Ode to Search Terms

*Heads up: this post isn’t appropriate for everyone, it’s got dirty words in it. You’ve been warned.

**Moreover, trigger warning.

Many bloggers get their readers through links from other blogs; some even advertise their blogs. And a whole lot get readers from search engines who are looking for something and stumble onto blogs quite by accident. Below are some things people have apparently searched for (or should I say googled, since that’s my biggest referring search engine), and found me…haha. The irony. [Note: I've kept the original search terms exactly the same-- spelling and all.]

Beauty is only…

Today after my class, I ran into one of our Vietnamese students as she was waiting for the elevator. She had on an Angkor Wat shirt, and I remarked on it. “I visited Cambodia. Have you been there?” she asked. “I live there!” I said. She laughed. I explained that I really did live there. She looked genuinely confused. “But…Cambodia is black,” was her reply, pointing to her skin. “We are white.” As usual, I just nodded, smiled, and said have a nice day.

I get it. I’m white. This sort of thing shouldn’t bother me. But after two years in the ‘bodes, I’ve had about all I can handle of black-white-absolutely-no-grey-area. If it wasn’t so loaded in sociopolitical and cultural meaning, I might feel differently (well, probably not), but it is.

White is beautiful, noble, eligible, marriageable, intelligent. Black is detestable, uneducated, unattractive, pitiable, lascivious.

Colour is also largely femininized. A man may become more desirable the lighter he is, but he will never decrease in value if he is darker. For a Cambodian woman, her skin tone lies somewhere on a spectrum of (both implicit and explicit) value.

Hence why my host sister uses products like this, and why cosmetics companies make a killing from various skin whitening creams, soaps, deodorants, makeups, etc.

And pun intended, when I say “make a killing”. Many of these creams and soaps use powerful but poisonous whitening agents– sometimes even mercury. People have asked, Is it worth jeopardizing your life to be “beautiful?” Hard to say, as most people are largely unaware of the potential dangers, and the Cambodian government does nothing to educate the public. Of course, this is part of a wider obsession in Asia and SE Asia with skin lightening. On the whole, Cambodian mainstream culture supports discrimination against “darker” skin while praising “lighter” skin.

As frustrating as it is for me, the [white] observer on the outside looking in, you really can’t help but empathize with Cambodians: their conception of physical beauty is often shaped by powerful external forces that cement age-old appreciations for certain phenotypic features. Cambodia’s major idol at the moment is South Korea (a manifold obsession, really), and eats up its pop bands and soap operas with their light-skinned stars. Cambodian awe of blonde hair (hair bleaching is IN, for the moment) and lighter-coloured eyes appears to be a long-standing relic of colonialism and “Western” influence in general. (It is interesting to note, though, that young Cambodian boys and girls alike seek to imitate big, shiny Korean and Japanese eyes– particularly in anime/manga fashion– by wearing black contact lenses. My students occasionally freak me out when they show up to class wearing them and I’m not expecting it; reminds me of the black, oily virus from the X-Files, frankly.)

I am of the opinion that Rock and Roll could save Cambodia… And kill cookie-cutter K-Pop bands like 2am. O_o  Only sorta kidding.

I’m not gonna lie: I am quite surprised by how light-skinned most HCMC dwellers seem to be. Women here, even moreso than they do in Phnom Penh, go to extraordinary lengths to cover every inch of their skin when they go outdoors. And yet I detect a similar trend to Cambodia: thus far, whenever skin has been mentioned, the people having the conversation were almost exclusively female.

This is not to say that men go unaffected by this beauty standard. While it doesn’t have nearly the same impact on their everyday lives as it does for women, it certainly impacts the major bullet points of the human social existence: from getting a job (all Cambodian resumes must include a photograph) to being accepted to university to getting married, men also experience discrimination or praise on their skin colour. In wedding photography, the groom is photoshopped to be lighter-skinned, just as the bride is. A lighter-skinned man is more likely to get a job or be promoted over a dark-skinned man (my school is a testament to this form of discrimination). A dark-skinned man, however, will always still be able to get married, whereas a woman’s intrinsic value as a token of status decreases with the darkness of her skin. It is something to make good fun of if a woman has a dark-skinned husband, but it is embarrassing and goes unremarked-upon if a man marries a woman with darker skin than him.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that such superficial phenomena can maintain so much power over society and the individual in Cambodia, but one need only look around to find equally superficial (and equally powerful) examples in American society…or any society, for that matter. All hail the power of sociocultural hierarchy.

The Greatest Games

I am a hopeless Romantic, and as such I love the Olympics. I could care less who gets the gold, which countries cart off the most medals and all that jazz. As I watched the Opening Ceremony, I was reminded that the true value (and true Romanticism) of the Olympics/Paralympics lies elsewhere: thousands of athletes from all over the world and from all walks of life coming together for, well, games. Being a good sport is more important than winning or trampling others for glory, in spite of the competitive nature of the Games. And countries who are “in real life” at war with each other might send athletes who compete peaceably with each other: so terribly romantic!

From the cover of Vogue Magazine.

These Games in London are especially exciting for a number of reasons. This will be the first time that women have the chance to compete in boxing, and they are predicted to steal the limelight. Women have been boxing for a seriously long time now, but only recently have people started taking it seriously. And they should, ’cause boxers like Marlen Esparza are seriously good! (She’s on the American team, by the way.) She was recently featured on the cover of Vogue– simultaneously powerful and sexualized, because of course we can’t fathom a female athlete of any sport wearing anything but a dress, yeah? >_< Cool photography, but seriously…the Queen’s shoes must always match her dress? Scoff if you must, but the sexualization of women has a powerful impact on female athletes– it might make or break their career, even for the best of the best. Take female weightlifters, who find it nearly impossible to find sponsors because they “can’t” be feature in a sexy red dress like Esparza here– despite phenomenal talent.

From Vogue Magazine

The London 2012 Games are also the first to design the Olympics and Paralympics simultaneously and in a fully integrated way, rather than independently as they typically have been in the past. Both games have also been created with PWD (Persons With Disabilities) in mind from the beginning, and the Committees of both the Olympic and Paralympic Games have decided to extend that cooperation through at least the 2020 Games, holding both Games in the same city. Their torch relay begins the 24 of August, and the Opening Ceremonies for the Paralympic Games will be held on the 29th; the Games will feature 21 sports, including shooting, powerlifting, wheelchair tennis, and sitting volleyball.

Both games have…bizarre, Cyclops-esque mascots. Whatever, they’re cute.

Credit to blogger Nincompoopery; Sorn in red.

Shout-out to my boys and girls in Kampuchea, whose team had a female flag-bearer for the Opening Ceremony for the first time ever, Taekwondo champ Sorn Davin! Six athletes will compete from Cambodia.

Here are some other cool “firsts” facts about the London 2012 Olympics/Paralympics.

It’s been speculated that LGBTQ athletes were responsible for the crash of a major dating application, Grindr, even though only a couple dozen of them are out. Hmm… Also, here is a list of all the lgbtq out athletes ever to have competed in the Games. If you are straight and/or cisgender and you think lgbtq issues don’t have much implication for “normal” peeps or the broader population, think again: the Olympics has been another stage where the sociocultural battles of sex/gender are taking place– going so far as to define who is “truly female” or “truly male”. Some have called this gender policing, and it has serious implications for straight/cisgender athletes who self-identify as one sex but “fail” Olympic sex test standards. Perhaps the issue has been louder and more noticeable in recent times, but it has a long history underlying the Games. Tell me again that sex is as clear as black and white. “Ability” is not quite so black and white anymore, either: the creator of Oscar Pistorius’ Cheetah blades has said himself that, if not Pistorius, then some other “disabled” athlete in the future may in fact be able to run faster on blades than any pair of human legs could ever run. Perhaps now it is fair for Pistorius to compete in both Olympics, but there may well come a day when Paralympic athletes competing on blades will actually be in a league of their own.

Lastly, a small complaint: if badminton and table tennis get to be Olympic sports, when is Ultimate going to be featured?! “In the distant future,” if at all, is some folks’ guess– in part due to a tendency of the Games in recent years to move away from team sports.

Good luck to all athletes throughout the Games; you represent more than you know.

Fresh Bites

Gang rape remains a popular [male] pastime in Cambodia, and people say stupid shit like, “We shouldn’t blame the perpetrators because they’re Cambodia’s hope for a developed future.” Nevermind that their victims should also be considered Cambodia’s hope for a better future.
Even as Cambodia’s rainy season started much, much earlier than usual, droughts are laying the Midwest low back home. Sure climate change is normal, but even if you don’t agree we’re accelerating it, isn’t it safe to say we are completely unprepared for it?

