Why We Need to Remember.

I recently read an article called "Never Forget" written by Michael Paterniti and appearing in the August 2009 issue of GQ magazine on the Khmer Rouge's relentless destruction of the Cambodian people and culture for four years in the 1970's. The story painted a blood red portrait of the human capacity for evil. Two million Cambodians were murdered or 1/4 the population of this nation at the time.

The story goes on to describe the ruthlessness of the the leaders of this movement upon their fellow citizens while trying to establish a revolutionary new society based upon certain Communist precepts they had learned while in school in Paris. In reality they put forth and forced forward an unwavering and grim nihilism. They abolished money, holidays, villages, the Buddhist religion, time and history and even more inhumanely love and family! And they killed lustily to support their ideals, if one can use such a word to describe their beliefs. People were killed for wearing glasses, being college educated. Doctors, lawyers, monks, and factory workers were killed. Lots and lots of men were murdered, many women, and far too many children.

The areas where some of the most brutal atrocities were committed were called the Killing Fields on which the movie of the same name was based. I recall gasping audibly in horror at each new description of the ways they killed. Just one to demonstrate my point and please forgive me but I feel this best portrays the horror. This is taken directly from the GQ article. "If someone required killing it was common practice to kill their children. If a parent died of starvation or disease, the children might also be killed. At the Killing Fields, babies were held by their feet and smashed against a designated tree, the Baby-Smashing Tree."

I knew this article would be difficult reading but I felt compelled to complete it and be made aware of every detail. I wanted to attempt to comprehend why and how human beings would commit such heinous acts of violence upon one another. It seems there are always justifications in the minds of those weilding the power. Religion, nationalism, racism. The Khmer Rouge used social reform as their murderous ideology. Apparently at certain times in history these factors come to infect the generally rational human mind and lead it to a deplorable and irrational conclusion. The Holocaust, the genocides in Rwanda and Croatia, the Khmer Rouge to name but a few. Mankind seems destined to repeat itself in these nightmare scenarios with a sickening regularity. Our history is stained with the blood and gore.

The Khmer Rouge article began with a collage of the photos of some of the victims of this particular horror snapped when they were first admitted to the death camps, but before they were subjected to its horrors. Tense, hollow, frightened faces, mostly male, many of them just young boys stared out from the page. Peering into the eyes of a most certain death, their stunned gazes brought the entire somber gravitas of the their dread reality into stark relief. To turn away would have been cruel, to not read their story seemed incomprehensible.

As living, breathing, feeling humans we must be informed about such things as the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror in Cambodia. The old saying is "knowledge is power". As members of the same human race that committed these acts, we must be made aware of our capacity for this type of savagery. The assumption that the intrinsic value of human life is both obvious and shared is incredibly naive. When we see violence played out daily all over the world, what do we do? We shrug. When we see it on tv, movies, the internet what do we do? We watch, sometimes thrilled, sometimes frightened, but usually we gloss it over and move on. When we learn about the Khmer Rouge or the Holocaust, what do we do? We shake our heads, we are disgusted, we may even cry but we move on. But do we learn??? And the answer to that question reveals what truly dwells inside of us.

Knowing and accepting our past, our history, however horrific at times is essential to bettering the human condition in the future. Failure to do so exposes us to culpability in the next Khmer Rouge however far removed we may think we are. We need to first learn about our mistakes and flaws in order to guard against them. We can start by respecting others, all others! We should respect their differences, their beliefs however divergent from ours. We should also always stand strong in the protection of those who have been infringed upon, scapegoated and exploited. Ultimately, we need to respect the dignity and value of all people as human beings. If and when the next alignment of destructive elements conspires against humanity, we shrug, we gloss it over, we walk walk away, then we also encourage, abet and conspire. If we ourselves don't die in reality, then we die inside and where is the value in that?

Please consider joining or donating to a group like Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org/. Thanks for reading.

© 2009 Paul Caracciolo. Reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited.