And so with the number of books I have lining up to be read, I've been reading.
I've finished 1 so far and on my way to finishing another. The first book I started with proved to be too dry and abstract for me to persist on. It is almost impossible to read without a good grounding in the political, historical and social environment of the era and so I left it aside for the time being.
The third one I am reading now, 'Voices of S-21' is a relatively easier read. I've gone from knowing almost nothing to knowing a little, enough to start a little critical thinking.
I read the heavy stuff for around an hour before I go to bed and I've realised that as I drift off to sleep, the same questions keep floating back to me. As someone who has traversed the path of education, and still walking it now, perhaps even playing the role of the occasional guide, I've always thought that knowledge is a good thing.
Education is something to be lauded. However a little knowledge in the hands of the ignorant is so deadly. The Khmer Rouge took that to new heights. I kept wondering how it was possible to have such a good idea fail. Was communism doomed to fail? The utopian society not possible at all?
Or was there just not enough time for it to develop?
I was reading a paragraph whereby the Khmer Rouge believed that dedication to the state was of utmost importance and they undermined family ties as well as ties of any other sort. They failed of course. If they have persisted, would they finally achieve what they had imagined?
Of course there were many layerings and discrete bubbles of ideas in various colours and degrees of vividness floating and swirling around my head. Bubbles too big for me to hug, like the political system and their respective ideologies where I was trying to make sense of what they were actually thinking. The different sometimes contradictory aspects and approaches of the party is still quite formless to me. In the whole phantasmagorical state of my surrealist mind, they form and disappear.
Scenes from the movie, The Matrix, appear. Soldiers in their drab uniforms march sternly with their loyalty, confidence and dedication almost forming a visible aura surrounding them. Even 'Animal Farm' made an appearance.
People were imprisoned on suspicions of treason. I mean realistically, which government wouldn't? Taking into account the newly-formed government, the whole global political climate back then of communism versus capitalism and the desire to be strong, independent and to create a society of equality, I drift into sleep almost every night wondering if the whole genocide thing is worth its weight in hype.
The only spectacular difference was that the massive number of people who died were Cambodians and Khmers. When I first started accumulating knowledge on Cambodia, I was affected and I felt so deeply for those who had died that even mere words on a plaque at the Killing Fields could move me profoundly.
However the motivation to learn more and the gradual acccumulation of knowledge sparked me to look at things clinically and I realised that one reason why I was so affected was because I had instinctively valued life of a individual human being at its highest and had perhaps also unconsciously assumed that all those who died were innocent.
If not all were innocent, in the bigger scheme of things, where uncertainty abound and decisions have to be made, what will you have done?
I wouldn't dare say that they were right but perhaps under certain circumstances, its understandable that certain things would happen in a certain way. Where before I would find revolt and disgust at the ugliness of humanity, somehow now I manage to find a little compassion for them.
Communism appeared because of the inequality in society. The people who led were not compassionate visionaries. The ravages of a previous unequal society had remained too embedded in their minds such that they reject all who were deemed 'better' using the previous scale.
They lost, they failed and in the course of history, hardly anyone will paint the losers in a better light. And perhaps because I have also seen the deplorable usage of human rights in the hands of the ignorant and maybe because a part of the Asian mentality consists of the group or community spirit, I can understand a little where the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK)came from.
For a while, I stopped at where the Cambodians were finally liberated by the Vietnamese army. Having asked the father about Camodia and him talking about China, Korea, events about the Cold war and the Vietnam war (everything but Cambodia instead), I was forced to take the relatively easy way out by googling. (-_-")
Then I realised that Vietnam invaded Cambodia because of border disputes. It kind of took me by surprise because having read a book where Cambodians relate their personal stories with most of it ending with things like, "the dark times ended when the Vietnamese army arrived", it struck me that because of reading things like these over and over again, I was unconsciously under the impression that the Vietnamese army was a saviour of some sort, saving them from the nightmare of CPK. I slapped myself awake... Yah right...came to invade them not to save them. (-_-")
I wasn't blind. But because the whole darn elephant was so huge, I could only see its tail. I supposed I was too focused on Cambodia, things just get cut off at the stage where the Vietnamese entered. It had also slipped my mind that I was reading books written by everybody except the staunch CPK people, what more in the language of the capitalist conqueror.
I also realised that modern political history of Indo-china where countless of riots, wars and invasions took place is very complicated.
It also struck me that US has been fighting a lot of wars indeed.
There was also a part where South Vietnam cited US failure to follow through on a promise to provide military aid should North Vietnam invade. Somehow it reminded me of the Kyoto Protocol but that's irrelevant.
Anyway I started thinking of the various countries as roles in a production and arranging the webs....let's see...
US aided Vietnam because it was the only capitalist foothold it had in that region (DUH). China had strong ties with Cambodia because it was the only outlet it had in the Soviet-dominated neighbourhood.
The question I am wondering about is if capitalist US failed to aid South Vietnam (which they backed) because they already knew beforehand that there was a possibility that communist China would step in to deal with the communist North Vietnam so that communist China wouldn't be closed in a communist Soviet-dominated neighbourhood.
I never was very interested in modern history, especially the Cold War and all. Ancient histories and civilisations always seemed more interesting but they are beginning to seem fairly interesting.
Very very intricate delicate stuff.....the best thing is.................it makes you wonder about the mysteries of present-day politics. Mind games and strategies..
But I think I have to get back to my lesson plans..and I still haven't blogged about the last day in Cambodia.
Today is exactly a month since I came back from the trip...
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