The Navy opts for neutral urination. Won’t dude sailors miss the time they spend glancing awkwardly at their mates’ penises when nature calls?
And this makes me feel real good that my first-ever credit card that I’ve actually used is from Capital One… >_<

Fresh Bites

The Cambodia Daily (7.12.12) reports that the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and rights group Licadho both noted that reports of domestic violence were down in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the same period last year, but for different reasons. Licadho says that reporting has actually decreased, versus incidents of violence. MOWA, on the other hand, believes that laws enacted to end violence against women have effectively reduced such instances. This article appeared in the same issue with articles titled “Thief Sentenced to Life for Brutal Murder of Woman” and “Woman Found Dead; Heart, Stomach Cut Out”. Hmm…

The police beat the sh*t out of a key representative of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions during a peaceful rally in Phnom Penh yesterday. And you thought union-busting in the States was bad!

This, at the same time that some foreign companies have agreed to raise wages for garment workers after months of striking.

“What do you mean, this is an unacceptable way to advertise products?”

An excellent post from Sociological Images demonstrating common forms of sexual objectification. Here is another on objectification and yet another about the sexualization of violence (which I should note is rather disturbing, for those of you with sensitive dispositions).

That so many of us can glance over such images due not so much to our desensitization of violence but largely because of the normalization of hypersexualization (mainly of women) makes me want to douse myself with a bucket of ice water. It’s the feeling that I’ve been sleeping for most of my life, presented with cultural icons and imagery which I accepted without question as normal, tolerable, even mundane. That it has taken me this long to recognize this hostile cultural environment for what it is– one that simultaneously shames me for not wearing a bra whilst demanding that I shave my legs and grow out my hair, subtly urging me to play the tart but never, ever discuss my sexuality or sex life– makes me realize how much farther I have to go.

Germany, wow, progressive. Letting kids make decisions about their bodies after they have come of age, rather than letting adults have life-changing control over issues that have the potential to negatively impact health and sexuality? Circumcision isn’t a dire necessity like the polio vaccine, after all. Some decisions should not be left to parents. Like arranged marriages.

Also: voice your opinion on the next UN Conference on Women! What issues do you want to see discussed?

Take Back the Night 2012, Koh Kong!

Only two weeks in, and already June has been an eventful month. The first weekend was the national commune elections, and I was happy to see the political hubbub finally die down. But the very next weekend (after a week of my being sick) was the event which has been months in planning.

Click the link below to open up the full post and see photos of the event! ^_^

Get the Vote Out, Kampuchea

The first weekend in June, commune elections were held across the nation as the rallying, parading, badgering, bribing, and flag-waving came to a head, and finally to a close. I was not sorry to see it go. It was all a bit much: Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) paying for the most renown (and expensive) comedians to dance around in clown wigs while wearing CPP tees, and CPP supporters parading around the killing fields with their banners– a sad, ironic scene. (Remember, Hun Sen was Khmer Rouge, though he didn’t kill nobody, of course.)

Click the link below to see photos and the rest of the post.

Musings on Patriarchy

Most (all?) societies on this planet could be described as patriarchal and they many of the same elements in common, but it is likely that Patriarchy also manifests itself in unique ways from culture to culture. From my measly quotidian experience of two years in Cambodian, here are some things I’ve noticed can be said to constitute it as a patriarchally dominated culture, including ways that differentiate it from other patriarchal cultures. This is a brief, general list, just things that are rolling around in the ol’ noggin.

Work

It is apparent the world over that labor is almost always sexed. This means that some work is “women’s work” and some “men’s work”. This is often true of Cambodia, too, but another interesting, seemingly benign effect of the patriarchy on labor demographics has to do with age. In spite of all the “respect your elders” rhetoric one hears around the Kingdom, there is an awful lot of ageism going on. This means that, once you reach a certain age, you might find it very difficult to attain certain types of jobs– or even any job at all. People may expect you to retire. They may treat you like you’re slow-witted or fragile. It’s meant well, I’m sure, and of course some people really do slow down in their old age. But it’s quite mythological that old people are sought out for their wisdom and this and that; at some point, many old people here simply become spectators to the lives of the young. With the emphasis on families (especially having many children, in some instances), it’s not so surprising that the elderly are even expected to live vicariously through their children and grandchildren– even when they’re lively, even when they still have their own ambitions.

