Pol Pot and Our Society, A Note
If you have the opportunity to visit the Tuol Sleng prison and Choeung Ek field museums in Phnom Penh, you are offered with a narrative of how the Khmer Rouge regime, led by Pol Pot, was inhumane. At Choeung Ek, skulls are stored in many-tiered see-through cabinet with a detailed explanation about which trauma the persons took that led to their deaths. Was it due to a blow to the head with machete? Was it stabbed by a spear? Most of the skulls have cracks on them, so it is easy to understand how cruel the Khmer Rouge was. The killing process was systemic and well-hidden: There is a big tree, next to which there is a sign that says that there used to be big speakers set to the tree that camouflaged the screams and moans of the victims being murdered.
The prison that held the victims before their executions at Choeung Ek, Tuol Sleng S21 prison, is by any means no less terrifying. The Cambodia Lonely Planet guide claims that visiting the prison/museum is a “profoundly depressing experience” because of “[t]he sheer ordinariness”. Before the Khmer Rouge era, the prison had been a high school. Until now, it keeps the facade of a high school but when you enter one of the four buildings, especially the one blanketed by barbed wires, you’ll find yourself wondering how a human-person could do a monstrosity. I am an IR student and crimes against humanity are my breakfast, but they’re on the paper; when I was faced with an empirically empirical evidence like this, I lost words.
But the point of visiting Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek is not to condemn Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge. (Well, that’s the grand mainstream narrative, but let’s go beyond it, shall we?) Lonely Planet argues that Tuol Sleng (and also Choeung Ek, in my opinion) “demonstrates the darkest side of the human spirit that lurks within us all”. The key point here is lurks within us all. It’s deep down within us all, pushed to the dark side of our subconsciouses, waiting to be awakened.
But what awakens it — the desire to violently dominate? This post is not to discuss the nature/nurture debates in an abstract manner. However, as mentioned, it’s society that is under the highlight.
Less often mentioned than the calls to condemn Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime, Asean and many “human-rights countries” carried on to support the violent regime after the Vietnamese invaded and ousted Pol Pot from his seat. In the UN, a call to empty Cambodia’s seat was heard but was rejected by the United States, by China, by Western countries, and by Asean. This rejection was inspired by the common spirit to tackle communism — even at the expense of human lives, even at the expense of past human sufferings. An empty seat In my much spare time invested in reading, I found out that Cambodians post-Pol Pot learned to stay silent when their leaders enrich themselves and this is a learned behaviour that is passed to the generations to come.
When visiting Choeung Ek, I could not help but feel shame. It was one of many abhorrent emotions: fear, anger, sadness. But shame prevailed — it was the primus inter pares. A lecturer at University of Cambodia, my school, told me that Indonesia was a regional power — and still is. Bearing that in mind and looking back to my experience at Choeung Ek, as Indonesian, I am ashamed. As an agent of international society back then during the Khmer Rouge era and after, Indonesia as Asean regional power was bowing down to genocide.
When a person was stabbed to death in the head with a spear at Choeung Ek, I could not help but see faint colours of the Red-White flag, whose country was a reluctant party to condemn the Khmer Rouge.
