6th February: The Civilizing Mission, Dr. Henri Locard

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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

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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).

Transcript of 6th February: The Civilizing Mission, Dr. Henri Locard

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The Civilising Mission6 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

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"The White Man's Burden"

Take up the White Man's burden, Send forth the best ye breedGo 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 1897Racist 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.

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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.

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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”.

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Pierre Marie Antoine PasquierGovernor-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)

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.”

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Ang Duong Hospital

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 1947-48), Norindeth (1906-1975, founder of the Liberal Party) or Ritharasi, went to France for higher education.

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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.

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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).

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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 Franco-Khmer schools who had twice as many hours of teaching.

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A few significant statistics: Timetable in1922

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% of budget for education

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Indochinese students in France

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Girls in pagoda schools

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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 .

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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.

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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.

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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.