Ageism is frequently an intrinsic part of Patriarchy; only the young, fit, and virile may be successful, competitive. This is in part from where our drive to remain “forever young” is derived. To show one’s age is to show weakness, or even worse, uselessness and dependency. Yes, the words of your [male] elders may be respected, but probably not heeded. In a world of endless competition, one cannot afford to be cautious. The old may learn from life’s lessons and try to impart them to their successors, but it’s the young who “seize the day”. To this end, countless cosmetics, health foods, surgeries, and so forth have been created as a kind of fountain of youth, that we may put off “showing our age” for as long as humanly possible. Wrinkles and grey hair are repulsive and pathetic, not a sign of a life long lived.

Sexuality

Although both men and women in Cambodia have limited options in sexuality, women definitely get the short end of this stick. For while it is noted and even tolerated that men may be straight/cisgender or queer, women are “only” straight. I often find it odd that, for as homophobic mainstream Cambodian culture can be, female-to-male (FTM) transgender folk and gay guys get talked about with a certain frequency, whilst the subject of gay women is mysteriously absent. It’s sort of like the old Syrian proverb, “There are no gays here.” Well, no gay women anyway.

I’m told (by foreigners) that gay men in Cambodia are “acceptable” on some level, that Buddhism approaches them as souls who were put in the “wrong” body, and thus we should respect them, or at least feel sorry for them. However, I have encountered rampant homophobia, bordering on violence (or at least threats of violence), concerning gay men. It is the polite thing to do to pretend it doesn’t exist, and people start to get angry if they can’t do just that. Of course, there are plenty of people who simply don’t care one way or another, are willing to live and let live, as it were. LGBTQ allies, however, are few and far between Cambodia has a very quiet (mainly male, largely foreign) LGBTQ scene. I imagine that as this community grows more vocal and (hopefully) more accepted in the future, they will also gain more allies.

Also, women never have sex before marriage here. Unless they are broken.

Family

Cambodian families, like families anywhere, vary greatly. It would be unfair to say that all Cambodian men are heads of households or that all Cambodian women experience some sort of DV or discrimination by another family member. The statistics do point out some alarming commonalities, however, which can often be correlated with education levels. For instance, in families where women have low levels of literacy, those women are more likely to remain marginalized within their families and their communities (limited in resources, decision-making power, opportunities, etc.), and also to disadvantage their female children.

In general, there is a majority of male-headed households. There are many female-headed households, however, arising from many factors: during Khmer Rouge, many people lost their spouses, families broke up… Polygamy, though subtle and not prevalent, is still practiced in Cambodia, and often the man is only listed as HOH in one of his two families, thus skewing perception of actual HOHs. “Can women marry more than one man?” I have asked this, and been laughed at, whereas polygamy seems more normalized (dependent on the location). It’s technically illegal…but hell, a lot of things are “technically illegal” here.

School

In the city, school appears to be more egalitarian, at least on the surface. Nearly equal numbers of male and female children receive k-12 education, but the number of women enrolled in university is less than men in almost all fields, and is significantly less with each successive level. Thus, most people graduating from undergraduate are men (though female students are slowly gaining), and almost no women obtain Masters degrees, PhDs, etc.

In the countryside, though, girls remain noticeably disadvantaged. Large numbers of boys and girls seem to drop out in grades 4 and 9, but fewer girls ever begin school, and more girls than boys tend to drop out, so by the end, fewer girls are graduating from high school– in fact, many girls never complete even a single year of high school. There are lots of reasons why girls drop out of school. Some reasons of people I know personally are: a family member falls ill; getting married and starting a family; staying home to help with chores or business. Another reason that really gets me is that girls are often pulled from school (especially higher education) to fund their brothers’ schooling. Even if it’s a younger brother, male education often takes priority over female education. I don’t often hear that people believe women are not as intelligent as men, but that men can find jobs more easily, are able to travel more widely, and generally have more freedoms that would be enhanced by an education, versus women. Who should stay home. Yeah.

