Cambodia, you were doing so well!
After a fantastic stay in Siem Reap, I touched down in Phnom Penh excited to see what further gems the capital might offer. My initial impressions were of a surprisingly developed, cultured city that defied the despondent picture outlined in so much of what I’ve read. I don’t mean to make light of the endemic corruption, lack of basic political freedoms and concerning growth of Chinese influence here. Perhaps it was the Vietnamese “happy water” still swirling around my bloodstream, but seeing all the bustling construction sites that littered the cityscape, I couldn’t help but feel that modernity’s inexorable creep was transforming this country, and that good times for the Cambodian people may be just around the corner.
They certainly weren’t for me, as I was jolted from my optimistic reverie by the sudden, slightly warm splash of putrefying food which a local crackhead had kindly decided to grace my back with. Babbling at me in a manner that I’m sure would’ve been unintelligible even if I spoke Khmer, I felt that any attempt to reason with him would be in vain and so, feeling the pungent goop beginning to encrust under the sun’s full glare, bade him farewell and returned to my hotel for a thorough cleanse.
Following this delightful interlude, I set off once again to see the city’s key sights, opting for a slightly more circuitous route to avoid any other unsolicited gifts from the natives. The downtown area is punctuated with some fantastic monuments and statues that would have made for a lovely saunter, had it not been for the blistering heat. I sought a cooler climate in the National Museum of Cambodia, which had a beautiful exterior but unfortunately little historical substance inside. Like the Angkor National Museum in Siem Reap, it was really just a trove of cultural relics and artefacts. The undisputed highlight was the royal palace. Although you can’t access the innermost sanctum, plenty of its regal splendour is still on display, including some stunning frescos that adorn the interior walls of the compound.
Yet as much as I’d enjoyed marvelling at Cambodia’s wonderful cultural patrimony both here and in Siem Reap, there was a pretty big historical elephant in the room: the Cambodian genocide.
During the brief three years, eight months and twenty days that Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge was in power (17 April 1975-7 January 1979), approximately two million people died, representing nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s population. To realise its ambition of transforming the country into an agrarian socialist republic, the regime relocated Cambodians to forced labour camps in the countryside, where life was characterised by malnutrition, disease and unconscionable levels of violence.
You would think that an event of comparable enormity to the Holocaust would feature quite prominently in official historical discourse, not least because so many survivors are still alive. I’d hitherto seen little to no mention of it anywhere I’d visited, but decided to reserve judgement until visiting the two primary remembrance sites.
I’d recommend starting with the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Located in downtown Phnom Penh, this former secondary school was repurposed as “Security Prison 21”. An estimated 20,000 people passed through its doors, of which only seven adults survived. The site has been well preserved and provided a harrowing window into the privations prisoners were subjected to.
Most of them were executed at the nearby Choeung Ek killing field, the second key site, which has since been converted into a memorial park. This pulled even fewer punches than the prison; the centre is occupied by a large stupa filled with the victims’ skulls. The meandering trail takes you past the mass graves, many of which are visible above ground. It was unnerving to see bones and clothing scattered across some of their surfaces, which apparently can result from heavy rainfall. As evocative as many museums are, being at the site of execution made the sense of tragedy especially palpable here. To give one further odious illustration, my guide pointed out a tree that babies were thrown against, a level of barbarity that felt all the more resonant given what’s just happened in Israel.
These sites, taken together, paint an unambiguous picture of genocide. In that sense they undoubtedly confront the tragedy and honour its victims.
Yet I didn’t get the impression that they had become totems of remembrance in the way that the Nanjing Massacre has in China’s national consciousness. When I visited the memorial hall there, I was practically the only foreigner; here I barely saw any Cambodians that weren’t tour guides or vendors. I’m sure this partly owes to the fact that China is relatively closed to outside visitors at the moment, but it was a pretty stark gulf regardless.
Following on from my Ho Chi Minh City post, I’d imagine that socio-economic factors have been even more inhibiting here than in Vietnam. However, the genocide’s relative obscurity in national discourse likely has far more to do with the fact that many in government, including until a few months ago the prime minister of nearly forty years, are former Khmer Rouge. In this sense – and the failure to adequately prosecute war criminals – the situation is quite analogous to Japan’s, though whereas I ended that post on an optimistic note, Cambodia today could hardly be described as a responsible stakeholder in the international order and a hallmark of good governance.
Cambodians are right to celebrate the triumphs of a bygone age, but unless they are willing to truly confront and learn from more recent events, I fear prosperity resembling the heights of Angkor will remain ancient history for them.
