Living in a post-genocide society

Kind of a heavy title, I admit, but it is what's on my mind. First a little background, in case you weren't born yet when it happened or haven't studied it in school.

Cambodians suffered through genocide from 1975-1979, while they were ruled by a pseudo-radical-marxist group, the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge came to power after nearly a decade of civil war that began with the overflow of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. The US secretly bombed Cambodia, attempting to cut of North Vietnamese supply routes. Bombed actually is too tame of a word. The US dropped more bombs on Cambodia then were dropped on Germany in all of WWII. And I have stood in places these bombs were dropped. The US also played a role in setting up the pre-Khmer Rouge prime minister/dictator, Lon Nol. America wanted a leader with a pro-America attitude in power.

So in 1975 the Khmer Rouge came to power in a country already heavily damaged by years of war, destroyed infrastructure, and displacement. The Khmer Rouge wanted to set Cambodia back to Year Zero and create a agriculture based Utopia. They despised the intellectual class and any one with connections to the West. On coming to power, they forcibly empty Phnom Penh and sent all Cambodians to work in the rice fields. Most people were displaced far from their home province. Their reign included mass executions of former political figures, intellectuals, the educated, minority groups, and anyone who dared contest their power or complain. Added to this were deaths from overwork and starvation. Cambodia was producing plenty of rice, but it was all getting sold outside the country. Families were split up. Children were sent to work in separate kids work crews. People were told not to trust anyone, even their relatives. The Ongka, or organization, was their only family now and it needed to be obeyed without question. Others were forced to marry strangers in mass ceremonies. All religion was wiped out. Monks were derobbed. Religious festivals canceled permanently . All in all, an attempt at the complete destruction of Khmer culture and society.

The Khmer Rouge lost power when the Vietnamese invaded and then controlled Cambodian for 10 years. To the West's great shame, in my mind, it continued to recognize the Khmer Rouge as the government of Cambodia because anything was better than communists. Seriously, what misguided politics. The Khmer Rouge fought on in the western regions of the country until an official surrender in 1999.

The legacy of this dark period of Cambodia is obviously hard to compute. Land mines. Mass trauma. Refugee exodus. Destroyed infrastructure. Loss of a generation of educated people leading to a huge void and need for capacity building. A post conflict baby boom generation that is struggling to find jobs today. Effects on the attitude about the current government. And certainly many more things.

But what led me to right this post was a visit the the genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Tuol Sleng. I have visited museums about the Cambodian genocide in the US and the Holocaust museum in DC and this place was equally moving- and made all the more real because in fact this museum is a former school that was used as a torture center from 75 to 79. During that time, in the middle of an empty Phnom Penh, 20,000 people were interrogated, tortured, and taken outside the city to be executed. Of all the people to pass through the prison, only 7 survived. In addition, nearly 20,000 children perished there along with their parents.

The museum is the cells and the torture devices and photo after photo of victims. The whole place is eerie. How much blood can one place absorb before it becomes holy ground? Of course, this place brings up old questions- why does genocide happen? how did it happen here? what evils are people capable of? As I walked through, I resigned myself to the fact that those questions don't have answers. Instead I looked at headshot after headshot thinking, I need to see them all. I need them to know I saw them, someone saw them. Many were children. Some were smiling, probably the first time they ever had their picture taken. I mean there's no simple or acceptable answer for that.

Strangely, it was a Disney song playing through my head- God Help the Outcasts from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. This is the line I thought again and again:

I thought we all were the children of God
God help the outcasts
Children of God

And I don't have more words than that.