Lecture 2 Cambodia in the 20th Century – 6th February 2014 CKS Phnom Penh: The Civilizing Mission (Health, Education & the Arts) (See articles in Siksācakr on health & George Groslier in particular).
The Civilising Mission: Health, Education and French Colonial Ideology in Cambodia
1. The Civilising Mission
6 February 2014
Health, Education & the Arts
« The White Man’s burden »
of Rudyard Kipling, 1899,
taken as an exhortation to white men
to colonise and rule other nations for
the benefit of their peoples
2. "The White Man's Burden"
Take up the White Man's burden, Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile, to serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.
Originally written for Queen Victoria‟s diamond Jubilee in
1897
Racist or philanthropist ?
The rich (whites) have a moral duty and obligation to help
"the poor" (coloureds) "better" themselves whether the
poor (coloureds) want the help or not.
3. Jules Ferry (1832-1893)
• Promoted both the separation of Church and State
and colonial expansion. Ideology of Third Republic
(1871-1945) in France.
• In between Minister of Education and Minister of
Foreign Affairs.
• PM: 1880-1881 & 1883-1885. A freemason. The
Ferry Laws of 1881 & 1882 that made primary
education free and mandatory (compulsory) and
non-religious (laïque). Assimilation, French values.
4. Ideology of French expansion
• JF to the National Assembly on 28 July 1885:
• « Colonial expansion is due to three main objectives:
economic, civilizing, political and patriotic. […] I must
insist on the second point: the humanitarian and civilizing.
Superior races have a right in regard to inferior races. I say
they have a right for there exists a duty for them too. They
have the duty to civilize inferior races. […] And
nowadays, I maintain that European nations widely
fulfill, with greatness and honesty, this superior civilizing
duty”.
5. Pierre Marie Antoine Pasquier
Governor-General: 22 August 1928 to 15 January 1934
• « …This programme contains no ideology whatever, it is
pratical, social, realistic, completely stamped with that
humane conception of things which is the mark of all that
France does.
• … no other imperialism than the imperialism of the heart;
no other priority than the priority of the spirit.
• paternal power … mutual interest … within the framework
of our civilisation … enduring quality of her presence »
• 15 Oct. 1930, Grand Conseil des Intérêts Economiques &
Financiers de l’Indochine.
• Politique d‟association de Sarraut (1911-1919)
6. Ambiguity
• Equivocation: discourse not clear & contradictory.
Beating round the bush.
• After the extermination of the Jews, “race” has
become taboo.
• How can one both contribute to social, economic
and cultural development and exploit the natural
forces and the labour force of the colonies, for the
benefit of the metropolis?
• John Tully: “France gravely neglected education and health,
thus making a mockery of the mission civilisatrice”
• (p. 227-228)
7. I - Health
• Anne Guillou: Colonial Roots in the Cambodian Health
System : « medical doctors are the most worthy
representatives of the civilising mission”.
• Siksacakr, N . 12-13, p102-115
• Medical paradigm represented by Pasteur in the first decade
of the XXth Century.
• Cambodia, at the periphery of Indochina: the French rely on
Annamites to extend the health system.
• Between 1913 & 1920, Health benefited from 3.89% of
the Cambodian budget, education: 4.13%, & 59% for
personnel salaries.
8. Anne Guillou - 2
• Cambodians are the victims of quacks, say the
authorities. Not quite true: example of Kru Pen &
his leper village of Troeng in Kompong Cham. Kru
Pen treated his patients with krabao oil; this gave
relief and reduced the symptoms, but it was no cure
(cure was only found with antibiotics). Dr Menaut,
a hygiene inspector, discovered the cure had some
efficiency in 1908, but the the French started
laboratory production of krabao oil only in 1924,
and even exported some to Vietnam and other
French colonies.
• 1923 Hanoi School of Medicine: two-tier system; 4
years assistant, auxiliary doctors, & 5 years plus one
in France for doctorate for full doctors. Midwife
school in 1924. Calmette 1959.
9. Health - 3
• When the French arrived, the demographic and sanitary
conditions of the country were quite disastrous. The
population, decimated by wars and by both endemic and
epidemic diseases, was reduced to less than one million.
In the early 1920s, there were still occasional epidemics
of plague, cholera and smallpox. They began to disappear
after 1925 thanks to vaccination campaigns and the
eradication of rats in the towns.
• The most common ailment was malaria. It was endemic
in regions swarming with anopheles mosquitoes. There
the population was very sparse and difficult to reach.
Pregnant women there would often abort which explains
why the population of those outlaying regions remained
stagnant. In 1909, quinine started being distributed by the
State
10. Infant mortality
Infant mortality was very high due to various causes. There
were no public maternities until 1919, only a private one in
Phnom Penh, established 1907 by the philantropic Société de
protection de la natalité indigène; this private institution was
incorporated into the Phnom Penh mixed hospital after
WW1. Before that, infant mortality was primarily reduced
through hygiene training of the „traditional matrons‟
(chhmob) who before would ignore most elementary rules of
hygiene and asepsis. Besides, babies and infants were poorly
protected from diarrhoea, diphtheria, broncho-pneumonia,
etc. …
• That was compensated by a very prolific population and,
from about 1910, the population grew significantly thanks
to a health policy of hygiene and vaccination campaigns –
irrespective of peace, law and order.
11. Health - 5
• French medicine could exist only in Phnom Penh and in the
provincial capitals. The Phnom Penh mixed hospital was built
in 1905 (150 beds, increased to 200 beds in 1927). There was
one hospital and one maternity in the capital and one
ambulance for each province and a small infirmary in each
district, mainly built between 1906 and 1910.
• Widespread vaccination campaigns were launched as early as
1896 for smallpox. In Cochinchina, as early as 1867; there,
smallpox vaccination was made compulsory in 1871 – earlier
than in France. And in 1906, in every province, a mobile
vaccination service was created. From 1915, the entire
population was regularly vaccinated. The number of medical
personnel gradually grew: there were 6 French doctors in
Cambodia in 1908, 15 in 1922 and 16 local health officers.
From 1907, the training of nurses was started in Phnom Penh;
in 1922 they were 122 in Cambodia, 4 of which only were
women
12. Health - 6
• Teaching of hygiene through schools became a priority
of the health authorities fighting epidemics with public
campaigns. Hygiene became a priority in school buildings
too and in school books. Sanitary conditions obviously
improved over the period concerned.
• But did the French do enough in that field ? This is where
historians diverge and John Tully is certainly on the side
of those who would reply a resounding no, while Alain
Forest pointed out that, in spite of significant
progress, there was a gap between intentions and actual
achievements. Health policies were more generous in
words than in reality. This was to be much the same in
education.
13. Conclusion to health under Protectorate
• Jan ovensen & Ing-Britt Trankell,
• Cambodians and their Doctors,
• A medical anthropology of Colonial & Post-Colonial Cambodia,
2010
• “Tully‟s opinion should not be given too much credit in
this instance: The sources he relies on for his assertions
are few and of very dubious quality. Forest got it right.
We conclude that „French efforts to create a public health
system were stunted not only because insufficient
resources were allotted to the task, but also because the
French medical personnel generally lacked a knowledge
of Khmer society that would have allowed them to better
indigenize their programmes and practices. The
programme for education of „native‟ medical personnel
largely failed for the same reasons.”
15. II - Education
• The creation of schools was late and slow in
coming in Cambodia, in particular in comparison to
nearby Cochinchina. There never was in the
kingdom a Confucian tradition of anonymous
competitive examination thanks to which poorer
boys could have access to the mandarinate. It was
also very difficult to persuade parents of the
necessity of sending their children to school;
absenteeism has always been a plague of the
Cambodian educational system.
16. Auguste Pavie (1847-1925)
• The first school of the Protectorate was not created in Phnom
Penh until 1873 that was supposed to train local
administrators and a true interpreters‟ school in 1885. From
1871 to 1879, AP had been appointed at the post &
telegraphic service in Kampot where "went native", mastering
Cambodian, walking bare-foot and sporting a wide-brimmed
hat, as he charted the backlands of Cambodia, recording all
that he found of interest.
• This led him to then become an explorer and diplomat with
the so-called "Missions Pavie" conducted over the 16-year
period 1879-1895 during which Pavie, accompanied by his
assistants, would explore the whole Indochinese Peninsula,
with the colonisation of Laos by 1894 and his being appointed
as the first French Plenipotentiary Minister.
17. Auguste Pavie - 2
• Pavie helped found in 1885 the first Cambodian school to
train local middle administrators nd interpreters in
1885, to become l‟École des kromokar (middle officials) in
1893, the best being able to pursue their studies in Saigon;
then, in 1917, l’École d’Administration Cambodgienne.
• Pavie was involved in the creation of l‟École Coloniale in
1889 in Paris.
• At a time, he was also in charge of students going to
study in France.
• He was also continuously involved in the debate between
those who thought that the education should be in the
vernacular (Khmer) and those who thought French
language was the only path to civilization.
18. Education - 3
• The Alliance française was created in 1883 for both
imperialist and so-called civilizing reasons. It was claimed
that the learning of the language would, “by peaceful
methods, extend overseas the French race”. It would also “initiate
the local population to our civilizing ideas… Our mission is to
bring up these people to adopt our ideas and our customs.”
• By 1902, there were 4 French schools in Cambodia: one
in Phnom Penh, with 250 students, one in Kampot, one
in Prey Veng and one in Takeo. The spread of education
and culture became a major preoccupation of the French
colonizers.
• French administrators were obliged to learn indigenous
languages in 1911 for promotion. Not really
implemented.
19. Grandeur & misery
of the French educational system
• Unfortunately, little was done in actual fact, as only about
4% of the local budget was devoted to education (18% is
today the norm required from donors to the present
Government). In 1903, two more Franco-Cambodian
schools were created in Kompong Cham and Pursat.
From 1905 to 1907, Franco-Cambodian schools are set
up in every circumscription: they were 18 in all in 1907.
By 1921, they included 5,846 students. But children
arrived usually late at those primary schools and not until
the age of 12-14, for the parents sent them first to the
pagodas, as this was the case for Mr. Saloth Sâr.
Absenteeism was common: e.g. at Roka Kaong, in 1918,
17 were regularly present out of 60 enrolled.
20. Colonial schools
• Until the end of King Monivong‟s reign, the main
colonial schools were:
• - a Franco-Khmer Lycée (Lower & Upper Secondary), the
old Sisowath College founded in 1905, at the beginning
of Sisowath‟s reign. It included Upper Secondary only
from 1935 with creation of grade 10.
• an Upper Primary college in Battambang;
• 3 full primary schools in Phnom Penh: Francis Garnier,
Doudart de Lagrée and François Baudouin;
• a technical college in Russey Keo from 1902 (carpentry)
and 1903 (public works). Reticence of the Khmers;
• a Primary Girls‟ School, with a French statute: École
Norodom, founded by King Norodom in 1903;
• a full primary school in each provincial capital;
• an elementary Primary School (3 grades) in each district.
21. Private or Catholic schools
• l’École Miche (on 1st December 1911) (now Norton
University) of the Catholic Mission that was later to
become an upper primary school as well that received
mainly the children of the Vietnamese, plus the sons of
the Cambodian elite who had failed to enter Sisowath,
like Saloth Sâr. By 1922, there were more than 1,000
pupils.
• For girls, the Catholic School was La Providence that was
founded under Monivong‟s reign. In the 1960s, young
Khmers would go to watch the beautiful Vietnamese girls
as they came out after school in their white flowing
uniforms. There were also two private schools for girls
founded one by Princess Sutharot and one by Princess
Malikar – Yukanthor‟s turbulent wife.
22. Slow progress
• On the whole, progress was very slow because of the
stagnation of the Primary cycle that must feed the Secondary
system. In 1911 too, the Higher Primary School of Phnom
Penh became Collège Sisowath and Cambodia had to wait till
1935 when Upper Secondary could be opened at
Sisowath, and only rrade 10 (2e). In Vietnam, the Lycée
Chasseloup-Laubat in Saigon and Albert Sarraut in Hanoi had
existed for a quarter of a century.
• Nov. 1911, a royal kret made education compulsory for boys
from the age of 8.
• It is true that the two Lycées were originally meant for the
children of French civil servants working in Cochinchina and
Tonkin; but in the end young Cochinchinese and Tonkinese
came to be a majority.
23. Tertiary education
• This meant that the Annamites in the North and in the
South could carry on their studies in the Universities and
Grandes Écoles in France and later obtained Bachelor's
degrees, or became engineers, doctors and lawyers… not
forgetting the numerous Vietnamese graduates from the
University of Hanoi that “colonized” the auxiliary cadres
of the French administration in the Indochinese
“backyards” of Cambodia and Laos.
• The children of rich or princely families went directly to
Paris after the Baccalaureate, without having to go to
Hanoi. Almost all the Princes, like Monivong and later
Watchayavong (1891-1972, Prime Minister 194748), Norindeth (1906-1975, founder of the Liberal Party)
or Ritharasi, went to France for higher education.
24. The indigenous educational system:
renovation of the pagoda schools
• Since Angkor days and the general spread of Buddhism in the
14th century, the education of boys in the countryside took
place in the pagodas which explains why most girls were
illiterate.
• Pascale Bezançon, in her Une Colonisation éducatrice: l’expérience
indochinoise(1860-1945), L‟Harmattan, Paris 2002, made a
careful study of the pagoda schools in Cambodia.
• They were first started in 1908 in Kompong Cham province
where François Baudouin was Résident.
• They were established on the following principles:
• Monks who had a sufficient knowledge would be the teachers;
• Special teaching training colleges would be created for monks
• Khmer would be exclusively the language of instruction
• The basis of teaching would be the Cambodian morality, with
writing and arithmetic.
25. Pagoda schools - 2
• Teaching would take place in the afternoons and so
not to upset the routine of the monasteries.
• From 1911, the experience was extended to the
entire territory and then 3,000 pagodas and 50,000
students were involved.
• The Protectorate was aware that such a system was
very economical, but it wished to introduce some
lay teachers as well that would teach the new
subjects coming from the West.
• A 10th November 1911 Kret proclaimed that all
boys, from the age of 8, would go to his local
pagoda and learn the three „Rs” (read, write and
arithmetic).
26. Pagoda schools - 3
• But that first experience failed because the teacher-monks
had not been sufficiently prepared and the intrusion of
lay foreign teachers into the pagodas was deeply resented.
The monks saw the first teaching of French as an assault
against the national language. The experience was
abandoned in the course of 1916, during World War I.
• But thanks to a remarkable French educationalist, Louis
Manipoud (1887-1977), who had become a friend of
Achar Hem Chieu, the experience was successfully revived
in 1924, starting with Kampot province this time.
• His reform of the Kampot pagoda schools was such a
success that, from 1930, it was extended to the entire
territory and then also to Laos and Cochinchina, thanks
also to the strong support and campaigning of Suzanne
Karpélès, the director of the Buddhist Institute
27. Pagoda schools - 4
• The originality of the Kampot experiment was that it was
on the initiative of Manipoud, along with Hem Chieu
(who was a teachers‟ trainer in the province from 1924 to
1930) and not yet official policy.
• The demonstration effect of this model was such that it
became the official policy of the Protectorate. Manipoud
managed to regain the confidence of the monks by
excluding the teaching of the French language; all would
be in Khmer. Monks alone would be in charge and no
foreign lay teacher would interfere – except some French
inspectors who would have to learn Khmer themselves.
Changes would only be gradual and with the assent of
the Chau Athika. The whole experiment was also based
on the training of the confirmed and more educated
monks themselves who would gradually absorb Western
knowledge as well.
28. Pagoda schools - 5
• Manipoud set up training of the monks within the most
renowned pagoda of the province. Teachers were lay Khmers
with a good knowledge of Buddhism. The course would last 9
months in between two vossa or “retreats” during the rainy
season. The first school was at Wat Choeung Kriel, the most
reputed pagoda in Kampot, inaugurated on 3rd March 1924. A
Khmer lay teacher also was named Mam Oun. He was full of
tact and understanding. It was both a demonstration school,
or a model school in which the monks would learn to teach in
the modern way, and a renovated pagoda schools where a
group of lucky students would benefit from the new pilot
system.
