Phnom Penh (Cambodia). 17/12/2008. Annette Wieviorka, a French historian, specialist on the Shoah and Research Director at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) (Photo: John Vink / Magnum)23-12-2008
By Stéphanie Gée
Ka-set in English
Click here to read the article in French
Click here to read the article in Khmer
Taken by scholars Sylvie Rollet, Soko Phay-Vakalis and Sylvie Lindeperg to attend a programme on the theme of 'trial, image and remembrance', French historian Annette Wieviorka first set foot in Cambodia in December 2008. For this occasion, she accepted to go back over the extensive question of memory and remembrance, and revealed her first impressions on the Khmer Rouge trial. The lively CNRS research director with a cause, also a lecturer and researcher at the University of Paris I, came to be known in France as one of the specialists on matters related to the Shoah, and has already written an imposing number of books. Among them, Auschwitz Explained To My Child (Da Capo Press) which has to this day been translated from the French into a dozen languages. Interview for Ka-set of someone for whom “clear retrospective conscience” is but an exasperating idea.
Ka-set : Nowadays, the expression “duty of remembrance” is used aplenty, but what meanings does it really comprise?
Annette Wieviorka : It does not comprise anything, since remembrance is not an obligation. Mechanisms of remembrance are very unpredictable for some, and happen on a non-conscious basis. We remember by following paths that are never linked with duty. The expression has become widely-used in France, to the point that it has become a slogan at Barbie's trial, in 1987. Of course, it did exist before the trial and had notably been used by prisoners sent to concentration camps when they mentioned those they left back there, in the camps, those who died there. They used to say that one had a duty to remember, to not forget them. Then, the phrase became a sort of slogan, with all sorts of derived meanings. It can hold various meanings like memory itself can hold many images. Remembrance is not an end in itself, but it must help one to reflect upon things.
K7 : What could be done to prevent wrong uses of the expression from taking over and sweep away the need for this duty to remember?
AW : Generally speaking, I would say that this could be prevented by keeping alive questions of history and the past and feeding them with knowledge and with the freedom to use this past to recount many stories, whether they be historical accounts, stories told by witnesses, or stories reported in literature or in films at the cinema... Keeping all this alive and free of any restraints, establishing knowledge – and not ignorance! - as a virtue, is very important.
As for the case of Cambodia, I will not say much because I don't know much... Yet, I feel that currently, the history of Cambodia is mainly told by foreign historians. It is very difficult to talk about a duty to remember when the process of recollecting history is only at its very beginnings and when so little is available to Cambodians. The Cambodian tragedy eradicated a whole part of middle-class teachers, intellectuals, young and old... How many years must pass till the country is finally able to recover its intellectual and middle class? It will certainly take a very long time.
K7 : Some survivors of the Khmer Rouge think the word “duty” is too heavy. They reckon the younger generations must not bear this burden. What is your view on this?
AW : The duty of remembrance is indeed very heavy. It is very hard for parents to tell their children that they are victims. Now, time passes by and we have reached the generation of victims' grandchildren. Someone who was an adult under the Khmer Rouge regime, if they survived, might today be a grandparent. Then, as it is often the case, the handing down of memories skips a generation in most families. Grandparents talk more easily to their grandchildren than they do to their own children. The question of generations is very important.
What strikes me in Cambodia is that among the very active victims that we met, there are people like Seng Theary or Youk Chhang, who were children [under the regime of Democratic Kampuchea]. And if we take the example of victims [of the Shoah] in France, it is children too who expressed their claims. In our country, an important part of what has been written in terms of memory was done thanks to Serge Klarsfeld, who was a child [during World War II]. Children are victims but they are mainly victims because their parents were assassinated. As orphans, they hold this sort of strength in their powerful claims.
K7 : Some Cambodians born after 1979 refuse to believe that the horrors committed under the Khmer Rouge regime are the deed of Cambodians. It is as if this legacy was a shameful and too heavy a burden to bear. What could be done for historical truth to be passed on from generation to generation without any sense of guilt?
AW : I don't have the key to this, I don't know. I think that what helps getting rid of the feeling of guilt is when the burden is taken over by an external factor and when memory does not remain enclosed within families, when for instance this burden is expressed through a trial – Eichmann's trial in Israel had this unexpected effect – and eased by the state when facts are officially acknowledged. In France, when President Chirac acknowledged [in 1995] the participation of the Vichy government in the deportation of Jews, it had an easing effect. I believe there are different means to do so, but they require memory to be taken out of the enclosed family circle and passed onto a third party.
