Visiting the S21 killing fields in Phnom Penh, Cambodia is sobering. A holocaust that the West was complicit in and silent about to this day. Between 1975 to 1979, 1.7 to 3 million Cambodians were executed, some 25% of the population were wiped out by a paranoid and delusional cabal headed by Pol Pot. A name Saloth Sar gave himself as a nom de guerre, similar to the rites of passage of buddhist monks when they are given a new name. Saloth Sar gave himself this name and renamed all those in his cadre of the Khmer Rouge.
After visiting the killing fields, which originally was a peaceful ancient Buddhist Chinese cemetery, I went on to tour the interrogation compound at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The structure is eerily still reminiscent of the high school it once was. Rows of classrooms along a corridor with metal guard rails for windows. The yellow and white ceramic floor tiles reminiscent of my early schools in Malta, perhaps the same French tiles. Of course now the only vestige remaining is of the time when it was used as an interrogation prison under the Khmer Rouge (1875-1979). Photographs of faces of the detained and later to be executed prisoners lining rows upon rows of the walls of the compound. All staring with disbelief that their life has taken such a quick turn. Some young, some old, men, women, children. An equitable selection, no discrimination. And the thought that kept cropping up is how can this have happened out in the open? The compound is smack in the center of Phnom Penh, the largest city (then and now) in Cambodia. And not just the locals who turned a blind eye, the Khmer Rouge held United Nations status even after being overthrown (by the Vietnamese). Khmer Rouge even received funding from the U.N. after this known holocaust. Where is the indignation? And then I learned a little bit more of the history and the pieces started coming together.
Pol Pot and his cadre gained prominence because the population were desperate, angry, frightened and starving. The illegal and unauthorized (by Congress) USA bombing of Cambodia, the social and economic fabric was further destabilized, following decades of brutal and corrupt governance. An impoverished populace become desperate. The US had dropped more than 500,000 tons of bombs on Cambodian, while propping up the corrupt and incompetent anti-communist regime of Marshal Lon Nol who in a coup d'etat eventually stole power from absent Prince Sihanouk (whose son is now King of Cambodia). Within this fertile anger rose a timid and shy teacher. Pol Pot rose from being a simple teacher to a savor of the Cambodian people. He promised hope for the mostly illiterate farming community, who have been left out of what little progress was made in the cities. He promised a time of greatness when the Khmer nation was strong. When Khmer was a sovereign power that at the peak of its power in the thirteenth century had ruled an empire stretching from Malaysia to Laos from Vietnam to Burma. He promised Khmer to be first and only. He wanted Cambodia to be self sufficient and independent. He promised to shake up the system and bring equity and make the system fair. Does that sound familiar? And if it does then you can empathize with me when I realized why we have also been complicit in our silence. We are again going through this cycle of history. We are afraid to admit it because we are again so close to it. This must be the peak (trough?) of the banality of humanity and we are all responsible in our silence.
There is a film that says this better. The 2015 Look Who's Back, a German film by the director David Wnendt that explores the possibility of Hitler coming back today. The comedy quickly changes into a lesson in history when the character playing Hitler admits that it is not him that brings about change but the people that ask for it. He is simply a product of what the public wants. We are ultimately responsible for the people we elect to govern us. They, the individuals we revere or detest, are simply a catalyst. Willing catalysts.
Which brings us back to the Pol Pot regime and our silence and what it tells us about our current governments. I saw a contraption for waterboarding and immediately was reminded of how the U.S. president Trump approves of this illegal torture and how he spews this opinion not just with impunity but with nonchalance.
As I touched the contraption I had a visceral feeling of how I would react to its torture, and that possibility become real. How easy for someone to put me through that inhumanity, publicly and without remorse. I realized that for some, under my government, they already have experienced this, we are already there. The line between doing and pontificating hatred is being erased. And we sit there complicit in our silence in our fear that at least it was not us. The banality of humankind is a mirror of the depravity that we have the potential to degrade into. It seems so easy. And everyone can be a victim. Cambodia was a homogenous society made up of nearly exclusive Khmer ethnic groups. But the Khmer Rouge found enemies in everyone. People with education were a prime target, people who spoke foreign languages, teachers, doctors, politicians educators, professors, technicians. and journalists (still sounding familiar). They were murdered and all their family as well so there is no option for retribution. Those that were performing the murders were not spared or given special treatment. They also had their families wiped out so that there is no option for them to go back to. The foot soldiers who themselves were mostly illiterate children as young as 9, were left with only one option, to obey. Once we define a group as "the other" we deny them their full humanity.We lose our humanity when someone labels us as an"other. " Then they find it easier to follow through, we are already less (non) human.
There is a tree that summarizes to me the humanity that we lost. Its a big sturdy Chankiri tree indigenous to Cambodia. When they discovered this killing field and examined the tree, they found hair, brain, bone fragments, blood and sinews, and skin still embedded in the cracks of the bark.
For efficiency and to save on ammunition or equipment, children and babies were swung upside down cracking their skull against the tree.
Today the tree stands there quiet and majestic. A testament to our banality.
