Abstract
The paper considers the most tragic period in the history of the Cham minority in Cambodia. Like the Indian culture in Champa, Islam there had to adapt to local conditions that is also demonstrated by the modern Cham communities in the border provinces of Cambodia and Vietnam. A specific feature of the Cham community is that they still retain elements of matrilocal relations. The author proves that the resistance of the Cham (both in Cambodia and Vietnam) has been at least threefold: aspiration to regain state or religious autonomy, escape from the state, discerning mobility within its territory. The Cambodian Cham as a minority of immigrant descent have reinvented their identity on the basis of Islam, while their ethnic identity is at a secondary position. The Cham and Malays (“Khmer Islam” community) are the ethnic and religious minority most affected by the genocide under the Khmer Rouge regime. Today, a majority of Cambodia’s Cham population has felt the urge to belong to the wider Islamic world ever since.
A divided people is a conquered people. (Richard Paul Evans).
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Notes
- 1.
According to the Highest Council for Islamic Religious Affairs in Cambodia, the total Cham population in the country was 510,000 in 2006.
- 2.
Ta Sat, a Khmer Rouge, was in charge of the rubber plantation in Chamkar Andong (Genocide Studies Program. https://gsp.yale.edu/cgp/cbio/y05260).
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Acknowledgments
The reported study was partly based on the materials collected during the author’s scholarship stay at the University of Bonn funded by DAAD (2020).
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Atnashev, V. (2023). The Cham of Cambodia as a Divided People: From Refuge to Genocide. In: Bolgov, R., et al. Proceedings of Topical Issues in International Political Geography. TIPG 2021. Springer Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20620-7_38
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