The Killing Fields

I guess the most memorable part of this trip to Phnom Penh was the visit to the Choeung Ek Memorial or the so called killing fields. When you enter, there is a tall memorial stupa that houses nothing but skulls. There are probably about 10 stories and at each level, in encased glass, there is nothing but skulls. There are no words or plaques, just the harsh reality of the thousands of skulls staring at you with empty eyes. When you walk around the grounds, you can see the depressed earth where bodies were thrown, a marker where the trucks unloaded the victims and so on. Frankly, it was rather understated if thousand of skulls can be deemed understated. By that I mean there were no bookshops, fancy movies, pamphlets and so on. There was no Spielberg effect.

I then went to S21 Prison ( Toul Sleng) , a school turned in to a torture chamber and interrogation centre. Each classroom was a prison cell and as you can see from the pictures the prisoners(or at least victims) went through many tortures. It was an added abomination that they used a school for this terrible work.

I know Jews have done an amazing job with our Holocaust Centres to use them as an educational tool to teach anti-discrimination education. I am thinking specifically about the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, the Holocaust Museum in Washington or even Toronto’s Holocaust Museum. The purpose is to do more than describe the blood and guts. I don’t know why Cambodia is not there yet, whether it is because the wounds are just one generation old and it will come in time or there is a different mentality at stake at this juncture. It is obviously not for me to judge and I do not know enough or in fact, anything about Cambodian politics do wonder about the political motivation of the party in power and why more is not done.

I can tell you that the scenes from the former school will stay with me for the rest of my life. I obviously have to read about the Khmer Rouge and this period in history to try to get a grasp of what happened. From what little I have read, the cities were absolutely cleaned out with only a few thousand left in Phnom Penh. Once the infrastructure of a city is gone, it takes at least a generation to get back on its feet.

It is still hard for me to understand the sense of the Holocaust where so much manpower was wasted on killing Jews and the same thing obviously happened here for no gain other than terrorism. Pol Pot was defeated within a few years but it has taken a generation to get back to where they were. There were no families spared as I spoke with many Cambodians about this time in history and everyone had someone loved one lost or more accurately, killed.

No problem on spending money on symbols though. The palace, as you can see, is magnificent. The throne room is awe inspiring with its large rectangular hall forcing your eyes to the throne where the king was crowned. No money was spared on the ornate buildings surrounding the throne room and the grounds are magnificent as you look at the pictures.

I was just watching the news about South Africans beating up and killing immigrants from Zimbabwe and elsewhere. When I was taking a boat tour on the Tongle Sap river the shacks on the river that I took pictures had Vietnamese people living in them. Even though this is an extremely poor country where the tuk tuk’s and motorcycle guys accost you by name as you walk out of the hotel they are so desparate for business, there is always a people or a country that are poorer. In this case, it is the Vietnamese.

By the way, I now know how females feel when they are constantly accosted on the street. As I walked out of my room going down for breakfast this morning, three chambermaids touched me and said handsome man. I presume they are looking for some extra income but it certainly makes me feel uncomfortable to be accosted in this way and I am sure women feel the same way all the time. I wonder if I would feel the same way if they were young and gorgeous?

I am at home now and thinking about packing for Vietnam, or should I read a book and relax?