K7 : Therefore, the process of remembrance cannot be complete unless it first goes through an institutional process?
AW : Absolutely. The process cannot really happen if no authority is there to acknowledge that this did happen. It can be led to completion through various ways like the school curricula, trials, or a formal declaration from a head of state...
K7 : Is the setting up of a special internationalised tribunal to judge former Khmer Rouge cadres one of the best ways, according to you, to fight the oblivion or at least the silence that prevails today in Cambodia over this chapter of history?
AW : Yes, this is a way to do so. If it works out.
K7 : Will the Khmer Rouge trial be a trial for history, in the sense that everyone expects it to be a model for the way justice should be dealt..?
AW : I was precisely reading Thierry Cruvelier's book about Rwanda [Le Tribunal des vaincus : Un Nuremberg pour le Rwanda?, 2006, FR] and he says that “We always expect too much from justice”. I will quote him: we expect too much from justice. Victims expect too much from justice, and in that trial, people have expectations which they did not have during the trials held in France; they reflect expectations of some improvement in the country. For instance, from what I understood, some expect better justice, less corruption... Consequences are expected but we know absolutely nothing of these yet! Let us wish the trial will have repercussions on the Cambodian society. But these expectations are probably excessive - the trial will not have a magic wand effect – but it might initiate processes within the Cambodian society.
K7 : How can the Khmer Rouge tribunal accomplish its mission in a politicised context? As a matter of fact, it was set up after the policy of national reconciliation was successfully enforced by the Cambodian government and the latter made sure the principle could and would not be questioned, particularly, as we can guess, by preventing further people from being charged by the tribunal?
AW : This question is a tough one. The precept here, might be to say: we hold Duch – he's the in-between element. The efforts of the judges preparing the case for trial and prosecutors will be to show that he was not just an element in the machinery, but also to ask the question of “who was behind him?”. Foe Eichmann, that was not relevant since the people who were behind had already been judged at the Nuremberg trial. And then, the four others. It is already a good thing to have them. But do we have to struggle to go further at the risk of making the tribunal collapse with the death of someone, or should we take some never-ending action that would have a lot of effect and would make the court lose its dynamism? Making it last too long means taking many risks. So the question is whether the trial should be the one that people expect it to be or whether it should compose with the country's political reality. I have no answer to that... But I do believe strongly in one thing: we cannot foretell the consequences of a process once it has been launched. If Duch's trial does happen, nobody is able to tell the consequences it will have on society. Maybe none, but it might help loosen the tongues... One cannot tell. This is why I would be more inclined to trust processes that can be initiated.
K7 : Won't the trial be biased by the fact that the international context in which the Khmer Rouge regime happened is purposely being obscured in the framework chosen by the ECCC, especially when it comes to foreign responsibility?
AW : It is true that everybody got implicated there... We can consider, like some do, that as long as this or that person is not tried in court, it won't be worth it. But we can also think that imperfect justice is still justice. Duch is still the one who stayed at S-21 and committed criminal acts, this is nobody else. This story has been written, it is still being written, and responsibilities are presented in these books.
K7 : Isn't the development of international penal law a western attribute above all?
AW : What does it mean to have these sorts of ready-to-set-up tribunals and Truth and Reconciliation Commissions whose international civil servants come and bring justice here and there? It is true that there is cause for concern and we may wonder whether this is here a new form of domination. But it is hard, since I am still convinced that democracy is the least worst system and that every being is entitled to freedom and that the values proclaimed by America are mine too. What we witness here, and it was not the case in Nuremberg, is the institutionalisation and bureaucratisation of justice. Now that is slightly scary because we wonder what type of efficiency a judicial system like this one can have. But it is also true that globalisation involves circulation. There is a coming and going meaning there are more combinations than before. On top of that, add the context of poverty and illiteracy. So what can the standards be if there are no decent standards of living to start with?
K7 : You once said that “too much memory killed thinking and too much information prevented understanding”. But nowadays, aren't we going towards an information overflow concerning the Khmer Rouge tragedy? With the launching of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a thirty-year long silence was ended and victims are now starting to talk, plenty of forums are organised and there is a real profusion of articles and documentary films regarding that topic...
