Memory and Justice

Maggie and I quickly learned that every Cambodian celebration starts with a traditional Khmer dance. Young ladies adorned in bright colors, gold headpieces, and jasmine flowers welcome the beginning of the celebration, whatever it may be. From ordinations of priests to openings of schools, there is always a beautiful Khmer dance to start you off. The girls move slowly in the most beautiful fluid motions, and dance in perfect harmony with the traditional Khmer music. The whole thing is beautiful and I doubt I will ever grow tired of it. I think it’s a wonderful way to preserve tradition, which is something that Cambodia really needs. I know it's been a while since I've written anything, but this blog post was a little harder to write.

December 10th is International Human Rights Day, which was a holiday for our school, as well as Clare and Sarah’s. The Sisters from Teuk Thala suggested Clare and Sarah go to the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum, and suggested Maggie and I go as well. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting at the museum and it’s still hard to describe. I’d been to the Holocaust Museum in Houston when I was in grade school, but this was going to be different. 

A billboard of the children who survived Tuol Sleng.

Tuol Sleng is 1 of the 150 execution centers the Khmer Rouge used from 1975-1979. What had once been a beautiful school was turned into a mass detention center in the middle of the city. The area around Tuol Sleng has been rebuilt with tall apartments and small markets surrounding the area. You’d almost miss the entire area completely if you weren’t paying attention, but it is in this area that time stands still. While the area around the school is full of life and loud, it is here at Tuol Sleng that things are quiet, as if there were a sound barrier around the area. As you enter Tuol Sleng, you can almost imagine how beautiful the school must have been and that the students must have loved it. Maybe I was just trying to imagine some good coming from this area, telling myself at one point in it’s history, people were receiving an education. This was the only reassurance of something good coming from this piece of land. 

Barbed wire to discourage captives from suicide.

The four main buildings which were once used to hold victims in mass and for individual interrogations now showcase photographs, instruments of torture, and prisoner cells. The second and third floors of are covered in barbed wire to keep people from committing suicide and remain on each of the buildings. The Khmer Rouge kept a very detailed report of every person who was at Tuol Sleng, which included a photograph, however these got separated from their original files and the photographs today remain without a name. The photos feature men and women who were prisoners, but also include members of the Khmer Rouge, whom our tour guide also referred to as victims, as Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, frequently turned on the very people who worked for him. The methods they used to torture people are on display, from electric shock to water boarding and every other form of torture one could imagine. The Khmer Rouge only spared people that they thought were useful. Mechanics, artists, and carpenters were spared, as the Khmer Rouge could use their talents to honor Pol Pot or help the Khmer Rouge as a whole. Doctors, dancers, educators, monks, government officials, students or anyone that the Khmer Rouge saw as a threat were taken as prisoners.  An estimated 17,000 men, women, and children died at Tuol Sleng. One of the most heart wrenching pictures is that of a woman holding a small infant during her portrait. We later learned that she was separated from her child after that photo and taken into a mass holding cell, while her child was killed later that night. The photos of the children were the hardest to look at. Their innocent faces filled with fear. They didn’t deserve this. No one deserves this.

There are only 12 known survivors of Tuol Sleng, though only 3 are thought to still be alive. Two of them have written books about their experience and come to Tuol Sleng to talk about what they endured. I imagine it to be veery difficult to do this, and yet they do. Maybe in hopes that it will bring closure. There are some leaders who are still alive, however most have been sentenced to life in prison. Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1998. Our tour guide spoke very honestly that though they did this to their own people and that the Cambodian people want justice for all the lives lost,  sentencing the final four to death would not bring justice to the lives lost. That takes a lot of strength to say. The repercussions of the Khmer Rouge are still present today. For some of the girls, this was how their parents met; Pol Pot married off men and women to each other before sending them off to work in the fields. We talked about family trees a few weeks ago in my class and many of my girls would tell me of grandparents or aunts and uncles who were victims of the Khmer Rouge. It’s taken me a very long time to process this, and I still don’t think I’m done.  It’s taken me this long to process what I walked through in only 2 hours, but this doesn't even begin to compare to the healing process of the people who live here. The people who lived through it. The people who were victims of this terrible act against humanity.

So how did I get from the beauty of dance to the dark history of the Khmer Rouge? On December, 15th we had the inauguration of the school at Teuk Thala, which began with a traditional Khmer dance. One of my summer courses had an open topic research presentation and  I’d done a bit of research on the history of Khmer dance. Many traditional dancers died during the Khmer Rouge, but those who survived managed to find each other after the Khmer Rouge and continued dancing. I’m beginning to see dance as not only tradition, but also a form of rejoicing, as a way to overcome a painful past. As a way for a country to help heal some very recent wounds. I thought of the traditions that are important to me. Freshman year, my roommate Erika and I decided to go to mass for the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Ignatius down the road from St. Ed’s.  The procession began with traditional music and dance and the whole thing is beautiful. It’s a reminder of my Mexican heritage, which as I’ve grown older, I’ve become more proud of. This year I was really missing going to St. Ignatius with Erika, but I did enjoy a lovely mass with the Sisters and shared a very loud, "Happy Feast Day" with them at breakfast! The Christmas Bazaar was this past Sunday and we had such a good time. We've been working as a whole community for a few months now on making the Bazaar awesome and I will definitely be writing about it very soon. I had such a blast because my girls looked awesome during their dance, and I really enjoyed doing their makeup!   I really loved seeing my other students do their traditional dance too. My girls doing the traditional dance look like beautiful little princesses. They’re even doing another dance that is kind of like a courting dance. It’s actually very funny. One of my students plays a boy, but she just get so excited and into her dance, I forget that she’s supposed to be a silly boy. Her smile just lights up that stage and I’m so proud of her. I’m proud of my girls who are helping preserve the beauty and traditions of their own culture in the beauty of dance.

My beautiful second year girls in tradition Khmer clothes.