By Tejas Vir Singh

Abstract

The Khmer Rouge was a communist regime that was in power in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. In just four years, the regime had ended up killing a quarter of Cambodia’s population in its pursuit of remaking a suitable society ‘free of the vestiges of the past.’ Headed by Pol Pot, the country saw everything associated with the pre-1975 government dismantled and installed instead with a regime that would leave a deep scar on Cambodian history. Moreover, the Khmer Rouge’s experiment not only affected Cambodian culture and society in terms of education and music it also depended upon Cambodian cultural norms to ensure the success and support for its regime’s actions.

In order to understand the Khmer Rouge, we need to first look at Cambodia’s complex post-colonial history. Cambodia gained independence from France in 1953 with Prince Norodom Sihanouk as its monarch. Sihanouk came from a royal lineage that was put into power by the French to make the Protectorate of Cambodia. Bordered by a communist Vietnam to the east, the Kingdom ensured its neutrality by refusing the demands of the United States when it asked for its aid in the Vietnam War. However, Sihanouk was then deposed by former Prime Minister Marshal Lon Nol in a military coup that set up a right-wing government loyal to the United States. This regime allowed the United States to bomb the eastern regions of Cambodia to prevent North Vietnamese soldiers from crossing into the South via the Ho Chi Minh trail. It is estimated that half a million tons of bombs were dropped by the United States. Meanwhile, Prince Sihanouk and the Communist Party of Kampuchea, whose followers became to be known as the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, formed an alliance while in exile. The Lon Nol government was defeated in a civil war against the Khmer Rouge, which saw an increase in members due to the resentment against Lon Nol’s pro-US policies. In 1975, putting an end to the civil war, the Khmer Rouge took control of the government after putting Sihanouk under house arrest, renaming the country Democratic Kampuchea in 1976. The Khmer Rouge would themselves be deposed by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979 that set up the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, after having killed somewhere between 1.2 million to 2.8 million Cambodians.

Similar to the Soviet and Chinese revolutions that aimed at making a new, communist society by destroying the old society and its socio-economic and cultural structures, the Khmer Rouge saw a vision of a Cambodia purged of ‘corrupt’ culture by doing away with money and commerce, and instead of cities, the rural areas would lead the future of Cambodia. It aimed to establish a rural classless society, as it saw agriculture as the cornerstone of the revolution, given its correlation with the valour of the worker-peasants that are the face of the revolution. This was also seen as a means of gaining independence from international exploitation as industries were seen as a tool for aiding capitalist countries. In pursuit of this vision, the Khmer Rouge undertook many extreme measures, such as abolishing money, schooling and all kinds of private property, down to even utensils. In order to achieve a complete break from the past, it also banned religion, and Khmer culture, and even mandated black costumes for the Khmer Rouge cadres. Cities were evacuated and people were sent to work on fields. Anyone straying from such mandates was deemed to be an enemy, who represented the past. Moreover, the enemy tag was primarily given to those in positions of power or privilege before the coming of the Khmer Rouge, including those who were linked to the Lon Nol government. Such people along with minorities like the Cham and Vietnamese were regarded as ‘impure’ and were detained and executed. Moreover, the 1976 “Four-Year Plan” of Pol Pot aimed to produce three tons of rice per hectare of rice throughout Cambodia, forcing people to work to produce massive amounts of rice without much rest or food, leading to deaths by starvation and disease.

Amongst the Khmer Rouge’s policies were educational reforms. 90% of schools were destroyed, libraries emptied and laboratory equipment smashed by the Khmer Rouge, as a means to stop the education system left over by the old regime and instead replace it with one of their own that spread its social agenda. The educated population was a prime target for the Khmer Rouge as they were seen as products of the feudal-capitalist past and would have been a hindrance to the building of a new Cambodia. Moreover, some scholars believe that removing the intellectual class will make the process of forming a new social order dictated by the Khmer Rouge easier. During the reign of Democratic Kampuchea, it is believed that three-quarters of the teaching force and two-thirds of pupils were killed, as per Cambodia’s Ministry of Education. 

Pol Pot replaced the former education system with a system where the goals of the revolution and ideologies of social change were to be taught. Pol Pot envisioned that those with no previous schooling can even become graduate engineers by studying “important things and practical work.” However, this system largely failed as many of these schools had teachers chosen from the worker-peasant population that itself had minimal education, and were instead chosen for their “revolutionary attitude”. This led to a poor quality of education, which was largely limited to the singing of revolutionary songs which was seen as a model for cultivating good political consciousness. This crippled the chances of a healthy recovery for the Cambodian nation, with much of its invaluable national intellectual resources exterminated. The country faced a shortage of teachers and educational facilities post-genocide, which caused illiteracy to reach 40 per cent.