AW : I felt dizzy when I went on the internet: it is as if the court's door was wide-open, except on what we do not know. This contributes to the fact that we do not seek answers where they should be sought... Too much information? Maybe, but it depends on the way it is made. There is no sublime-television. In South Africa, television played an important part in the broadcasting of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. So... what type of TV? If there was real educational will, there would be some kind of broadcasting. It is not sure whether such thing exists, but indeed, too much information does kill!
Ka-set : Nowadays, the expression “duty of remembrance” is used aplenty, but what meanings does it really comprise?
Annette Wieviorka : It does not comprise anything, since remembrance is not an obligation. Mechanisms of remembrance are very unpredictable for some, and happen on a non-conscious basis. We remember by following paths that are never linked with duty. The expression has become widely-used in France, to the point that it has become a slogan at Barbie's trial, in 1987. Of course, it did exist before the trial and had notably been used by prisoners sent to concentration camps when they mentioned those they left back there, in the camps, those who died there. They used to say that one had a duty to remember, to not forget them. Then, the phrase became a sort of slogan, with all sorts of derived meanings. It can hold various meanings like memory itself can hold many images. Remembrance is not an end in itself, but it must help one to reflect upon things.
K7 : What could be done to prevent wrong uses of the expression from taking over and sweep away the need for this duty to remember?
AW : Generally speaking, I would say that this could be prevented by keeping alive questions of history and the past and feeding them with knowledge and with the freedom to use this past to recount many stories, whether they be historical accounts, stories told by witnesses, or stories reported in literature or in films at the cinema... Keeping all this alive and free of any restraints, establishing knowledge – and not ignorance! - as a virtue, is very important.
As for the case of Cambodia, I will not say much because I don't know much... Yet, I feel that currently, the history of Cambodia is mainly told by foreign historians. It is very difficult to talk about a duty to remember when the process of recollecting history is only at its very beginnings and when so little is available to Cambodians. The Cambodian tragedy eradicated a whole part of middle-class teachers, intellectuals, young and old... How many years must pass till the country is finally able to recover its intellectual and middle class? It will certainly take a very long time.
K7 : Some survivors of the Khmer Rouge think the word “duty” is too heavy. They reckon the younger generations must not bear this burden. What is your view on this?
AW : The duty of remembrance is indeed very heavy. It is very hard for parents to tell their children that they are victims. Now, time passes by and we have reached the generation of victims' grandchildren. Someone who was an adult under the Khmer Rouge regime, if they survived, might today be a grandparent. Then, as it is often the case, the handing down of memories skips a generation in most families. Grandparents talk more easily to their grandchildren than they do to their own children. The question of generations is very important.
What strikes me in Cambodia is that among the very active victims that we met, there are people like Seng Theary or Youk Chhang, who were children [under the regime of Democratic Kampuchea]. And if we take the example of victims [of the Shoah] in France, it is children too who expressed their claims. In our country, an important part of what has been written in terms of memory was done thanks to Serge Klarsfeld, who was a child [during World War II]. Children are victims but they are mainly victims because their parents were assassinated. As orphans, they hold this sort of strength in their powerful claims.
K7 : Some Cambodians born after 1979 refuse to believe that the horrors committed under the Khmer Rouge regime are the deed of Cambodians. It is as if this legacy was a shameful and too heavy a burden to bear. What could be done for historical truth to be passed on from generation to generation without any sense of guilt?
AW : I don't have the key to this, I don't know. I think that what helps getting rid of the feeling of guilt is when the burden is taken over by an external factor and when memory does not remain enclosed within families, when for instance this burden is expressed through a trial – Eichmann's trial in Israel had this unexpected effect – and eased by the state when facts are officially acknowledged. In France, when President Chirac acknowledged [in 1995] the participation of the Vichy government in the deportation of Jews, it had an easing effect. I believe there are different means to do so, but they require memory to be taken out of the enclosed family circle and passed onto a third party.
K7 : Therefore, the process of remembrance cannot be complete unless it first goes through an institutional process?
AW : Absolutely. The process cannot really happen if no authority is there to acknowledge that this did happen. It can be led to completion through various ways like the school curricula, trials, or a formal declaration from a head of state...
K7 : Is the setting up of a special internationalised tribunal to judge former Khmer Rouge cadres one of the best ways, according to you, to fight the oblivion or at least the silence that prevails today in Cambodia over this chapter of history?
AW : Yes, this is a way to do so. If it works out.
K7 : Will the Khmer Rouge trial be a trial for history, in the sense that everyone expects it to be a model for the way justice should be dealt..?
