Cambodia Kampuchea Part One

A year ago it started with Cambodia, and now at the end of the road for that man and I it ends with Cambodia.

I had briefly been to Cambodia before in 2014 at the end of La Vie during the cruise that eventually brought me home. We stopped in at the southern port of Siahnoukville and spent the day riding around on Tuk tuks and visiting the markets. 

My first experience of Cambodia had not been particularly immersive and so i found then that it was not really my thing. I didn't feel strongly about it at the time and not only because I had been unable to make it to Angkor. I was surprisingly and ashamedly ignorant of Cambodia outside of the picturesque and archaeologically desireable realm of Angkor Wat, and after briefly experiencing what had seemed to me like most other Asian countries I had visited, except for Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore, that was culturally shocking and uncomfortable to me because I never knew what to do. It was not until after becoming an agent that I was first educated on the people of Cambodia and their tragic history by a representative of a tour company who came one day to visit me in store. He told me about the Khmer Rouge, the killing fields, the communist rise and I was horrified by my ignorance and that these genocides, similar to Rwanda, flew so far under the radar. A proud nation of people, not unlike India and Vietnam, that had had a party supposed to lead them to a better life only to betray them so painfully instead. Unfathomable to a 21st century Australia, granted from immigrant family stock, whom had been ensured to have the best that her ancestors could give her. 

Everyone faces a different humanitarian battle and mine has always been women's rights, ending rape culture, fighting for our right to be not only equal but globally respected. I support women of all ages and cultures and want the best for us. I also support finding cures for cancer, animal rights, childcare, proper and open-minded education, homosexual rights (like gay marriage), and generally equality amongst people. My dream is to go to the Amazon and help to rehabilitate animals, or to see justice for rape victims and to those who've mistreated women, children and animals. I know poverty exists, I don't like it, but my stance on poverty was always very clear: tax the church. Use that money to do the thing the church has for centuries been preaching and help the poor and the needy - religion, constructed by man for man, should not be exempt from contributing to things like medicine, housing, infrastructure and soup kitchens. It seems harsh, but look at how much money goes into the maintaining of this religious culture that, in my personal opinion, could be better spent on ensuring that the less fortunate have a future. Believing in something doesn't cost anything, and I implore it, but maintaining religion is costly in more ways than one. Not to mention the sheer amount of wars and discrimination it has caused over the Millenia.

So, that in mind, I've always felt that poverty was a rather solvable problem that whilst worth fighting for wasn't my fight. It feels bad to say but I am only one woman - I have my battles already and I can't fight them all. I contribute when I can and even if you can't always tell I do care - I care to my very soul. My great criticism by many is that I am too sensitive, I care too much. 

I met that man last year as he readied to spend time in Cambodia building infrastructure for the people. I don't remember where, though I had been impressed and humbled. He is that person - though let me tell you that person is not always the one you want to have at parties. Not everyone can save the world, although this may sound harsh sometimes the people who do nothing but bend over backwards to join every charity can be exhausting to be around. Not to mention how it feels when it makes you reflect on your own life. I am a 21st century woman lucky enough to have been born in the western world in a relatively well off family who worked their way to be there. I do my part to contribute when I can so I don't like to feel that it's never enough. It probably isn't, but I could sell everything I own and give away all of my money and it still wouldn't be enough. I don't like hanging around the people that make me feel like living my own life is wrong, or that I am a bad person for buying myself a lipstick instead of giving that $15.00 to charity. And you know, sometimes in comparison, I felt that way.

I knew though, even though it is over and buried, that Cambodia would remind me of him. I knew that it would and yet I also knew that as it had in Vietnam coming to Cambodia finally would not only bring me to that temple of Angkor that I had so longed to see, but to replace the associations I had with new memories and the most beloved perspective. 

We crossed from Vietnam to Cambodia by land two days ago now, our bus taking us straight from Saigon to Phnom Penh through the monsoon where we met with cyclos (similar to cycle rickshaws) that took us on a bit of a tour through the city. The prime minister, an uncomfortably paranoid man on very good terms with Nort Korea, lives in the city across from the monument for Independence erected back in the 1950's after France released, sort of, Indochina. We went past the marketplace and the Royal palace, both locations we would visit the following day, and had dinner at the FCC (foreign correspondents club) which felt very much like an imperial outpost quite similar to one you might have found in Cairo during the 1920's and been unsurprised to have encountered Poirot in. This very much set the tone for our time - the days in Phnom Penh filled with history and the evenings stimulating the economy in tourist driven establishments specifically designed to help us give back to the population. Friends, a hugely famous locale, consisted of a restaurant and shop run as a school for disadvantaged children to help train them in English and skills, the proceeds of which went back towards this education. 

Considering, also, that Phnom Penh was a ghost town for years just before the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror, it was one vibrant and happy town. At least during the day. 

It was not hard to imagine, however, that the city had seen some horror especially after visiting the Cheung Ek killing fields and the S-21 prison both on the outskirts of the modern city. Whilst the prime minister and the current king of Cambodia reside in the city now, so too did the Khmer Rouge in the 1970's up until the Vietnamese army - fresh from their own hell - stormed in and arrested the leaders of the communist party. Before I explain further for those unfamiliar let me start by saying that all those officially involved in the goings on of the Khmer Rouge until 1979 are either now dead or have been properly tried by the UN for war crimes and crimes against humanity. What happened cannot be undone but in a sense justice has been had. I'll let you make up your own mind on whether that was enough. 

The Khmer Rouge rose to power in the early 1970's as a communist party led by Pol Pot, whom in his youth had gone straight to Europe and learnt, as students often will, about politics and yearned for utopia. As we've seen with Adolf Hilter, already a historical figure by this point, utopia can very quickly become distopia at the hands of the wrong person. Pol Pot's communist Cambodia was fortunately short lived although so desperate to retain his harsh lifestyle the leader of the party became so paranoid to intercept any possible interference from either the CIA or the KGB that he led his own people to genocide. Just like Hitler before him he manipulated the people, predominantly intellectuals at first that he suspected of espionage, into his prisons (such as S-21) where they were promptly tortured for information that they didn't have and later led out to the fields to be executed violently. Between 1976 and 1979 the numbers of those who either disappeared or were sent 'to study' soared up to over 20,000 across multiple makeshift prisons and killing fields. Cheung Ek itself after being exhumed in 1980 was found to have the remains of over 8,000 individuals in 129 mass graves. Men, women and children - even infants. Pol Pot was so paranoid that these people could have been spies that he executed them, their families and their whole villages. The intention was to not only eliminate the threat but the possibility of future vengeance. Entire corners of Cambodia's people just gone - and for what? The Khmer Rouge was disbanded in 1979, Pol Pot placed in house arrest until he died in 1998 and the monarchy returned with constitution. Foreign aid from Japan, Vietnam and the US, a growing tourist boom and education increasing in their favour. It's a slow process but the Cambodians are improving, the genocide of their people in vain but never forgotten. 

My perspective was achieved and my own life humbled, just as it was as I stood in Auschwitz, the War Remnants museum of Saigon, and so many other places of tragedy before. I am grateful for what I have and that not only do I have a choice in life but that I can choose to help people less fortunate than myself. It might not be every day in the same way, it might not be monetary, and it might not be everlasting. I may never change the world but I owe it to the world to fight those battles that I do for I have much and I am free when there are millions who are not. 

So it starts and ends here with Cambodia. This first half of my time here has seen death, the rest will see life and sunrise and possibility. 

Sam xox