The first full day in Cambodia was full of discussions - with NGOs, Buddhist monks, foreign correspondents, and villagers displaced by land seizures, among others. The common thread in all of the conversations seemed to be that no matter what happened in this country before or since, the era of the Khmer Rouge (KR) redefined Cambodia completely. Yet strangely, only passing references to this era were made - never discussions to any great detail.
Monks briefly mentioned that the KR viewed Buddhism as a threat, but did not elaborate on their systematic elimination by the KR, nor the fact that Pol Pot was a monk himself. Elders in a Phnom Penh neighborhood, to establish their legacy in the village, claimed that they have been in that neighborhood way back to since 1979, the year the KR fell. Since displacement was so complete in this era, especially for Phnom Penh, that year almost implies that these people were there at the town's founding.
Although it is makes sense that such a traumatic event would have had a profound impact on a country, the fact that this era permeates seemingly all of today's substantive conversations still surprises me. It is obvious how painful the experience was, and is, given how reticent Cambodians are to talk about it.
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