Anlong Veang (Oddar Meanchey, Cambodia), 19/05/2007. Workshop organised in Ta Mok's house with young Cambodian students
© John Vink / Magnum The end of the film “S-21, the Khmer Rouge Killing Machine”, directed by Rithy Panh, was surrounded by the silence of the audience, exclusively composed of students gathered together by the organisation YRDP (Youth Resource Development Programme) on October 26th in Phnom Penh. The place chosen for the gathering, a painting gallery, suited the event. The artist Vann Nath, one of the very few survivors of the tragedy, opened the gallery at his home. On display, paintings openly depicting scenes that once occurred at the former detention and torture centre, now home to the Museum of Genocide. Furtively interviewed as the lights were being turned on again, a young woman said out of the blue: “I never really believed the story of the Khmer Rouge, before. But now that I have seen the film, I believe it a little more...” The first trial of a former Khmer Rouge cadre - Duch, in charge of S-21 - should soon open, but many youngsters in Cambodia still find it hard to presume true the horrors committed under the regime of Pol Pot and his henchmen.
Let us see and then we shall believe...
Marina, a 22 year-old graceful student, attends classes at a private business school in Phnom Penh. She confessed “having heard” of it. “My parents now and then told me a little about it, but always on occasions when they criticised my lazy behaviour: 'If you had dared behaving like this in front of the Khmer Rouge, you would be dead by now!', they kept saying.” She reckoned their stories are exaggerated because uttered out of anger and declared only believing “50%” of it.
After the projection of S-21 and her encounter with Vann Nath, she claimed believing “80%” of it. But why not 100%? “Because I haven't seen it for myself!”, the ingenuous young woman replied. The student, wearing a sober flowery blouse, hair neatly tied back, was expecting that morning the screening of images shot under the bloody regime. Furthermore, as she asserted, she has been taught none of this at school, and seen even less about it on television. Marina explained she chose to attend the YRDP workshops to test the truthfulness of such stories. “Parents should take the time to calmly talk to us about what they have been through”, she suggested.
Legend and truth
“Being summarily executed because the sole crime you committed was catching a little ricefield crab – it seems unbelievable”... Or Cheang Sokha's way of introducing his seminar. The director of the YRDP explained that this type of forum was there to show the impact of the Khmer Rouge regime on the Cambodian society, and open the eyes of the future leaders in Cambodia in order to prevent such horror from happening again.
The programme included a visit to Tuol Sleng (the former S-21 centre), a short educational trip to the Chhœung Ek killing fields, a stopover at the Khmer Rouge tribunal built on the outskirts of the capital city and finally a meeting with survivors. Neang Sovatha, a young volunteer working at YRDP, reckoned that increasing the number of such events and encouraging the initiatives allowed youngsters to change their attitude towards the Khmer Rouge regime. “The debates and discoveries they make leads them to want to know more about the subject. When they come to us, students say that this is past history, or even a legend. But after having attended our programmes, they realise that this is still very much a current issue and that none of it has been made up at all.”
How did the dark Khmer Rouge chapter end up being set aside from collective memory? To Sovatha, the materialism of today's society must be blamed: people do not look to be well-read and educated any longer and do not care about the past. Besides, she added, most of the books about the Khmer Rouge regime are published in foreign languages.
Cambodians start to show interest in the Khmer Rouge regime
Vann Nath, modest and generous, told the youths about his story, about the omnipresence of death every day, the madness of a paranoid regime who applied itself to dehumanise people... “I can only offer you a quick summary... But you can find me here everyday, in my studio. If you feel like coming and talking to me, I am just asking you to call me on the phone beforehand.” The invitation is now voiced.
The survivor admitted that seeing young people questioning the very existence of Democratic Kampuchea and its barbarity was a real cause for concern. “This is why we must explain to them what happened. But things may be changing. Up until now, those who came to see me and ask me questions about my past were foreigners only. Now, for the first time, my fellow-Cambodians are taking this step...”
Kosal, a second year psychology student at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, deplored the fact that the school curricula do not take the Khmer Rouge regime into consideration - even though a few teachers quickly go over it on their own initiative. “Those public forums are good, but people come and listen, and then forget; moreover, they only pertain to a limited public. Once the meetings with survivors are over, who is in charge of relaying the information and making sure it is known and transmitted from one generation onto another, making sure that memory does not vanish?”, the student asked himself with confidence.
The Khmer Rouge regime soon part of the school curriculum
Painful memories of the regime remain kept behind a wall of silence in many a family, but when it comes to school books, the latter seem to have been stricken by some sort of amnesia over the past ten years. However, this “omission” should be taken care of soon by the government, with the collaboration of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam). The progression of the project was delayed but now seems to be about to become a reality. Next December, the DC-Cam will hand in a 78-page guidebook to the government. Entirely made and designed by the centre, it is intended for secondary education teachers. Not only does it deal with the Khmer Rouge regime but it also depicts other genocides, in Europe as in America, in order to set the Cambodian tragedy back in a wider context. The government's task will then be to finalise the guidebook.
Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre, gave the detail of the operation: after issuing the guidebook, several months will be needed to familiarise national as well as provincial instructors with the new educational tool. The guidebook will eventually be introduced to the odd 3,000 secondary education teachers working in Cambodia. If things go smoothly, the history of Democratic Kampuchea should officially be taught in schools by the end of 2009.
A lack of significant historical consideration in the curriculum
Eighteen international experts who specialised on the notion of holocaust and twenty-four government civil servants, all dispatched in two committees, are putting their efforts into the drafting of the guidebook. For the time being, no decisions have been made as to how this historical period will be tackled in the different grades. But to the Youk Chhang, there is one thing for sure, it will not be enough, since secondary education students are only taught History for 45 minutes every week. “We would like the History subject to be more substantial in the students' weekly timetable. Without a good knowledge of their country's history, Cambodians can be led to have erroneous opinions and repeat the mistakes of the past.”
According to the director, eradicating indifference and incredulity among young Cambodians will only be possible thanks to the academic effort of teaching and learning about the Pol Pot regime. “What happened is hard to believe and hard to explain. A scientific approach is therefore necessary for that story to be eventually acknowledged as History. Then, the next generations will have enough knowledge to change the way they see this period. We must free ourselves from the survivor mentality in order to fully engage in this educational approach. If some choose to stay in denial, it will be more out of shame of what happened to their country.”
Such a legacy is certainly a heavy burden to bear. Yet, ignorance can pave the way to dangerous ideas and the generation of young Cambodians born after 1979, now representing more than half of the total population of Cambodia, must rid themselves of such misconceptions.
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By Doris
By John Vink
By Doris