Hundreds maybe thousands of people on their motorbikes. What looks at first view like a protest against the global anti environmental pollution or the hazardous driving conditions in Siem Reap, is an important political movement, affecting the whole country since the farce of an election last year. Dressed mostly in white tops, white caps, with the brand of the liberal SRP, the only mentionable and growing opposition to Hun Sen and his dictatorship. “Hun Sen crazy man, Rainsy very good!”
Stand up for your rights! Jump on your motorbikes! – Cambodian style. Honking. Yelling. Raising their fists. Swinging flags. Smiling, laughing, in anger. And they have all reasons for. And, filming! A protest for better communication system? Nearly no press, who needs a press if you have hundreds of clips, will be posted on facebook. I am walking beside. Back home I would be a suspect, undercover cop or secret service. Especially with my camera. People invite me to jump on their bikes, Tuk Tuks. Serving me bottles of water. Showing, thumbs up, telling me they appreciate my company. I feel immediately 15 years younger, back in the old days, not the best ones, but important ones. With an huge differnce, I am not lokking for riots here, well never did actually, just pretended. So in a way I always walked beside. The minus-background-lost-guy, told you. This is maybe the first protest I share with my heart. Maybe. I don´t know that much about the Sam-Rainsy-Party, but it can´t get worst than it was in the last decades in Cambodia. Well, yeah, drop the bomb, free the poor, the abused, the kidnapped, the spirits! And I never have seen so much peace in their fierce expressions. The pickup on which Sam Rainsy standing on, with his maybe political mates, I am not sure, I am not a fucking journalist ok! So, the car is protected by a bunch of bodyguards. I am sure they are, but their appearance didn´t bar me from jumping in front of the car to take a picture. Do this in Germany, even if it´s just Guido Westerwelle or another dildo. – “Who is this motherfucker satanist, shoot him!”
After a couple of crossings, roundabouts – literally just one, but in my head, in my dehydrating head! – and stretching roads, we, I mean the protest reaches its end. A narrow road to Preah Ang Chek, a temple next to the Royal Independence Garden, Sam Rainsy, surrounded suddenly by journalists – or other creatures, shooting mad with their iPads, pays his visit, praying, leaving, jumping back on the pickup for the final speech. And I ask myself, where are all the bikers? They left. No tents? No free beer? No riots? Maybe around 50 people stayed. Even though the speech doesn´t seem pretty bad at all, fierce, raising fists, cries and other vocal ejaculations. I applauded as well, for whatever reason. Maybe he is telling the same phrases again and again, like politician always do, they have to, it´s kind of branding their vision of a better world. In Cambodia don´t have to dig that deep, just food and shelter, this is more the majority of the population has. Sam Rainsy leaves, he doesn´t bore his partisans with a who-is-the-last-standing-man competition. So I am leaving. People waving me goodbyes. I am touched. I feel the duty to spread his words, the words of the people of Cambodia, not the suckers, in particular after what happened in the last week.
In memory to journalism.
