Patron as Father: A relational paradigm in Cambodia

Title: Patron as Father: A relational paradigm in Cambodia By Robert Oh Abstract After 20 years of mission work by Koreans in Cambodia, a major conflict was observed – Cambodian pastors want Korean missionaries out of their country. My research on the aid dependency issue between Korean missionaries and Cambodians up to that point was redirected to the social, cultural, and relational issues between them. This paper is based on data gathered from social anthropological qualitative case study research on Kampong Som Bible School (KBS) of Cambodia, focusing on the patron-client relationship between Moses, the founder, and KBS church planters. KBS church planters point to three different types of role Moses played, which is reflected in different developmental stages of KBS: Mission House stage (1998-2002), Early KBS stage (2003-2007), and Established KBS stage (2008-2015). This socio-anthropological paper examines the effects of Moses playing the role of ‘patron as father’ (PAF) in its hierarchical yet personal and intimate relationship with KBS church planters. The usage of Korean Banmal, Jondaenmal, and the Korean honorific is observed in the context of Moses’ role of PAF to KBS pastors. This paper suggests that in the case of KBS church planting project, Moses’ role of PAF, a relational paradigm of patron-client dynamic, is more positive than negative and provides a defence for the Western critique of social hierarchical inequality. (210 words) 1. 1 Introduction One interview in 2011 ultimately changed the direction of my research. I am currently a Ph.D. candidate at Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, UK. During the interview, the director of a well-established Bible College in Cambodia, shared that the most difficult problem his Cambodian students, now pastors, face is ‘Korean missionaries’. At one of the pastors’ meetings, they decided to write a formal letter to the Cambodian government to expel Korean missionaries from Cambodia. As a Korean descendant, I was not happy to hear such news. I asked for more specific reasons and requested from the director more detailed information. He then shared how one of his Bible College graduates, ministering at a remote village in Cambodia for more than ten years, had a Korean missionary visiting his church wanting to help out with poor members of the church with a monthly rice distribution. Thinking that the Korean missionary is simply engaging in a mercy ministry, he allowed the rice distribution. But after several months, the Korean missionary built a church next to his church and announced to members that if they wanted to continue to receive the rice distribution, they would have to come to the new church plant. According to my informant, his formal student sat before him and started to weep and reported that most of his church members left to join the Korean missionary’s church. He asked, “Why are Korean missionaries here?” Interview #53, 2011, at Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with KH. This was a turning point in my research. Up to that point, the focus of my research was on the aid dependency issue between Korean missionaries and Cambodians, but, at that moment, I realized that I had to research deeply on the social, cultural, and relational issues between them. Currently, I am engaged in social anthropological qualitative case study research on Kampong Som Bible School (KBS) of Cambodia, focusing on the patron-client relationship between Moses, the founder, and KBS church planters. 1.2 Patron-client relationship Muno suggests the following 5 key characteristics of the Patron-Client relationship in sociology and anthropology (4): 1) dyadic 2) asymmetrical 3) personal and enduring 4) reciprocal 5) voluntary. In this paper, I am focusing on the ‘asymmetrical’ aspect of patron-client relationship, which is a vertical or hierarchical relationship. The Khmer word for patron-client relationship is ‘Neak Tver Kun Doem Bey ToToul Pra-yoach’, which means in a word for word transliteration: Neak (person), Tver (do), Kun (favour), Doem bey (to), ToToul (gain or get), Pra-yoach (benefit). Based on this information and literature review, the following is my working definition of the Patron-Client relationship for Cambodia: The Patron-Client relationship, in both its formal and informal setting, is an arrangement between an individual of higher socio-economic status or some other personal resources (patron) who provide support to an another person of lower status (client) who give assistance or service in return, which is mutually obligatory and beneficial. Some of the most useful sources are: George M. Foster, "The Dyadic Contract in Tzintzuntzan: Patron Client Relationship," American Anthropologist, 65 (1963), 1280-1294; Eric Wolf, "Kinship, Friendship, and Patron Client Relations," in Michael Banton, ed., The Social Anthropology of Complex Societies, Association of Applied Social Anthropology Monograph #4 (London: Tavistock Publications, 1966), 16-17; Honour, Family, and Patronage (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964); John Duncan Powell, "Peasant Society and Clientelist Politics," The American Political Science Review, Vol. 64. No. 2 (June 1970) 412; Alex Weingrod, "Patrons, Patronage, and Political