Those were just some things on my mind… Things I tend to ponder often. How does patriarchy manifest itself in your life?

Pornography in the Kingdom

Between my WordPress site stats and Google’s webmaster tools, I get a pretty good idea of where most of the traffic to my blog comes from. Interestingly– sadly?– many people stumble onto my blog while they are searching for porn.

Recent search terms have included: “naked asian babes”, “video sex khmer 2012”, “cambodian whore”, “world of warcraft porn”, “girls licking boobs”, “khmer sexy”, and “sexy khmer”. And the poor sots ended up at my blog. Haha. (Those last two, by the way, were probably the same Khmer guy who forgot and then remembered that adjectives precede nouns in English.)

The sexual fetishization of women and thus porn seem universal. Cambodia is no exception, even though pornography is supposedly illegal here (or so they say, I have yet to find the laws on that). To the contrary, porn is so cheap and readily available here that between 40-60% of minors (under 18, average age 14) have seen hardcore pornography in video and/or picture form. This is true both of village children and urban children. It is also possible that the real number of children watching porn is much higher, since studies have indicated that a child is reluctant to admit that they, themselves, have watched porn, but will readily admit that they know many of their peers watch porn.

Supposedly it is fairly easy to access VCD porn even in villages, being sold by some local “entrepreneur” or distributed through village networks– all of which is done in partial or total secrecy because of the (at least perceived) illegal nature of pornography. I’ve never seen or heard of anyone in my neighborhood distributing/selling porn in any form, nor did I ever notice it in the villages (in Kampong Cham and Kampot), but I was not seeking it out. I asked some guys my age whether they’d ever gone “outside” to get pornography; one of them told me that he and his friends used to travel to the nearby provincial town to view pornography at coffee shops when they were about 16; they also said this particular coffee shop had closed down long ago.

About ten years ago, this would have been one of the only ways to access pornography: at local coffee or TV shops (which serve snacks and drinks) that have viewings of pornography “in secret” (you can’t tell me the police didn’t know this was happening– they were probably there, themselves…), wherein each viewer pays a small fee (about 25 cents/hour in some cases) to sit and watch porn with other viewers. Sort of like going to a small movie house…only it’s porn.

There is no need in today’s Cambodia to go to a large town or to seek out shops with porn viewings in order to access porn. Thanks to a serious lack of copyright laws, improved AV equipment, and the Internet, both homemade Cambodian porn and international porn can be easily acquired and are often free.

One source of new, free pornography which quite honestly shocked me is the wats (pagodas)– Buddhist religious complexes which are ubiquitous throughout the Kingdom. Because wats are a free place for boys and young (unmarried) men to stay when they are not at home (especially those coming to the city from the provinces), it perhaps is not so surprising that wats act as a hub for free pornography distribution. I was still surprised, naively I admit, to hear that monks watch and distribute porn, too.

The form of porn, itself, has also changed. Computers, smart phones, and other Internet-accessing or digital storage devices have made VCDs and books virtually obsolete. Downloading, distributing, and exchanging porn via ipods, cell phones, and computers has made accessing the most recent porn simple and free.

So what effect does this have on children? Is easy access to hardcore pornography (which frequently includes rape and sex with animals) partially responsible for Cambodia’s gang rape epidemic (balk) and rape of minors? How is pornography connected to regional issues of prostitution and human trafficking? And how does readily-accessible porn affect the overall status of women and girls in Cambodia?

The studies I reference above try to answer these questions, but the last question receives the least amount of attention. It’s a question that feminists worldwide have been struggling with for decades, and the debate rages on. Some have taken an oppositional stance (which resulted in their being labeled “sex-negative”), some have proposed that opposing porn is opposing free speech, and others have tried to say that porn can be designed in a feminist fashion (sometimes called the “pro-sex” feminists)– and therefore would be for consumption by any gender, rather than being centered on male pleasure.

I have gone back and forth on this issue, myself. But I find it deeply affecting that studies have correlated pornography to sexual violence and gang behaviors. It is a tired and tiring argument to say “not everyone who watches porn is going to rape someone”; instead I am seeking a deeper understanding of an individual’s personal motivations for watching porn, what determines the particular kinds of porn they seek out, how it affects their overall views of sex, how it modifies their experience of sexual pleasure (if at all), and how it affects or interferes with their intimate relationships. After speaking with a variety of people of different ages and backgrounds about their experience of pornography, it is obvious to me that pornography does not have a single, generic impact on humans. It is complicated and subjective… I guess I would like to know, is the overall impact and outcome more negative or positive?

