A Selective Memorialization of the Past in Post-Genocide Cambodia

    In high school and college, I had the study tours to S21 and Cheung Ek, also known as Toul Sleng and the Killing Fields respectively, once or twice every 3 or 6 months. Sometimes, they would bring us to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, also known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, where they tried former members of the Khmer Rouge. To a naïve kid like me, the most exciting part about the tours those days was when I got to skip classes and hang out with my friends on the bus to the museums and during the tour, where we would chitchat and scare each other.

   Having lost close family members to the genocide myself, I understand firsthand why memorialization is important to the reconciliation of Cambodian people with the genocide. When people ask about Cambodia, I would begin with the geographical location of Cambodia using Southeast Asia as a reference, then proceed to the population size just to show we are a small country, and when all of that do not make sense, I would resort to the topic of Khmer Rouge. To make it more relevant, however exaggerated, I would call it the “Cambodian Holocaust.” I feel as if saying that would make them suddenly interested in learning more about Cambodia, or at least sympathize with where I come from. I feel as if that was the only highlight about Cambodia. I think this Khmer Rouge narrative I always bring up is also socially constructed, and it is influenced by how Cambodia, as a country, is perceived by other people and (re)framed in the media, pop culture. 

    

    Compared to ESMA, the most known detention center used to empower the civil-military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983), I believe that S21 and the Killing Fields in Cambodia could have done better than just overly portraying the physical horror, show-cased skulls and human remains, which the reading conceptualizes as commodifying the victimhood (Tyner et al., 2012). The same reading posits that the principle aim of the memorials is to educate future generations and to shape a sense of shared experience, while at other memorials, the purpose is to free people from guilt and reconcile with the past. 

    

    How does memorialization of physical horror and violence contribute to the healing of Cambodian people over the pains of being tortured and of losing their family members, and more so, how does it contribute to the reconciliation process and absolving guilt? Sirik (2020) explains that only a version of the past that aligns with political agenda of those in power gets represented in the memorialization, and if that is the case, it only perpetuates fears and trauma among survivors and future generations. 

    For instance, in 1997 when the civil war broke out, that same morning, I could see fatigue and extreme fear in my parents’ faces as the scene of the genocide apparently struck them again. I was too young to remember anything – naïve and ignorant. I enjoyed seeing the flames and pitch-black smoke coming from the nearby gas station. All I heard was “hurry, pack your stuff, and we leave the city.” The memory was fresh and vivid as it was just 20 years apart from the genocide. Not surprisingly, the occurrence of the social unrest or political turmoil sets to motion the possibility of another genocide like that in the mid-1970s. In this case, what does this memorialization produce? Fear or peace? Aspect of the past is chosen carefully and crafted clandestinely for the memorialization, so it could serve a mind control machine.

    Dwyer and Alderman (2008) suggest three approaches to studying memorial landscape and how politically contestable nature of place shapes the collective memory. In terms of text, the story of the victims is told and displayed graphically with a lack of context of the Khmer Rouge history. Additionally, the post-Khmer Rouge regime was justified through the homogenous narrative that they had saved millions of Cambodian people from the mass killing. In terms of arena, the contentious nature of the memorials (both S21 and the Killing Fields) lies in the debate of the commodities of victimhood and human remains (Disney-fied). Moreover, the same memorials could be perceived differently at different scale from individual to family and country scale, and whose story is told – the former regime members or the victims (Dwyer & Alderman, 2008). In addition, how the memorials are perceived is also a reflection of who we are, and it differs potentially in terms of life stage, age gap and level of education. In terms of performance, the memorials serve as the profit-making venture for international tourists. At the site, the regime survivors give firsthand testimony of the genocide, and there are books about Khmer Rouge history for sale (Dwyer & Alderman, 2008).  

    S21 and the Killing Fields museums have many memories, and the questions in which memories are promoted and neglected is a political question (Cresswell, 2004). While the memorial is geared towards international tourists and economic profits, the portrayal of show-cased skulls, instruments of torture and physical horror promotes the political messages and goals (Tyner et al., 2012). The authors emphasize that the lack of education on Khmer Rouge history, coupled with the prevalent exposure to the atrocious aspect of the past, has made many Cambodian youth live in fear, disbelief, and denial, and they are constantly torn by the question “why did Khmer kill Khmer” (Tyner et al., 2012). That is true. Every time I visit those memorials, I am struck by this heavy denial as to “why Khmer killed Khmer?” Was it classism? Geopolitical and ideological warfare? My grandpa, who was a medical doctor, was one of those who got tortured to death by the regime. According to my mom, my grandpa was tied to a banana tree, and knowing that he does not smoke cigarettes, they made him smoke a bunch, apparently a whole pack of cigarettes in one go, that he suffocated to death after a few hits. Why him? Why an innocent medical doctor who saves lives?    

    In the attempt to address the gap in Tyner et al.’s literatures (2012), a group of scholars from the Department of Media and Communication in Cambodia have come together to create a project called “Mapping Memories Cambodia” (hereafter MMC) to memorialize the unremarked, non-active sites during the Khmer Rouge. MMC is a mobile app and website that tells place-based stories and historical events told by survivors, experts, and historians in multimedia format. The goal of the project, in relation to Tyner et al.’s article (2012), is to transform the many unremarked sites into remarked and active memorials like S21 and the Killing Fields, which is fascinating.  

Khmer Rouge related movies you should check out if interested 

Sources cited: 

Cresswell, T. (2004). Defining place. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: 

     Blackwell Ltd, 12.

Dwyer, O. J., & Alderman, D. H. (2008). Memorial landscapes: Analytic questions and

     metaphors. GeoJournal, 73(3), 165–178.

Sirik, S. (2020). Memory construction of former Khmer Rouge cadres: Resistance to 

     dominant discourses of genocide in Cambodia. Journal of Political Power, 13(2), 

     233–251. 

Tyner, J. A., Alvarez, G. B., & Colucci, A. R. (2012). Memory and the everyday 

     landscape of violence in post-genocide Cambodia. Social & Cultural Geography, 

     13(8), 853–871.

http://mappingmemoriescambodia.com/fbclid=IwAR2c7K9u1HMwBD_

     rYyJkrIETxqxoZX9o03gXwwGUBWgIxmDPl_xGuANAdUI

https://tpocambodia.org/khmer-rouge-survivors/