Parties," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 10 (July, 1968), 377-381. Carl Lande, Networks and Groups in Southeast Asia: Some Observation on the Group Theory Politics, University of Kansas (1973). Sok Hach, a Cambodian scholar, defines the patron-client relationship of Cambodia as “a form of hierarchical, social relationships in which no one is considered equal to anyone else. They are all ranked by a combination of variables, including – but not limited to – age, sex, wealth, political position, and religious piety” (2005:3). Sok Hach is the President and the Founder of the Economic Institute of Cambodia (EIC). Since 2003, EIC has been developing research projects and yearly publications. Ledgerwood agrees that there is no equality in social relationships and holds that the Cambodian social hierarchical rankings outside the family, therefore, are invariably determined by age, wealth, political position, religious piety, and sex (2002). Martin argues that in Cambodia questioning of the local authorities has yet to be transformed into reality due to the deeply embedded structure of hierarchy which remains sacrosanct (1994:11). Some may be critical about this form of hierarchical relationships in which no one is considered equal in Cambodia, however, this paper argues that it is not inequality that is the problem but fairness, especially in the patron-client relationship where the patron is playing the role of a father (or patron as father – PAF). 1.3 Three different roles of Moses as Patron father, teacher, and sponsor From 1998 to 2015, KBS transitions through three major stages and thereby the role of Moses changed: First, during its Mission House stage, 1998-2002, where Moses and his wife Grace lived with several Cambodian young people in their flat - in a hierarchical and yet personal relational environment, Moses’ role of PAF was the primary perception by KBS students. Then, during the second stage, ‘Early KBS stage’, 2003-2007, KBS building and dormitory were built and most of the Mission House students were relocated. At this stage, Moses’ role as teacher and pastor stands out. Finally when KBS student body reached more than one hundred, it entered its third stage, ‘Established KBS stage’, 2008-2015. By this time, Moses was seen as a father to some, a teacher to most and a sponsor to KBS graduates engaged in church planting efforts with Moses. Due to the scope and time limitation of this conference, this paper will primarily focus on Moses playing the role of PAF. 1.4 Moses as PAF Eisenstadt states that among the five patron-client relationship features, its fourth feature, which is a patron playing the role of father-surrogates is prominent in Southeast Asia: Fourth, particularly in Buddhist settings, there is ambivalence in attitudes towards authority – an ambivalence to be overcome only if superiors show merit, by being (however strong) benevolent and indulgent father-surrogates. Fifth, the use of religious symbols by patrons as the basis of legitimacy has been more prominent in Indonesia than in the Buddhist or even the Philippine context (1984:122). Eisenstadt’s argument about a patron playing the role of benevolent and indulgent father-surrogates, particularly in Cambodia, is more normal than an exception. Chan also observes that Cambodia, like those all across Southeast Asia, its social relationships are hierarchical in nature - even from the family environment, and “the current system of patron-client relationships in Cambodia is identical to kinship (4).” Moses is aware of such hierarchical personal relationships between him and KBS pastors, as a ‘father’ to ‘children’, since during 2013 interview, Moses himself mentions his role as ‘father’ 15 times. Also, from the interview data, from Mission House stage pastors, Moses being PAF is evident: First, SK All the Cambodians are indicated by acronym in capital, e.g., SK and BT, to protect their identities. describes Moses’ nurturing role as, “We just like children always take the milk from mother,” 2015, Interview #24, Kampong Som, Cambodia; 7 August. referring to Moses’ provision for his ministry as a benevolent father. Second, both BT and LN, a married couple who graduated from KBS, consider Moses and his wife, Grace, as ‘their parents’, and shared a story about how Moses and Grace got involved with their marriage ceremony from the beginning and helped them even more than their own parents. 2015 Interview #4, Kampong Som, Cambodia; 24 July. Third, during Koh Kong pastor’s interview, AM, TK, SM, and IC indicated that Moses was their ‘spiritual father’, and TK explained, “Not only pastor but all the students (from KBS consider) Rev. Moses… as our father.” 2015 Interview #19, Koh Kong pastors; 31 July. In all cases, Moses playing the role of a ‘father’, hierarchically superior and unequal to the role of ‘children’, was not viewed or received negatively. Other missionaries raise issues with some group of mission agencies insisting on ‘equality’ or ‘friendship’ as one of their major guiding principles. CH CH is a Korean missionary working in the OMF organization in Cambodia. His contribution to this study was unique in that he worked with a Western agency and was able to present his view from a Korean working within a Western agency. stated that because he is working in an Asian context, hierarchical relationships are unavoidable. CH felt that the general Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) sentiment of equality or being friends with Cambodians is more idealistic than real, as he argued, “even Cambodians feel more secure in hierarchical relationships by calling missionaries ‘teacher’ instead of ‘friend.’” 