Music too, was curtailed during the Democratic Kampuchea years. Pre-Khmer Rouge folk songs emphasised on the civil war with the suffering caused by the bombings by the United States, and also on daily life activities such as carpentry and weaving with some references to gendered division of labour and the beauty of women. During the Khmer Rouge regime, however, the songs became more about community projects and aims of accomplishing revolutionary goals and of defending the homeland. Pre-Khmer Rouge songs were prohibited, and songs largely became a medium for the regime to spread its message. It is also interesting to note that traditional Cambodian duets which were mostly about romance, chlang chlaoey, which had interchangeable lines sung by a man and a woman, were replaced by songs sung in unison to represent the collectivity of the population. This effect on music in Cambodia led to the weakening of the indigenous music styles and the loss of the musical wealth Cambodia gained in the 1960’s given that most of the singers and their songs were lost in the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Arts performances were also conducted throughout the country by arts teams who sang about the party and its goals. These aimed to clean the ‘enemy from within’, as they served as a means of checking loyalty to the regime by observing the facial expressions of the audience; the more enthusiastic the expressions, the more loyal the people. The regime of Pol Pot thus directly impacted the Cambodian culture by erasing any linkage to the past and instead replacing it with symbols of the Khmer Rouge, by regulating education and even music. By imparting its ideology into everyday life, it can be argued that the regime influenced the citizens to commit killings against their own countrymen by viewing them as the enemy. However, the role of the Cambodian culture in aiding such merciless killing also needs to be discussed. 

Those who were part of the Khmer Rouge had initiated killings against their own people, but that cannot mean to say that Cambodians are a violent group; the preexisting cultural situation needs to be seen too, as in this case, where many of the perpetrators were coerced into doing such murderous acts. In Cambodia, the role a person holds is regarded as a matter of great importance. The concept of saving face and honour is particularly highlighted in Cambodia, due to historical conceptions of ‘big men’ leading societies having greater ‘soul stuff’, which was solidified by the Hindu notions of hierarchical society and Buddhist notions of natural inequality and karma defining one’s social status. This gave rise to a society divided into superiors and subordinates. Cambodian culture developed around this hierarchical division where the subordinate should respect and obey one’s superiors, from children respecting parents to subordinates their bosses and populace the government. This belief is deeply ingrained amongst Cambodians, supported by the saying that ‘an upright stalk is barren, but the one that bends down gives grain.’ This attaches honour to one who respects their superiors. 

Although such a practice is common in many other Asian countries, in Cambodia, it is more acute, due to Buddhist beliefs of social status being determined by one’s actions in the past life while having the ability to climb up the social ladder by gaining such honour. Since everyone occupies a certain position in society, there exists a chain of respect and honour between ‘superiors’ and ‘subordinates’ which leads to a social expectation which needs to be met in order to gain honour. Such expectations manifest themselves even in linguistic registers, body positions and mannerisms. This leads to a desire to be seen as the ‘superior’ and respected person in society; such a cultural practice is engrained in schools and families. It is learnt from an early age that to be honoured one must act in a way that is praised by others. This leads to a structured honour competition where one competes with others to gain honour, especially in formal settings like schools or offices.

During the Democratic Kampuchea years, the regime glorified the use of violence for eradicating the enemy, in exchange for such honour to the cadres that carried out such orders. Many of these cadres came from the peasantry who were originally a subordinated group, and now they were considered as ‘old people’ given their rural and thus ‘pure’ ties as per the regime, and were placed above the ‘new people’, those who were formerly the elite and urban residents. ‘Old people’ were given more rights than the ‘new people’, given that the latter came from urban centres, now seen as a characteristic of ‘impurity’. A new hierarchy was formed where the former peasants were ranked above the former urban population, with the Party leadership above them all. Given that the ‘enemy’ or anyone not adhering to the regime’s ideologies was to be eradicated, the Khmer Rouge ordering such killings struck at the core of the honour competition; one was expected to save face by following the orders of the leadership and ‘cut off one’s feelings/heart’ for the enemy, as that would make the person a traitor and make them lose honour and face in the eyes of the leadership and society. Honour in Democratic Kampuchea was gained by following orders and rising in ranks. With the popular narrative being dictated by the Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian population did as they were ordered to simply because it was an inherent cultural norm to gain honour by respecting the superiors, in this case, the party leadership and party cadre. This honour competition caused many to even kill their parents, spouses or relatives simply because they had been labelled as an enemy, who needed to be exterminated. Thus, the Khmer Rouge was able to successfully convince its followers to commit mass killings by tuning into the cultural practice inherent amongst Cambodians.

The Khmer Rouge-induced genocide in Cambodia is regarded as one of the deadliest events of the 20th Century that has had severe impacts on the country’s psyche, by interfering with the culture of the country. Not only did it affect the culture and society by reversing urbanism, destroying educational systems and curbing music displaying individualism, but it also used cultural norms to influence the populace to commit genocide against their own people.

About the Author

Tejas Vir Singh is a second-year student at O.P. Jindal University currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in law. 

Image source- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-10684399