AW : I was precisely reading Thierry Cruvelier's book about Rwanda [Le Tribunal des vaincus : Un Nuremberg pour le Rwanda?, 2006, FR] and he says that “We always expect too much from justice”. I will quote him: we expect too much from justice. Victims expect too much from justice, and in that trial, people have expectations which they did not have during the trials held in France; they reflect expectations of some improvement in the country. For instance, from what I understood, some expect better justice, less corruption... Consequences are expected but we know absolutely nothing of these yet! Let us wish the trial will have repercussions on the Cambodian society. But these expectations are probably excessive - the trial will not have a magic wand effect – but it might initiate processes within the Cambodian society.
K7 : How can the Khmer Rouge tribunal accomplish its mission in a politicised context? As a matter of fact, it was set up after the policy of national reconciliation was successfully enforced by the Cambodian government and the latter made sure the principle could and would not be questioned, particularly, as we can guess, by preventing further people from being charged by the tribunal?
AW : This question is a tough one. The precept here, might be to say: we hold Duch – he's the in-between element. The efforts of the judges preparing the case for trial and prosecutors will be to show that he was not just an element in the machinery, but also to ask the question of “who was behind him?”. Foe Eichmann, that was not relevant since the people who were behind had already been judged at the Nuremberg trial. And then, the four others. It is already a good thing to have them. But do we have to struggle to go further at the risk of making the tribunal collapse with the death of someone, or should we take some never-ending action that would have a lot of effect and would make the court lose its dynamism? Making it last too long means taking many risks. So the question is whether the trial should be the one that people expect it to be or whether it should compose with the country's political reality. I have no answer to that... But I do believe strongly in one thing: we cannot foretell the consequences of a process once it has been launched. If Duch's trial does happen, nobody is able to tell the consequences it will have on society. Maybe none, but it might help loosen the tongues... One cannot tell. This is why I would be more inclined to trust processes that can be initiated.
K7 : Won't the trial be biased by the fact that the international context in which the Khmer Rouge regime happened is purposely being obscured in the framework chosen by the ECCC, especially when it comes to foreign responsibility?
AW : It is true that everybody got implicated there... We can consider, like some do, that as long as this or that person is not tried in court, it won't be worth it. But we can also think that imperfect justice is still justice. Duch is still the one who stayed at S-21 and committed criminal acts, this is nobody else. This story has been written, it is still being written, and responsibilities are presented in these books.
K7 : Isn't the development of international penal law a western attribute above all?
AW : What does it mean to have these sorts of ready-to-set-up tribunals and Truth and Reconciliation Commissions whose international civil servants come and bring justice here and there? It is true that there is cause for concern and we may wonder whether this is here a new form of domination. But it is hard, since I am still convinced that democracy is the least worst system and that every being is entitled to freedom and that the values proclaimed by America are mine too. What we witness here, and it was not the case in Nuremberg, is the institutionalisation and bureaucratisation of justice. Now that is slightly scary because we wonder what type of efficiency a judicial system like this one can have. But it is also true that globalisation involves circulation. There is a coming and going meaning there are more combinations than before. On top of that, add the context of poverty and illiteracy. So what can the standards be if there are no decent standards of living to start with?
K7 : You once said that “too much memory killed thinking and too much information prevented understanding”. But nowadays, aren't we going towards an information overflow concerning the Khmer Rouge tragedy? With the launching of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a thirty-year long silence was ended and victims are now starting to talk, plenty of forums are organised and there is a real profusion of articles and documentary films regarding that topic...
AW : I felt dizzy when I went on the internet: it is as if the court's door was wide-open, except on what we do not know. This contributes to the fact that we do not seek answers where they should be sought... Too much information? Maybe, but it depends on the way it is made. There is no sublime-television. In South Africa, television played an important part in the broadcasting of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. So... what type of TV? If there was real educational will, there would be some kind of broadcasting. It is not sure whether such thing exists, but indeed, too much information does kill!
4 comments:
That's what happen when you listen to Ah Nazi (Scam Rainxy)!
Don't forget Samdach Ta "Norodom Sihanouk" a coward man
wHAT SHE SUJEST IS US TO USE VIOLENT TO SERVE OUT JUSTICE?
AW is right "We always expect to much from justice, Cambodia is mainly told by foreign historians,
indeed, too much information does kill!".
Let the trial be over with the five now.
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