2015, Interview #15, Phnom Penh, Cambodia; 28 July. At this stage of Cambodian development, insisting on non-Cambodian values of equality in the social order to Cambodians who are more comfortable with a hierarchical order may create more social problems than solve them. 1.4.1 PAF and Banmal & Jondaenmal The usage of hierarchical levels of speech separates patron from client. George Foster, in his research for the dyadic contract in Tzintzuntzan, Mexico, finds such case in his research in 1963: It is (in Patron Client relationship) Parenthesis is mine. especially apparent in linguistic usage. Compadres of the same status, as is well known, are extremely formal with each other in theory at least dropping the familiar second person singular personal pronoun “tu” in favor of the formal “Usted.” … patron compadres, almost without exception, address their village compadres with the familiar “tu,” so that the relative status of the two partners is never in doubt (1963: 1284). Foster makes the point that compadres (godfathers), although in the same status, patron compadres uses the informal ‘tu’ instead of formal ‘usted’ to village compadres, because they, as clients, are not considered equal to them. Similarly, there are seven speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings, which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal – polite form of speech - whereas the lowest level 7, is banmal. Banmal is informal, neutral politeness, or impolite level of speech used most often between close friends or when addressing younger people, especially a father to his children. During the interview with Moses, I noticed that he used banmal when he was referring to and addressing KBS church planters. He used Korean terms like ‘Jae Nae Dul’ (those guys) or ‘Yeh Neh Dul’ (these guys), which is impolite language and especially if referring to pastors, would be an insult. However, unlike Foster’s observation, Moses’ usage of hierarchical levels of speech is not to separate himself as patron from KBS pastors, but rather because he assumed his role as their ‘father’. It is socially and culturally not acceptable for a Korean father to use jondaenmal to his children or when he is referring about them to his peers. Also, in the Korean language, honorifics are used in direct address, as in Japanese, to differentiate the social hierarchical order. Koreans, when referring or addressing to someone higher in status, honorific endings indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he or she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, pastor or the like. Regarding the Korean usage of honorifics, Harkness states: Korean's elaborate system of deference and demeanor indexicality-sentence endings, honorific suffixes and infixes, various forms of address or avoidance, lexical substitutions, self-lowering first-person indexicals, and so on-formed a powerful linguistic emblem of South Korean society by crystallizing in its various forms the very qualities of normative social relations and the very tenets of normative social differentiation (4). For example, if I am addressing a pastor, who is my friend, I will use ‘Mok Sa’, which is ‘pastor’ in Korean. But when I am addressing a pastor who is older and higher in status, I will use ‘Mok Sa - Nim’, adding honorific ending to indicate his or her superiority. I noticed that Moses used the term ‘Mok Sa’ when he was referring to KBS pastors throughout the interview. However, during a group interview at Kampong Som, he addressed SM as ‘Moksa Nim’, because SM was never part of KBS and he was older. Moses’ usage of hierarchical levels of speech is appropriate and matches his role as PAF toward KBS pastors, and he uses proper honorific suffixes when he is addressing non-KBS member pastors, thereby differentiating and placing him in the higher social hierarchical order. 1.5 Conclusion The conflict between Korean missionaries and Cambodians led me to research the social anthropological concept of the patron-client relationship. In this paper, I argue that hierarchical inequality in patron-client relationship is not necessarily negative as it is observed in relations between Moses and KBS pastors, i.e., ‘patron as father’. The data from interviewing KBS church planters examine the effects of Moses playing the role of PAF in its hierarchical yet personal and intimate relationship with KBS church planters. The proper usage of Korean Banmal, Jondaenmal and honorifics by Moses was observed. I suggest that Moses’ role as father presents a unique paradigm and offers an alternative way of understanding hierarchical inequality – not only as negative but also as a personal and intimate relationship of a ‘father and child’ relationship, which was helpful in KBS church planting. (1993 words). Bibliography Chan, R., & Chheang, V. (2008). Cultural challenges to the decentralization process in Cambodia. Ritsumeikan Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, 24, 1-16. Eisenstadt, S. N., & Roniger, L. (1984). 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