History, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary

The True Meaning Of The Killing Fields

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Some questions about Cambodia:

…what happened in Cambodia is what happened in the French Revolution, and in Stalin’s purges and mass collectivization campaigns, and in Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, only on a proportionately larger scale. It was mass murder in the name of equality. It wasn’t “genocide”; it was Communist utopianism carried to its logical extreme. The Khmer Rouge, who called themselves Maoists, believed that the most important social and political value was equality and that in order to create their new, classless society in which everyone was equal, it was necessary to exterminate anyone who might be smarter, or better educated, or wealthier, or more talented than anyone else. Thus, they killed the educated, the bourgeoisie, the middle classes, and the rich; movie stars, pop singers, authors, urban residents, and workers for the former government; and anyone who protested — as well as the families of all the above. Towards the end, they also killed cadres who were thought to be a political threat. Whatever their crimes were, the Khmer Rouge do not seem to have been motivated by racial, ethnic, or religious hatred.

Why then do Cambodians and the world call the mass murders by the Khmer Rouge “genocide”? I can think of several possible reasons. One is the superficial similarity to other mass slaughters — as noted earlier, the pictures of the Cambodian killing fields look very much like the pictures from the German concentration camps. Surely many people who are largely ignorant of history know only that similarity. Another reason is the fact that the victims of genocide are sympathetic. The U.N. creates commissions, and wealthy countries send money. Cambodia today is filled with NGOs bringing aid of various kinds. The desire for international sympathy might explain why Cambodians use the genocide label.

However, I suspect that the most important reason for the usage worldwide is that many people in the international media, international agencies, and international NGOs (not to mention academia) are reluctant to face up to the crimes committed by Communism in the name of equality. To do so might call into question the weight attached by them to equality as the most important social value and undermine the multicultural faith that evil is predominantly the product of inequality, racism, ethnic hatred, or religious fanaticism. That cannot be permitted, so such crimes must be either ignored or mislabeled. And, of course, the remaining Communist regimes in the world are only too happy to cooperate in characterizing the killing fields as the products of irrational paranoia on the part of Pol Pot and his gang rather than the perfectly rational result of the quest for perfect equality.

It’s useful to remember (or to be aware, if one wasn’t) that Pol Pot was educated (so to speak) in Paris. That was where he was radicalized, another child of the malignant Rousseau.

And when you hear some of the hate and misanthropy coming from the American Left (and too many of the Watermelon Greens), it could easily happen here as well, if they ever are given the power they crave. Particularly if they ever achieve their ongoing goal of disarming the people.

11 thoughts on “The True Meaning Of The Killing Fields”

  1. Looking at the various incidents of OWS using threats and violence, it wouldn’t be hard at all to see this happen if they ever came to power here.

  2. I have no problem mentally connecting the OWS demonstrators with the French mob. And they do tend to spout the same sort of Noble Savage BS.

  3. This would be common knowledge if the media actually did it’s job.

    I am so angry that they make me so angry.

  4. In his most excellent book The Blank Slate (pick it up today if you don’t have it already), Steven Pinker demonstrates several times that mass murder is the inevitable outcome of totalitarian states.

  6. When I went to college in pursuit of a BA in history, in the early 80s, there were a lot of bull sessions around in the cafeterias on site. The first study of the Khmer Rouge, John Barron’s “Murder of a Gentle Land” was only recently out. most of the other pol sci and history students thought that the Khmers were great, and wondered how well something similar would work in this country, only with different classes of people being killed(mostly conservatives, clergy, and free thinkers)
    Yes, it could happen here, and in fact probably will. I don’t think that there will be an uprising by gun owners though. The only thing that I think might prevent the Gulags is a collapse of government.

    1. Yes, it could happen here, and in fact probably will. I don’t think that there will be an uprising by gun owners though.

      I think you are right. What people don’t understand is that responsible gun owners tend to be polite and careful with their weapons. They may have many weapons and be great shots, but they may also hesitate in a mass revolt. Ask a conservative gun owner what they think about the Khmer Rouge, and they’ll tell you how much it bothers them. Ask a lefty protestor and they’ll justify it with an excuse of some other claimed injustice. Which one do you think would have an easier time pulling the trigger on a mob?

      I think the day is still far away, but I do think when it comes, the good guys will become boiled frogs as history shows time and time again.

  7. “…it could easily happen here as well, if they ever are given the power they crave.”

    Not before there are a few million unburied Domestic Enemies stinking up the continent. Owner-operators of backhoes and other earth-moving equipment will find an opportunity.

    The above seems just a touch hyperbolic, mentally unbalanced, what have you, as I re-read it, but it’s based on my feeling that if there were a Second Civil War, it wouldn’t be any of that sentimental “brother against brother” stuff one reads about the first one. It would be a war of extermination, strictly ideological, one side wins, the other vanishes. I’ve paid attention the American Left, the way it would play out is clear for all to see.

  8. I can’t remember the name of the documentary but it was about Cambodian prison guards reenacting their treatment of political prisoners. Shackling up prisoners by their hands and feet to lay flat on a cold dirt floor. Picking out prisoners at random for their weekly torture sessions to get them to confess to various thought crimes. All of them talked about how they were just too young to understand the impact of what they were doing. About how they would recruit 11 and 12 year-olds to put bullets in the back of 40 something year old people’s heads. I think what brought down the Khmer Rouge wasn’t so much that Pol Pot died but also the youthful members of the movement grew up and out of the idolatry and fanaticism of their short sighted aspirations. They didn’t realize they were going to have to carry around the emotional baggage and mental imagery of committing all these horrible acts for the rest of their lives. The darkness in their hearts eventually grew so cold that it extinguished the flame of their utopian dream.

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