Cambodia’s Legacy of Silence

by MelissaBooth

The WIP

On a late afternoon near the end of our trip, the thirteen of us students sat in a dimly lit room drinking coffee and listening to another heart-wrenching story. A man was kindly recounting his personal experience during the Khmer Rouge period - one more ghastly, moving, and extraordinary tale. In the midst of his quiet chronicling, his wife said, “Tell them about the birds.” As he pondered her request, his face smoothed over and he took a long look at the ceiling. He then told us something remarkable. He remembers distinctly that in the years under the Pol Pot regime, there was a physical change in the landscape.

• The killing fields in Cambodia. Photograph by Adam Kogeman. •

All around him he saw trees beginning to die. The vibrant greens of the fields muted to a dingy brown as vegetation withered. Coconut trees stopped providing fruit. Fighting his hunger, he searched for a certain edible plant that commonly grew in the region, but it had vanished. It was as though nature itself was affected by the suffering and, like the people, was disappearing. The birds, he said, stopped singing. He noticed their silence and that, after awhile, they appeared to have left entirely. Animals known to populate the countryside left too. For him, there was simply no other explanation but that the very earth was recoiling in horror. The silence that fell upon Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 was dreadful, blanketing the people and the land in a frightful stillness. Today, this legacy of silence is a crucial element of Khmer culture. We went to Cambodia to study the “challenges to peacebuilding,” and this unique obstacle to peace particularly moved me. Silence plays a varied role in Khmer history and society, being a manifestation of fear, a tool for survival, and a traditional part of Cambodian psychology. I saw the theme emerge numerous times and in unexpected places, and became fascinated with the meaning of silence for Cambodians and their future.

Silence and the Khmer Rouge

In interviews taken later, former Khmer Rouge guards reported that their elevation to positions of authority gave them, for the first time in their lives, the experience of having power over someone. Humble farmers and peasants were transformed into influential men and women with commanding voices. However, their feelings of power were starkly contrasted to the utter hopelessness suffered by a vast swath of the Cambodian population. For these people, the ability to speak was stolen from their mouths by the regime’s methods of terror and dehumanization. Silence became a central strategy for survival under the communist Khmer Rouge.

In 1975, Pol Pot instituted an agrarian revolution in which all members of society except peasants and poor farmers were marked for eradication. Almost anyone could be designated as an enemy of the party and executed, but professionals, academics, artists, and students were especially targeted. Urban residents, French-speaking Cambodians, Cham Muslims, ethnic Chinese, and Vietnamese nationals living in the country were also deemed disposable. Because of this constant threat of violence, silence became the key to staying alive. If identities could be satisfactorily hidden, if education, bilingualism, urban upbringing, or ethnicity could be masked, there was a chance to escape slaughter and face the odds of survival laboring in the rice fields. Remaining quiet, with head down and hands working, was one of the only ways to survive.

Cultural Silence

Though the Cambodian people we met were endlessly kind, flashing us big beautiful smiles, there is still a distrust that lingers in their minds. This fear, a reaction to the violence wreaked upon the country throughout the Vietnam war and later by the Khmer Rouge, shaded many of our discussions with NGOs, Buddhist monks, Khmer youth, and even regular people we met each day. It was not uncommon to ask a Khmer man for his thoughts on the government and have him look over his shoulder and lower his voice when responding. He may even decline to respond at all. Women too had stories locked tightly away, and only those who had become accustomed over time to sharing their experiences would let the memories bubble up.

Apart from the fierce effect the Khmer Rouge had on Cambodians, there is a more organic and cultural dimension to silence. In a country where 95 percent of the population is Buddhist, there is a traditional and religious significance to preserving quiet.

The Buddhist saying, “Do not speak unless it improves upon the silence,” reflects the importance of silent wisdom and careful discourse. Silence paves the path to inner peace and is enshrined in the teachings and lives of the orange-robed monks that dot the Cambodian landscape. Correspondingly, Cambodian culture does not emphasize or honor verbal communication as do other, often Western, cultures. Instead, symbolism is a fundamental attribute of Cambodian interaction; “talking” does not serve the people as well as gestures, symbols, and deeds.

Yet the cultural tradition of silence does not always outweigh the merit of confronting trauma and processing grief. One Cambodian NGO we visited empowers local people through community reconciliation, and it was noted that the organization’s first task when it began was to “open mouths.” Once people were taught that they need not be silent anymore, they began to overcome their aversion to dialogue and embrace the catharsis of open reflection.

Each year in Cambodia, the Tonlé Sap River performs a remarkable feat. When the rainy season starts, the country’s other major waterway, the Mekong, swells and pushes the Tonlé Sap back, reversing its flow. It is a river that runs two ways. Silence in Cambodia is as difficult to comprehend as this annual phenomenon of the river. Cambodians’ willingness to speak was forced to retreat in the face of terrifying brutality. This cycle of fear and powerlessness still persists in the country today. Silence is the tool of the damaged soul, it is fear and oppression, it is wisdom and acceptance. Cambodians can live with the uncertainty of a river that flows both ways, and so do they gracefully confront the ambiguity of silence in their lives and culture.

Melissa's blog entry is the first in a two-part series written by WIP Contributor Pushpa Iyer's students. In the coming weeks, more entries will follow. Part I, "Legacy, Responsibility, Justice and Spirituality" will contemplate how Cambodia is coping with its painful past. Part II, "Identity, Sex Trafficking, HIV/AIDS and Property Rights" will explore some of the challenges modern-day Cambodia faces. – Ed.

Melissa Booth is currently working as a summer fellow for Polaris Project in Washington, D.C. With a background in Latin American politics and culture, she has studied at the University of Chile in Santiago and interned with the State Department in Honduras. Since the inception of her advanced degree program in Conflict Resolution last year, Melissa has become fascinated with peace and conflict studies in South East Asian and East African societies. She is pursuing a master’s degree at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and has a B.A. in Global Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara.