So generally the idea of missionaries makes me feel very uncomfortable. The religion and converting dosen’t appeal, and the style of coming to a poor country, being able to provide resources, skills, and knowledge to people, with a side of Jesus, has been something that I found a bit uncool. I feel like people in those situations don’t necessarily have a choice, and I feel like culture and religion are here in abundance, and replacing it with Christianity is disrespectful of the culture that already exists.
Recently though I’v realised though that perhaps I am not so
different.
I have come to Cambodia with skills and resources acquired
through the luck of being born somewhere with a good education system and good
infrastructure. And I too have an agenda. In the last few months I’v slowly
realised that I believe in challenging and changing parts of Khmer culture. It
was a weird realisation for me because I find the connotations of colonialism,
imperialism and general white person ignorant doo-goodering difficult to deal
with, but I do think there is a link between aspects of Khmer culture and
inequality, abuse and poor treatment of women and queers. And that shit is not
ok. I’m not saying that in the west we don’t have these problems, but we don’t
have them in the same way, and we don’t have some of the problems that exist
here. And I think it’s due at least in part to long held beliefs that men are
like gold and can be washed clean of 'sin' but women are like cloth, and their
misdemeanours will show on them forever.
The double standards for men and women are intense, and can
easily ruin a woman or young girl life. Cambodia is also a country struggling
to get back on it’s feet after a war that has left legacies everywhere, from
the landmines that have left many amputee’s, and are still injuring people
today, to the lack of infrastructure, the rife corruption and of course poverty.
While I want to respect Khmer culture, learn the language
and about some of the customs and the things that are important to my friends
and colleagues here, I also want to challenge the parts of the culture that I
think can harm people, especially young women and queers.
