Thien-Huong T. Ninh
Williams College
This presentation examines popular devotion to Our Lady of the Mekong River predominantly among Khmer Buddhists and ethnic Vietnamese Catholics. At the pilgrimage center in Phnom Penh, on the opposite side of the Mekong River directly facing the Royal Palace and newly-built high-rises, Our Lady of the Mekong River is represented by two oxidized cast-iron gray statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary. These statues were dumped into the river by Khmer Rouge soldiers during the Pol Pot regime (1975-1978). One statue was lifted from the river in 2008, followed by the second one in 2012. In her grayish, oxidized form, Our Lady of the Mekong River blurs the stark division between white European-looking representations of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Catholicism and local goddesses in Cambodian popular devotion. She is not simply the mother of Jesus and his followers, but also a figure for anyone who seeks her blessings. I argue that it is precisely through this ethno-religious co-existence mediated through Our Lady of the Mekong River that Khmer Buddhists and ethnic Vietnamese Catholics are healing a long history of inter-group animosities. This co-existence challenges the Catholic Church's Khmerization program by asserting that the presence, rather than erasure, of ethnic Vietnamese is a key element to its return to Cambodia.
(Presented in the 2013 Chulalongkorn Asian Heritage Forum: The Emergence and Heritage of Asian Women Intellectuals, 10-11 September 2013, Imperial Queen’s Park Hotel, Bangkok, organized by Institute of Thai Studies, Institute of Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts and Indian Studies Center, Chulalongkorn University)