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Published: February 3rd 2014
Ouch! Those of you old enough to remember Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge will remember what a terrible recent history Cambodia has. You cannot help seeing / experiencing this place without feeling a desperate sadness and despair for our species of so called civilized animals. We are old enough to recall the terrible media footage and news reports of the mid 70s when I was still at university....just under 4 decades ago.. Possibly the worst episode of mass genocide known to us, with nearly 2 m people killed by their own countrymen over a 4 yr period of psychotic regime. How could that ever be possible? But it did happen and it happened before (Germany), and its happened since (Uganda, Yugoslavia) and god help us, it will happen again. Being here, seeing the prison, torture chambers and killing fields just makes the nightmare real, current, and very very scary. We spoke to our guide who lost many relatives, and met one of the 2 surviving people of the 7 out of 70000 who survived the S2 prison in Phnom Penh. We saw the prison, the photographs of the victims, the horrors, and the killing field with all its gory vulgarity.
We wept with the survivor, a very brave and exceptional man who witnessed what no man should ever have to witness. It was humbling, traumatic, heroic, frightening, despairing, and confusing, all rolled into one rollercoaster of emotional apocalypse. How could people allow this to happen..Yes, I do know the politics behind it, but what of the psychology that allows normal human beings to become monsters, and where was their God, Bhudda, or whatever was supposed to be guiding them? I have no more words...only tears and despair for our so called higher, intelligent species. What other species ever behaved in this way....we deserve whatever awaits us.
Enough! Cambodia is a lovely place with lovely people. The fallout of the 75-79 regime is still very obvious, with virtually every living person having missing relatives. You can't lose 40% of a population in 4 yrs and not notice! Poverty is widespread, there are thousands living on the street in Phnom Penh alone, and education is almost non existent. Children beg and clear street rubbish in bare feet. Cripples and elderly crawl on their bottoms and paraplegics are wheeled round in carts, begging for food or money. The street markets and streets
stink of meat and fish decaying in the heat, and there is litter everywhere. There is widespread corruption, and amidst all this poverty, there are flash cars and obvious new wealth, mainly Chinese. And yet everybody smiles and says hello. It beggars belief. Oh, and the food is brilliant, and the beer is cheap. Flippant? Yes, but I can't change the past, and the tourist dollar IS helping to rebuild this tragic country, along with Chinese investment and Khmer fortitude and hope. I wish them well. Scarier still though, is the current Cambodian peoples party is headed by a Khmer Rouge member, who is all powerful, is communist in all but name, suppresses education and free speech, censors all communication, and is allowing his country to remain one of the poorest and least educated in the world. The people are helpless as he quashes all opposition and owns the army. It is difficult as an outsider to tell the difference between him and Pol Pot. A long conversation with several well informed Cambodians have only reinforced this fear.
Surprisingly, Phnom Penh is a city which boasts an opulent royal palace...the king has no power and is elderly, and his
heir is unmarried and studying ballet dancing in Paris at the moment...but I'm sure the Khmer will welcome him with open arms?? They are so enlightened. There are opulent temples, art galleries and museums, banks and businesses. But amongst the sparkling, excessive 4wd status phalluses, people sleep in doorways, under tarps, boxes, hammocks between lampposts and trees, and even atop parked motor bikes. Children wander the streets barefoot and hungry. A bit like Edinburgh after a derby, but warmer!
Our 7 hour drive to Siem Reap today was fascinating with very rough roads and abject poverty very evident everywhere. However, the road is being upgraded, with electric lighting being erected. Huge investment by the Chinese. The payback, however, is to be allowed to take land cheap, build factories for shoes / clothes, and pay Cambodians peanuts to work there.
More pics of that next time, but off to Ankor Wat temples at 05 am to see sunrise over the temple. So that's all for now, folks. Hope the next blog may be more cheery!
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