Chao Anou - Hero

Looking across the Mekong towards Eastern Thailand, a giant statue of King Anouvong stands with one hand on his sword and other pointing across the river. Perhaps it’s a welcoming handshake but it looks like he is about to karate chop a block of concrete. Most Lao people I have asked think he is saying “that's mine, give it back”.

This guy is revered. He was the last king ever of Vientiane and he fought for Laos independence from the Siamese. He lost but that doesn’t seem an issue.

  

Hundreds of Laos pay homage to Chao Anou each day, placing flowers and incense at his feet, having their picture taken with the imposing pointing figure in the background. Groups of Chinese, Koreans and Europeans also visit each evening, listening to tour guides’ spiels before they are let loose on the night market.

Meeting at the statue a few times a week before running along the riverbank, we often step around buckets of lotus flowers and tour groups. Sometimes runners give him a quick bow without breaking stride, walkers stop for a quick bout of reverence and many fast food stalls turn a decent profit from his visitors and fans. There’s even a bloke selling little wire bicycles nearby.

What I find interesting is how a king is so commemorated in a communist country: a king who lost a war and then his life to the Thais. Where are the enormous statues of communist heroes or victorious workers fighting imperialist capitalism? In public places like the Mekong Riverfront, there’s not a Mao or Lenin bust in sight. 

Chao Anou (1767–1829) lived when Captain Cook was planting British flags on Australian soil, Jane Austen was writing romance fiction and Claude Monet was painting waterlilies. Not that Anou would have known or cared much about such things- there were rather more pressing issues to deal with.

The Siamese, not content to just war with Burma, were once again subduing those pesky Laos, forcing them to be soldiers or slaves and kidnapping princes and pretty girls. Great swathes of what was once Lao land was controlled by the Siamese. Kidnapped and taken to live in Bangkok at age 11, Anou lived in King Rama I’s court as an important yet captive royal.  Probably docile and obedient, a young Anou supported Siamese battles and was granted a governorship until Rama I planted him on the Vientiane throne, still under Siamese rule.

Having experienced the attitude of the Siamese against the Laos and seen his people treated harshly, Anou lost faith in Siamese dominance and started gathering troops. His various efforts for independence, including getting Vietnamese troops onside, ultimately failed. The Siamese king, by now it was Rama III, was pretty pissed off with Anou changing teams so after taking back control, ordered Vientiane to be destroyed. Chao Anouvong himself was captured and put in an iron cage in Bangkok until his death a year later.

Wat Sisaket, the temple Anou called his own, was spared (which is why it is the oldest temple in town today). The separation of north-eastern Thailand from Lao was confirmed and relations between these two nations of Tai people deteriorated further.

While the Thais have erected statues and built schools in the name of generals who conquered Lao land and Lao kings during this particular Laotian War, the modern communist Lao government has named streets, and parklands after this king who failed. In 2010 the government built the big statue, promoting the last king of Vientiane into a nationalist hero who fought bravely for independence from foreign control and imperialism.  

Sound familiar?

Ahhh, so now we have a symbol of the ethos of the Lao Democratic People’s Party without having to venerate Mao or Lenin or Marx or some other foreign commoner communist. The Lao people have someone of their own who bravely fought – like the various Lao rebels did over the subsequent century and a half (against the Thais, the French and the Americans) – for the right to self rule. Chao Anouvong is now a strong, peaceful-yet-armed-and-ready hero of the people.

I get it. Good call.