[Vietnamization] Intellectual arrogance, snobbery -- an unrepentant, unacknowledged factor in the admixture of factors for the continuing Cambodian morass

Seen and heard on Ms. Theary C. Seng's Facebook accounts: 
www.facebook.com/theary.c.seng

www.facebook.com/theary.seng.7 

Cambodians in their own home and re experiences they know firsthand are constantly undermined by Foreign-Know-It-Alls, now mixed in with  Foreign-Do-Gooders, refusing to acknowledge other modes of knowing, that knowing can be had besides the mind. Bizot is a a rare enlightened non-Cambodian experiencing described here what Cambodians experience on a daily basis. 

THE GATE (by Francois Bizot):

I described how the Viets had attacked a bridge before Battambang.

"You mean the Khmer Rouge," said Jean Lacouture. "I don't think there are many North Vietnamese in Cambodia!..."

"I saw only Vietnamese, North Vietnamese."...

"Don't be fooled," he stressed with the tone of the expert. "It's very hard to tell them apart, you know. And the ambiguity is widely exploited."

I swallowed my words. In Lacouture's eyes, I had fallen prey to the official discourse. I took out my pass and handed it to him.

"Here's a safe-conduct pass issued to me on the spot, in Angkor. It's written in Vietnamese, and it's also very useful when moving about in other parts of the country!"

The paper was passed around the table. Lacouture, still showing his scepticism, looked at it without saying anything; and he apparently drew no conclusion from it, as demonstrated by the articles that he continued to write, several months afterwards, without changing his views.