The Choices Men Make

Dear Dean Brand,

As others have said before, Cambodia is both familiar and unfamiliar. More so than anywhere I've been, the people here are simply genuinely polite. I'm sure the choice to smile and laugh (sometimes nervously) can be attributed in part to the mask the poor and the weak don to placate the rich and the strong but unlike with other peoples I've encountered, when the membrane of societally obligated niceties is ruptured I find myself confronted with simply more kindness and warmth - leading me to believe it's really just rather genuine.

I have to admit it is completely disarming and, therefore, unnerving. Normal people aren't nice and welcoming. Normal people are suspicious, cliquish and protect their psyches, their family dinners, and their motos with phobic vigor.

While I like it here, I will much more enjoy this country when someone instructs them in the propriety of social paranoia. I noticed the other day that "24" and "CSI" have been exported here. The developmental road which terminates at a properly atomized modern society begins, as always, with one step. I'm glad to see they've had theirs pushed in front of their feet for them.

Our primer course on the Cambodian "genocide", as it is popularly termed (the quotes are a necessity, I'm afraid, as I'm a member of the defense team for next week's moot court exercise), is almost over. It's been a great course, both as an introduction to the issues surrounding the founding and functioning of Democratic Kampuchea and as an object lesson in understanding these seemingly endless and inevitable incidents of terrible human devolution - I mean, those that happen in other countries and which have been unjustly compared to the heroic nation building in which my clients engaged.

Hey, listen, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs right? As such, Pol Pot and his cohorts are no different than Emeril Legasi: They took all their years of training and learning and endeavored to make something wonderful. Unfortunately they found themselves woefully under-prepared and while their creation languished, they turned to gimmicks and inane and ill-conceived additions to their creation to hopefully obfuscate their missteps. If their omelet then turned unpalatable, it wasn't for a lack of trying.

So I ask you, is Emeril Lagasi a war criminal? Please don't answer that due to the potentially devastating effects it might have on my clients' case.

In any event, and divorced from my role as Defense Counsel, I'm very much looking forward to taking what I've learned and applying it during my upcoming internship with Legal Aid Cambodia, helping further their work with the Extraordinary Chambers and promoting general justice for the many, many, aggrieved here.

I can think of no better way to guard against partisan conflict than the promotion of an integrated and just pluralistic society.

Truly, I can think of no better application of the Law than in the pursuit of that goal.

Yours,

DJC

P.S. Okay yeah, you got me, application of the Law to celebrity drug charges and international debt transactions leads to something nice too - undue and very very enjoyable wealth. As Commander Maddox said while attempting to deprive Commander Data of his status as a living thing (See: Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, Episode 9, "The Measure of a Man"), what about what I want, what about my rights to pursue what I want?

Good Charlotte once sang in their proper deconstruction of American society, "Boys and Girls" - "Girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money."

I'm the product of the self-obsessed first-world (and also, humanity in general). The choice between justice for distant Others and the existence of a lingerie model in the back of my Maybach is, in truth, not entirely an easy one.

I think if we're true, then we must admit that basic human selfishness, if not to destroy it, then at least to engage it knowingly - only that way can it be tempered.

"Dear Dean Brand..."

Dear Dean Brand,

The students from the Cambodian Genocide course have been settling in nicely. Please forgive the tardiness of this letter as between jet-lag, becoming accustomed to life here and school we've been very busy.

We're all very excited to be here and for almost all of us, it is our first time in Cambodia.

I think I can say without a hint of patronizing indulgence that it is really rather refreshing to have a first-hand view of how the other half live. At best it is a sobering reminder of privilege and, at worst, an inevitable sympathy that pains the heart - the entrepreneurial effervescence of a yet destitute population and a leprous man who suffered the, I'm sure, unwilling amputation of his lips and eye-brows serve as good examples.

To paraphrase an ex-colonial subject of Her Majesty, it's "really rather Somerset Maugham, isn't it, that Country? And with every cold beer that goes down I think it becomes more so."

It's true.

No matter how noble our intentions, nor how ameliorative an effect we wish to have; no matter how much we learn of their customs and culture, nor how far we abrogate our self-indulgent instincts; we are and always will be of the privileged set and can but observe from a detached vantage.

Which brings me to the title of this post.

We are, to a person, here with the sincere desire to learn of the recent, tragic, history of Cambodia as an object lesson to inform our future as jurists. However we cannot avoid making certain cultural faux pas as we find the outside limits of our wealth-induced sense of entitlement. A sense which is inescapably tied to our upbringing in the richest country the world has known.

We've created a sort of self-deprecatory joke we say in embarrassment whenever we find ourselves inadvertently being "American" - complaining that HBO shows Superman too often or of the smell of rotten Durian or that the speed our Internet connection is reminiscent of 1996. The joke begins with a pantomimed typing of a letter and the words, "Dear Dean Brand..." followed by a recitation of the offending word or action, recapitulated to highlight the relative absurdity of what's just happened.

It's an exercise in humility, one we thought would be fun to bring to this blog. Since we're here representing the USF community we thought it would be fun to write these posts as letters back to you, specifically, as de-facto, metaphorical patriarch.

We hope you'll enjoy our reports.

Sincerely,

-Jamal, Addie, Ann, Ryan and Paige