The Anthropology Of Genocide - WNLibrary

24 the dark side of modernity
When the Khmer Rouge took power, they immediately set out to transform
Cambodian society into a socialist utopia. Many of the socioeconomic changes the
Khmer Rouge imposed attacked, directly or indirectly, the solidarity of the family/household
unit, which previously had been a foundation of social life, economic
production, moral obligation, and emotional attachment. In an attempt to subvert
this threatening source of loyalty, the Khmer Rouge undercut the familial bond
by separating (or killing) family members, inverting age hierarchies, and co-opting
familial functions and sentiments. Immediately after DK, Cambodians crisscrossed
the country, looking for lost loved ones. Ebihara and Ledgerwood point out how,
in Svay and other parts of Cambodia, families slowly began to reconstitute themselves
and re-establish social and kinship networks. Earlier patterns of interaction—
such as reciprocal aid, economic cooperation, mutual concern, social interchange—
gradually re-emerged, though many families have had to grapple with a shortage
of male labor, poverty, emotional wounds, and the loss of loved ones.
The Khmer Rouge also attacked another key social institution that commanded
popular loyalty, Buddhism. During DK, the Khmer Rouge banned the religion,
forced monks to disrobe, and destroyed and desecrated temples, which were sometimes
used as prisons, torture and interrogation centers, and execution sites. Like
the family and the household, Buddhism has re-emerged as a dominant focus of
Cambodian life. Throughout Cambodia, communities have reconstructed temples
and re-established the monastic order. Thus, by 1997, the Svay villagers had largely
rebuilt the devastated temple compound and supported monks who, as before DK,
again play a crucial role in Cambodian life ceremonies. Buddhist beliefs, communal
functions, healing rituals, and ceremonies for the dead have also provided Cambodians
with an important means of coping with their enormous suffering and loss.
Sadly, despite their admirable accomplishments in rebuilding their lives and
overcoming the trauma of genocide, Cambodians have been forced to continue living
in an atmosphere of uncertainty and terror. For more than a decade after DK,
people feared the return of the Khmer Rouge, who, supported by the United States
and other foreign powers, battled government forces in many areas. In addition,
armed men and bandits have terrorized people in many parts of the country. Innocent
Cambodians have been robbed and killed in random acts of violence, sometimes
perpetrated by rogue military or police units that feel they can act with impunity.
Elsewhere, military units have appropriated land from defenseless peasants
or participated in intensive logging, which represents a serious threat to Cambodia’s
agricultural and ecological systems. After twenty-five years of conflict, much
of it linked to self-serving U.S. policies dating back to the Vietnam War, Cambodia
is rife with landmines and guns, and the people still suffer from political instability
and violence. Still, despite this uncertain atmosphere, Cambodians continue
to rebuild their lives and look forward to a better future.
If Ebihara’s and Ledgerwood’s chapter focuses on the process by which communities
rebuild social institutions in the aftermath of genocide, Beatriz Manz’s chapter,
“Terror, Grief, and Recovery: Genocidal Trauma in a Mayan Village in Guatemala,”