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The Essence of Laos
Gens du Laos -Lao People, L A 0 S, is a unique and striking new book about Laos written by Rene Sepul with photographs by Cici Olsson. The preface is by Somsanouk Mixay.
Preface
Many journalists who write about Laos often insist on the negative, with a bias that sometimes dishonesty. We, the Lao people, certainly do not want the world to took at us through rose-colored glasses. This too would be dishonest. What we want is simply to be given due credit for the efforts we have made to lead our country toward peace and prosperity - not an easy task after thirty years of war, adverse internationalconditions, and in a country where the natural environment is often hostile. It is possible to strike a happy balance between miserable sensationalism and the idyllic postcard - a balance that every journalist has a responsibility to strike for the sake of self respect and the respect of the reader.
Among the books recently published on Laos, one book stands out as having achieved this balance. "Lao People" is an honest portrayal of life in the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Readers should not expect to find in this book all the answers about a country that has only recently opened itself to the world's curiosity. Instead, Rene Sepul allows ordinary people he has met tell their own stories. These are people who speak simply about their everyday life that finally reflect the country's problems. Concurrently the author invokes some of the problems and joys of living in a country that is engaged in an immense renovation effort.
Cici Olsson's photographs, in stark and rigorous black and white, reflect the highlight of these stories. In their unaffected beauty, they bring people and their landscapes into immediate view. They are images that are not easily forgotten. Lao People- is an important book. It will inspire the reader to come to Laos to meet the people whose kindness and hospitality is renowned, and to discover a country whose hidden treasures only reveal themselves to those who deserve it.
Prologue
South East Asia is in fashion. The distant Orient, that in the past fascinated writers, explorers or adventurers, is once again a hot destination. For the past three winters, the cruises up and down the coasts, between Singapore and Hong Kong, have been constantly sold out. The most beautiful cruise is supposedly on board 'Pearl" a luxurious steamship, that crosses the South China Sea, stopping in the most marvelous places. The charter flight destinations are so diverse that it is difficult to choose between them; the imperial charms of Hue, the Tet celebrations in Cholon, the sunny beaches of Phuket or the nostalgia of Saigon.
However, the heart of the Indochinese peninsula - Laos - is still a sparsely visited country. This goes back to the days when the coasts of Asia were visited by sailors and merchants from all over the world, while the banks of the Mekong remained unexplored by Westerners. Not until the end of the 16th century did the first European reach Vientiane, the present capital of Laos. Lane Xang, the Kingdom of a Million Elephants, as it was called at the time, was then a huge kingdom, its frontiers stretching far beyond those of contemporary Laos.
The ancient history of the kingdom unfolds against a background of jungles studded with golden cities and Florentine disputes. Situated on the geostrategic axis of the lower Mekong and lacking direct contact with the sea, Laos is a country where the interests of its neighbors China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Burma - now Myanmar - often have collided rather than met.
The explorer and naturalist Henry Mouhot is supposed to have been the first Frenchman to reach Luang Prabang, when in 1861 he travelled up the Mekong to the former royal capital on a mission for the British museum. A few years later, Francis Garnier, an officer from the French Navy, also sailed up the river, known as 'the Mother of Waters' to the Lao. He had more political motives however, being in the service of Napoleon III, hoping to find a new route to China to counter the ambitious Britons, who had already settled in India and Burma. At the end of the 19th century, the two European powers agreed on their orders. They chose the Mekong and its tributaries to separate Laos from Thailand and Burma. Diminished by a third of its original territory, Laos became the most forgotten province of French Indochina for several decades.
On the 23rd of August 1975, a couple of months after the fall of Saigon, Vientiane quietly succumbed to the Pathet Lao (Land of the Lao), the Patriotic and Revolutionary Organization. On the 2nd of December the same year, the proclamation of the Republic put a definite end to the 1200 year old monarchy. Thus Laos victoriously ended thirty years of war and resistance against the Japanese, the French and the Americans.
At this moment Laos closed its borders to the indiscreet Westerners and turned to the Soviet Union, East Europe and Vietnam, its closest ally since the beginning of the wars in Indochina. Very few want to talk about the following years, when the only alternatives for the opponents to the Pathet Lao politics were either re-education camps or exile. Many people left, for political reasons or because of general unawareness of the real situation, others still, according to those who stayed in the country, left for no particular reason at all, just following the herd.
It was a great victory but it was followed by hard times. The fighting had made Laos a free country but the wars succeeding half a century of colonial dependence, had also ruined the country. In 1979, two years after the opening of China, Laos' second president, Kaysone Phomvihane, realized that if he wanted to help his country out of its financial backwardness he had to change the line of action adopted by the revolutionary forces when they came to power. He started by liberating the prices on rice and other basic essentials. This action was followed by others, such as a decrease in interest rates, eased restrictions on trade, privatization of several public enterprises and the removal of the hammer and sickle from the national flag. A considerable process of socio-economic change was set in motion. On the international level Laos broke its economic and political isolation by announcing that it no longer considered its neighbors as enemies or brothers but simply as possible partners.
The first laws regarding foreign investment were effected at the end of the 80s. They were followed by the approbation of the first constitution in 1991. This shows the present regime's ambition to become a state of law.
Gens du Laos - Lao People, L A 0 S.
136 black and white pages is available at The Raintree, in Vientiane, as well as most bookstores in Bangkok.