I found this article in the NY Times and find it totally shocking!!
"As much as 70 percent of Cambodia’s population is under the age of 30, and four out of five members of this young generation know little or nothing about the Khmer Rouge years, according to a survey last fall by the Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley."
It seems unimaginable to me that such horrific events that occured only 30years ago can possible be unknown to a whole generation. Apparently history never repeats but surely total ignorance in such a critical part of Cambodian history should be a a lesson for the future no matter how much the survivors may want to forget?
"Sok Dane, 12, said she knew a little more. “My grandmother tells me that in the Khmer Rouge time some people hit other people,” she said."
Understatement? I think so...
Arendt says totalitarian regimes are characterised by extreme violence, so does this make Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge totalitarian? 2million people from a population of 6million died. But did Pol Pot and his followers have mass support? Intra-govt. competiton? Socialism was certainly the guiding ideology but was it as prominent as communism in the Soviet Union?
I'm just babbling all the thoughts that are popping into my head at the moment and I think it might be something I look into. But I just cannot get over this apparent lack of knowledge of one of the most signicant, albeit horrible, periods of Cambodia's not so distant past.
Natalie, in a post below I link to a couple of articles that may shed more light on your question of whether the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia was totalitarian, but it is a good question.
ReplyDeleteI find it staggering that people have forgotten the years of the Khmer Rouge already. Do they not feel the need to educate in order to prevent what has happened before?
ReplyDeleteThat is strange that so many don't know much if anything about the regime, especially with the trials going on at the moment. I was going to say fair enough that the 12 year old didn't know anything but then I remembered I learnt about the Khmer Rouge at school when I was 11. I don't think that the Khmer Rouge had mass support, but I would still call them totalitarian in a more general sense, as they forced the entire urban population out of the cities to work in collective farms, banned all private property etc.
ReplyDeleteYeah but if you ask a Kiwi what happened on Anzac day, what would your response be? Or lets go even closer and ask about the protests against the SA Tour of NZ.
ReplyDeleteFact of the matter is, we are talking about a country that has a poor infrastructure, poor education as well as cultural differences that have to be factored in.
Essentially there are a whole range of factors that could explain why this is the case and you can be assured it isn't some 'lame' excuse.
Sorry if I'm not being too precise, its just I take issue with the way that Cambodia is being targeted, as if implying that it is their fault that their people don't know about this incident. There are so many other factors around that it is a bit naive to throw judgements around too.
One of the leading characteristics of Pol Pots regime was a fevered anti-intellectualism. The Khemr Rouge feared and distrudted any one with an opposing viewpoint and the ability to think rationally about their lunatic economic and social policy. People wear put to death for wearing glasses. So it may not be that surprising that Cambodians don't know that much about their own history. If a whole generation was put to the sword for having a brain the next generation may not be so inclined to think about what happened. And traditional family history would have been destroyed thanks to the distrust with which Brother Number 1 viewed the family unit. Families were split up and sent to other parts of the country and post service was abolished.
ReplyDeleteAlso Ben it is mostly Camnbodia's fault that Cambodians don't know that one of the blood-soaked governments the world has seen ran their country until relatively recently. The Cambodian government has only required that schools teach about the KR this year, up untill now it has gone unrembered.