Unveiling a dark chapter in Cambodia's past

"We had no need to look through a lot of documents, because the six members of the textbook committee are living documents," says Chhut Sereyrum, a 12th-grade history teacher and one of the writers. "We lived under the Khmer Rouge regime and know how difficult it was. I think this is enough. We did not describe a lot about this time, only how life was at this time."

The writers tread lightly when it comes to including details. They don't want to repeat the experience during the 1980s occupation by the Vietnamese, the avowed enemy of the Khmer Rouge, when graphic drawings of Khmer Rouge atrocities hung on classroom walls and teachers were forced to use "morality" textbooks instead of history books.

"We didn't want to show the children how the Khmer Rouge soldiers killed people with hoes, axes, and bamboo-stick beatings over the head," Chhut Sereyrum says. "We need to think about the security of the students and how they will think. We need to think especially about the former Khmer Rouge who come back to live with the Cambodian community. We want them to live peacefully with us. We don't want people to remember too much."

A history for parents to tell

In the 1990s, after the Vietnamese had left the job of rebuilding the government to the United Nations, Cambodian society continued to search for peace. Its government was still at war against Khmer Rouge guerrilla forces, and wariness persisted because it was unclear what role Pol Pot would play in the future. (He died in 1998, just as government soldiers were poised to capture the elusive former leader).

Near-silence on the subject swept through many of the nation's classrooms, and an unspoken consensus seemed to emerge - that most of the information relayed to children should come from outside school walls.

"I got most of my information from parents and films," says Roath Sivalen, a 12th-grader at Preah Yukunthor High School in Phnom Penh. "I talk about it with my classmates. I tell my friends what my parents' life was like under Pol Pot and they tell me what their parents' life was like under Pol Pot."

But some experts outside the government say focusing on only the personal experiences of the chapter's writers does not do enough to help Cambodian students understand their past.

These experts argue that the school structure provides an ideal forum for children to engage in healthy discussions about the certain and uncertain details of past events. They encourage an approach that lets children find their own truth, but also avoids fanning widespread feelings of anger and revenge.

"The Khmer Rouge wasn't just about killing and victims," Youk Chhang says. "It was about foreign policies, music, fashion, slogans, songs, medicines, militaries, criminal justice, and political science.

"Every kid in the country has heard the stories of personal experiences from their own parents every single day for the last 25 years," he continues. "There is a way to address sensitive issues for educational purposes."

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Publishing Society

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