• As traditionally, the children would learn traditional precepts
(chbap), reading and writing, and some Pali. On top of that
arithmetic and measurements, but also rules of hygiene and
public health in order to take part in the public health
campaigns and prevent epidemics
29. Pagoda schools - 6
• Teachers knew that the boys had to be taught fairly fast, as
their parents could not afford to send them a long time to
school. Lucien Manipoud pointed out that …
• “the young Cambodian must learn to manage by himself, be able to read
documentation and posters, write out a request and defend himself
against the Annamite that cheats him and the Chinese that swindles
him” Bulletin général de l’Instruction Publique, 1930. When the
Khmers wrote a debt contract they did not know what was
written on it and lost a lot of money in the process.
• The French administration would supply the books and
writing material, together with organizing the training and
inspection of the teacher-monks. About 100 pagodas were
renovated each year and, in 1935, the 500th renovated pagoda
school was inaugurated by King Monivong himself in a small
village, along with Gouverneur Général de l’Indochine in person,
accompanied by the Résident Supérieur and the King‟s special
advisor for education, Louis Manipoud.
30. Pagoda schools - 7
• The number of students was multiplied by 15 in 15
years, being 3,322 in 1931 and 51,991 in 1946. Girls
were excluded until their presence was mentioned in
a few schools in 1935. By 1940, the presence of
girls was confirmed, but after 1946, their presence
was no longer allowed.
• From 1937, the pagoda school system was
integrated into the general school system run by the
Protectorate and students could take the Primary
School Leaving Certificate quite successfully, with a
success rate as good as the pupils from the FrancoKhmer schools who had twice as many hours of
teaching.
35. The Renovation of Angkor
& the Renaissance of the Arts
• Created on 15th December 1898, the École Française
d’Extrême Orient would soon begin its gigantic
conservation and restoration work, in 1907, shortly after
the temples were returned to Cambodia by Siam.
• Over the XXth Century decades – in fact down to 1973
when the Khmer rouge and the Vietminh chased the
EFEO from the archaeological site – the EFEO has
achieved the titanic work first of identifying the
monuments, clearing the vegetation that was engulfing
them, establishing a chronological order through
identifying and deciphering the foundation slabs in old
Khmer of in Sanskrit, and preventing what remained
from collapsing .
36. Angkor – 2
• It was decided to leave only Ta Phrom in its natural state
as the trees had also become an essential element of the
architecture, while contributing to their quick collapse.
Archaeologists were, and still are, faced with an insoluble
dilemma.
• Preservation or conservation consisted first of protecting
from the assaults of the nature, next prop up what was
about to collapse. That was the work of Henri Marchal
(1876-1916-1953-1970). In 37 years, he pioneered the
new technique of “anastylosis” on Banteay Srey and later
Bernard-Philippe Groslier reconstructed Prasat Kravanh
with the same technique. All those arduous and
protracted labours will have an enormous impact, for
better and for worse, on Khmer nationalism.
37. George Groslier (1887-1945)
• He is to me the very embodiment of the greatness
and beauty of the Mission Civilisatrice.
• He is an artist, author, historian, educator, museum
curator and a patriot.
• He created The School of Fine Arts in 1918 and
designed the museum that was inaugurated on
13 April 1920, in the presence of King Sisowath,
François Baudouin and himself, Director of Arts. A
present of France (Danielle Guéret) and named
Musée Albert Sarraut.
38.
39.
40. Siksācakr
• Deux conceptions de l’art en situation coloniale : George
Groslier (1887-1945) & Victor Tardieu (1870-1937)
Caroline Herbelin, Toulouse II (206-218).
• Groslier: “Indigenization” of arts as against
Tardieu‟s ideal of « no servile imitation of ancient
works and meeting the needs of modernity ».
• Éléments pour l’histoire du Musée Albert Sarraut de
PhnomPenh : Gabrielle Abbe, doctorante Paris I
(219-234).
• The saga of a Museum of Angkorean arts.