietnam. Ben Kiernan's review is so obviously political and so obviously wrong in its thin case against Short that I find it difficult to take seriously. I further personally find Mr. Kiernan to be a utterly disgusting individual based on what he wrote and did in the 1970s with regard to Cambodia. He is an opportunist of the first order who suddenly changed his mind when it was far too late and then made a career for himself attacking what he had previously supported. In that regard, he shares much in common with Sihanouk.

To give an idea of what Mr. Keirnan is about, this is a quote from him in 1979. "(explaining why he was wrong) The brutal authoritarian trend within the revolutionary movement after 1973 was not simply a grass-roots reaction, and expression of popular outrage at the killing and destruction of the countryside by U.S. bombs, although that helped it along decisively. There can be no doubting that the evidence also points clearly to a systematic use of violence against the population by that chauvinist section of the revolutionary movement that was led by Pol Pot. In my opinion this violence was employed in the service of a nationalist revivalism that had little concern for the living conditions of the Khmer people, or the humanitarian socialist ideals that had inspired the broader Kampuchian Revolutionary movement." He was a supporter of the Khmer Rouge, an apologist for Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia and I don't find his criticism credible considering he makes broad claims about Short and then backs none of them up.

  • Can you produce a less controverisal/political source that Keirnan that denounces the book. Given Chandler's presence on the other side, your contention that the book is "seen by most" doesn't seem to hold up at all.
  • You seem to have an objection to the mention of Hun Sen's membership in the Khmer Rouge. Please elaborate on why you refuse to allow it to be mentioned on the page.
  • Please present your sources for your account of his 1976 resignation. What specifically is the source for the claim that he was forced to resign.
  • Please present sources that explain why Short's account of events in New York in 1976 was wrong or inaccurate or even offer an alternative view of what happened.
  • Please present an explaination or a source to explain why Short's description of Sihanouk's lifestyle in Cambodia which comes from the works of Sihanouk himself is wrong or inaccurate.

168.127.0.51 19:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, Ben Kiernan is probably the most respected figure in European/North American academia who works on Cambodia.
That the descriptions of Sihanouk's lifestyle in Cambodia originate with himself are reason enough to doubt their historical accuracy.
Oh, and by the way, the Times Higher Educational Supplement is anything but obscure. The THES "is essential reading for academics and researchers in tertiary, higher and post- graduate education. It reports on and debates the latest developments in the international academic community. Every week the THES’s international news features and opinion pages report and analyse everything from academic research and training to government policy, information technology and industry links. The letters pages provide a further platform for open discussion. There are up to twelve pages of book reviews, focusing on a different subject area each week."
It is home to significant book reviews on academic works, and where controversial topics are thrashed out between academics. It is an honour for an academic to have their book review published in the THES. Cripipper 21:54, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Ben Kiernan is a controversial figure because of his vocal support for the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Even after they fell, he continued to claim that humanitarian socialist goals had inspired the broader Khmer Rouge movement. As a controverial figure with a strong political view. Using him as the sole source to discredit and denounce Philip Short's work is not acceptable.
Your "logic" that we should distrust Sihanouk's own account of how he lived under the Khmer Rouge is beyond sense. A man who writes, while his country is starving about shortages of Rum for his deserts should be taken at face value.
As far as book reviews go, the THES is a backwater. The purpose of the THES isn't hostile book reviews or debates about the history of Southeast Asia. Ben Kiernan's "review" is sloppy, makes sweeping claims he doesn't offer any support for and would not be accepted for publication in many other places.
But back to the main point, David Chandler who is a published historian of at least equal weight to Kiernan wrote a very positive review of the book. So the claim that Kiernan in his review is speaking for all historians or even most historians cannot be maintained. 205.188.116.199 01:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'm back from a short Wikibreak and I see the conversation has carried on nicely. First of all, I've never said anything about Hun Sen, it is well known that he was Khmer Rouge. Likewise, I'm not too concerned about Sihanouk's lifestyle. Knowing his proclivaties, there's no doubt he tried to lead as lavish and careless a personal lifestyle that he possibly could. However, I'd like to redirect the discussion to my main point. While I have read all of Chandler's books and deeply respect his work, he isn't infalible, and his praise of Short is misplaced, or at best, better condisered in light of Short's main topic, Pol Pot. I will admit that Short's book is well-researched (though one-sidedly so) regarding Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (and, where praised by others, it's just for the depth of interviews with former Khmer Rouge...his conclusions are controversial and rejected by most). My objections are not with his content is this area. My main objection is with using Short as source for Sihanouk as Sihanouk's life was neither the topic of his book nor his research. Expecially suspicious are his accounts of Sihanouk's "resignation" and the "deal" between China and the US. Anybody who believes that, under the Khmer Rouge regime, Sihanouk was in a posistion to voluntarily resign (or do just about anything else for that matter) is just ignoring the facts. Likewise, Sihanouk had always had good relations with Bejing, it didn't require a deal with the US to allow him to remain there. Sihanouk had courted Bejing's favor since probably the early 60s (if not earlier) to counter Soviet influence in Vietnam. And here are just a few of the other that gave this book a negative review:
  • Nayan Chanda - Washington Post
  • Warren I. Cohen - Los Angeles Times
  • Scott McLemee - Chicago Tribune
  • Elizabeth Becker - Boston Globe
I could list many, many more if these aren't enough for you. If these specific events transpired the way Short claims, you should be able to provide other sources, especially ones directly related to the topic (Sihanouk), especially considering the amount of books that have been written about him.--WilliamThweatt 20:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Silly details

"Sihanouk continued to live in luxury in Cambodia after he resigned. He was provided with an air-conditioned residence and complained in his memoirs from the period about running low on rum for his bananes flambles desert." That second sentence adds nothing to the article, and actually sounds a bit silly. So his luxury residence was air-conditioned - so what? He ran out of rum for desert - come on.... this is an encyclopedia. Silly details like this have no part in a biographical article. Patiwat 01:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

though Wikifans want very much for this to be an encyclopedia... your point suggests that in fact it is something other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.79.62.19 (talk) 06:59, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Political Views?

I am wondering about his political position. Seems to alternate between pro and anti-left (China?). He gets first installed, then deposed by the Khmer Rouge, and, after being re-installed as king in 1993, seeks medical treatment in Beijing and takes up residence in Pyongyang. Both China and North Korea didn't strike me as very monarchy-supporting, generally speaking. Maybe someone could elaborate on his (many?) political positions over time? -- megA (talk) 19:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)