Finally, it can’t be ignored that pornography is a totem of male privilege. Many men I have talked to about pornography, whether they watch it regularly, seldom, or not at all, all seem to feel that it is their right to access pornography if they so wish. I’ve rarely heard women talk about it in the same self-entitled fashion. Very “liberal” (whatever that means) men have told me, “Well I don’t really watch it, but I don’t see what’s wrong with it.” “Freedom of speech! Enough said.” “As long as it’s not rape porn, what’s the problem? It’s not real, anyway.” “A lot of porn is funny, you know.” “I don’t see how it degrades women. You know women get off on watching porn, too?” And so on. Whereas women, by comparison, seem averse to, even repulsed by porn, or they are confused, or they want to respect “freedom of speech” but seem wary of the deeper implications “freedom of porn” has…

Denial of the way porn shapes the human sexual consciousness is very simplistic, and overlooks the ways in which porn affects real intimate relationships. Those effects may be long-lasting or even permanent… They cannot be shut out or forgotten just by closing a magazine or web browser. I am scared to think that a reason why many young, liberal men are so dismissive of theories which question the creation and use of hardcore pornography is because they feel they are entitled to whatever gets them off. Even if it is superficial, even if it is degrading, even if it is harmful.

To quote Weezer, “say it ain’t so,” somebody.

This Week in News

News from throughout the week in the Kingdom of Wonder, Cambodia Daily-style.

“Man Charged with Raping 14-Year-Old Daughter”

The Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court yesterday charged a 41-year-old man for raping is 14-year-old daughter… [Said Commune Police Chief So Sophal,] “We arrested the suspect…when the suspect came to find his daughter in Banteay Meanchey province on Saturday…The suspect confessed he had raped his daughter many times when his wife went to work in Thailand. He also warned his daughter not to tell anyone about the rapes.” The victim was sent to rights group Adhoc on Saturday in order to receive treatment, he added (Nhem Sreyroth)

“On-The-Spot Fines for Car, Truck Drivers to End”

 Starting May 1, traffic police across the country will stop fining car and truck drivers on the spot, and instead issue them tickets to be paid later, officials said yesterday… “We want all cars and trucks to carry out the fines like in other developed countries, and it is easy for traffic police to carry out,” said [National Police Commissioner Neth Savoeun]. It remained unclear whether the new rules would eventually be extended to motorbikes, which as a result of their sheer volume generate the most under-the-table income for traffic police. (Khy Sovuthy)

“Man Killed as His Tractor Detonates Anti-Tank Mine”

A 24-year-old man was killed in Banteay Meanchey province on Tuesday when his tractor detonated an anti-tank mine, officials said. Ol Phann was plowing a filed in Malai District…which he had ploughed on at least three previous occasions, when the mine blew him up. …the anti-tank mine was left over from fighting between government forces and the Khmer Rouge, which continued in the area until the late 1990s. (Hai Sina)

“Filling of Boeng Kak Lake Finished After 3 1/2 Years”

The private firm behind the controversial $2.17 billion development of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake finished pumping sand into the area last week, officials said yesterday, some three-and-a-half years after starting. The filling of the lake as displace more than 3,000 mostly poor families– in violation of the country’s 2001 Land Law– to make way for the high-end residential and commercial property development of Cambodian People’s Party Senator Lao Meng Khin’s Shukaku Inc. As the lake’s water level rose, surrounding communities also endured years of flooding, though government officials refused to acknowledge any link between their flooded homes and the filling-in of the lake. (Khoun Narim) 

“Forestry Activist Chut Wutty Shot Dead”

Forestry activist Chut Wutty, 46, was fatally shot by military police during an altercation in Koh Kong yesterday. A military police officer, In Rattana, 32, was also shot to death in the scuffle. (Saing Soenthrith, Abby Seiff) 

It has since come to light that Wutty was shot after using “bad words” with the police. In Rattana in fact took his own life. Cambodia Daily reporters were present, which probably exacerbated the situation as they refused to give up their cameras upon request by the police.