Philip Short’s Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare documents the rise and fall of both Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot was not a madman; he did not have Hitleresque personal qualities. Quite the contrary, he was social in a retiring way, not wanting the spot light, and seeking, throughout his “career,” to avoid scrutiny in part by frequently changing his name and hiding his location.
As a student in Paris, he was not the most intelligent, or even the most ideologically driven among expat Cambodian students. But as he entered political life, he became a more fervent advocate of complete and total social engineering. Small believes that Pol Pot was just as influenced by the more bloody aspects of the French Revolution as by Marx, Lenin, or Mao.
When he gained power in 1975, he emptied Cambodia’s cities, and started year zero, an attempt to create a new kind of person who was not a person at all; an entity that was devoted to the state. This was a pure totalitarian vision. Pol Pot only cared for this vision; human life meant nothing alongside of this ideal. More than a million Cambodians died in the process.
Short make some interesting assertions. One is that America and China, new allies, supported the Khmer Rouge against the trio’s common enemy, Vietnam. In that case, our government is an accessory to genocide.
Short also makes a great many negative generalizations about Cambodians (if he wrote such things about African-Americans, they would be deemed racist). It is disturbing to read that Cambodians are lazy, or prone to extreme violence despite their outward smiles and politeness. He also believes that the kind of Buddhism practiced in Cambodia, with its world denying theology, was one of the elements that molded the Khmer Rouge nihilistic joyride.
Really? Really??
As a student in Paris, he was not the most intelligent, or even the most ideologically driven among expat Cambodian students. But as he entered political life, he became a more fervent advocate of complete and total social engineering. Small believes that Pol Pot was just as influenced by the more bloody aspects of the French Revolution as by Marx, Lenin, or Mao.
When he gained power in 1975, he emptied Cambodia’s cities, and started year zero, an attempt to create a new kind of person who was not a person at all; an entity that was devoted to the state. This was a pure totalitarian vision. Pol Pot only cared for this vision; human life meant nothing alongside of this ideal. More than a million Cambodians died in the process.
Short make some interesting assertions. One is that America and China, new allies, supported the Khmer Rouge against the trio’s common enemy, Vietnam. In that case, our government is an accessory to genocide.
Short also makes a great many negative generalizations about Cambodians (if he wrote such things about African-Americans, they would be deemed racist). It is disturbing to read that Cambodians are lazy, or prone to extreme violence despite their outward smiles and politeness. He also believes that the kind of Buddhism practiced in Cambodia, with its world denying theology, was one of the elements that molded the Khmer Rouge nihilistic joyride.
Really? Really??
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