Adieu à Vann Nath [-Eulogy at Vann Nath's funeral by Rithy Panh]

Nath,

You left too early.

We know of some thick-skinned bastards who are indestructible

YOU knew how to confront them.

We know of some hypocrites who have a ready tongue and insult memory with their indecent words.

YOU knew how to respond to them.

You were a model of integrity and courage.

You controlled your anger, you apeased mine. You did not choose to be this essential witness of History that you became, but you fulfilled this role to the end.

When Nuon Chea and Son Sen stated that S-21 was a Vietnamese fabrication, you could stomach it selflessly. And you resumed your work as a witness, without ever giving up, despite the nightmares. Your victory, our victory, came the day that Khieu Samphan admitted that S-21 was a State institution.

That day, I saw you smile.

The quality and the preciseness of your accounts were invaluable. Not only did you describe the life of the prisoners at S-21, you also explained the dehumanisation process that was implemented to erase the prisoners, and to reduce them to dust. Your memory is the failure of the Khmer Rouge.

You were inhabited by forgiveness at all times, and you were unable to harm in any way a human being. That is the principle which guided you, even as you were being tortured at Battambang, even as you and your prison mates were slowly but surely dying. That is the principle, together with an extraordinary courage, which led you to ask Duch to spare your companion, the painter Bou Meng, in the workshop at S-21, where your lives hung by a thread.

Nath, you were a just man.

The quietness and softness so typical of you disarmed the former Khmer Rouge. I did not want you to meet Huy as I was shooting with him at S-21. But you came for your brushes. You saw him. You chainsmoked a few cigarettes, then you took him by the shoulder to your paintings. You asked whether what you had depicted was truthful or not. That gesture was not a reconciliation gesture, but one to have him understand: “You must tell the truth, you owe it to us, to me and to the victims.” Huy confessed everything. A major step had just been made: it was now an executioner that had just started to testify.

And when I asked you a few years ago why you came back that day to S-21, you replied that the souls of the dead had guided you. Like them, with them, I know that you will keep on guiding us. You have been a relentless witness for the victims, you were their voice, you were their spokesman. The victims wanted to know, they wanted justice.

There were 36 of you in the death truck which brought you from Battambang to S-21. You had made a mutual promise: the survivors would speak out. That promise, you kept it – not only for your 35 companions, but also for the 12 380 official victims and all those who are unaccounted for. You gave back their history to the dead. The dead are not anymore figures and statistics listed in books and magazines.

When some declared that S-21 should be closed, you objected to it vehemently. You were always afraid that the very existence of S-21 would be challenged and that the young generations would not know who the victims were. That is why you accepted to work with me for more than twenty years.

We won that battle.

The most terrible thing is that you will not know the final verdict against Duch. That justice does not deserve you. It drags its feet, it takes care of the executioners but it forgets the victims. You did always serve justice, though. The only thing that mattered to you was to testify. You did not become a civil party against Duch because nothing in your eyes could ever remedy the wrong done to you. And you were impervious to the feeling of revenge. You wanted to speak. You had a perfect grasp of the ideology which ruled S-21; you were able to analyse the extreme situation which you had gone through. You needed to speak and speak again to re-establish the truth; you were convinced that it would be enough to have them convicted.

I would not like the artist to be sidelined behind the courageous and peace-loving witness that you were. Demanding, curious and open to the others, you held in high esteem conscience and ethics as the essence of art. The young Cambodian artists who were fortunate enough to cross your path had the priviledge of receiving this from you.

I would not want either, that people forget the tender and simple man who enjoyed sitting under the shade of a tree, watching his ricefields, observing a flower, picking up shells, having a bite at a green mango. You were a man from the earth and the water.

You came from a farmer background. You were born during the dry season in the province of Battambang one day of April 1946. Your mother grew rice and sold numbanchok. She transmitted to you her love of the earth and her cooking skills. The four years you stayed at the pagoda helped you to build upon your natural wisdom, and allowed you to exercise from a young age the art of calligraphy on palm leaves. This learning process gave you deep knowledge of buddhist principles and philosophy. These thoughts pervaded your life.

As your family was poor, you had to learn a trade. From the age of 6-7, you were drawing with a passion. There is nothing surprising in the fact that you became an apprentice in a poster workshop. Since you were gifted, serious and assiduous, you were able to open your own business after four years. You made a living, inter alia, from orders from movie theaters. Japanese, Chinese, Indian and French films became a familiar universe as you painted the faces of their heroes. You admired Corneille so much that you named your elder daughter after Chimène, the heroine faithful to her father's honour in The Cid.

The war and the Khmer Rouge swept away that quiet and sweet life. You went through hell: torture, deprivation, humiliation. You paid the price with your health. Your body kept the marks. The disease which affected you surely had a cause...

You lost your two first children and you never recovered from it. But you had the strength, together with your wife, to rebuild everything, to lead at the same time a normal life and a fight out of the ordinary. Here again, totalitarianism and terror did not succeed in destroying the man.

Nath, you were a caring father and a loving husband. You wished to end your life as a monk at the pagoda, but your love for Eng and your closeness were such that you constantly defered this plan. Your monk friends joked tenderly about it.

Nath, for all of us, you personified dignity.

Your testimony goes beyond the Cambodian tragedy; it belongs to the history of mankind. Its relevance is universal. It raises a central issue about man and his accountability.

Today, we are left orphans, deprived of your wisdom.

But you left behind you a profound legacy: your works, your words, your advice, your memories.

And you live on in our dreams. Your spirit remains with us. We will never forget you.

However, we are not alone. Those thousands of souls whose memory you stood up for your whole life are waiting for you.

Now the time has come for them to pay you tribute.

_____________________________

Nath,

Tu es parti trop tôt.

Il y a des salauds qui ont la peau dure et la vie longue.

Toi, tu savais les affronter.

Il y a des hypocrites qui ont la langue bien pendue et insultent la mémoire de leurs mots indécents.

Toi, tu savais leur répondre.

Tu étais un modèle d’intégrité et de courage.

Tu domptais ta colère, tu calmais la mienne. Tu n’as pas choisi cette vie de grand témoin de l’Histoire qui fut la tienne mais tu l’as assumée jusqu’au bout.

Quand Nuon Chea et Son Sen déclaraient que S21 était une invention des Vietnamiens, tu encaissais avec abnégation. Et tu reprenais ton travail de témoin, sans jamais renoncer, malgré les cauchemars. Ta victoire, notre victoire, fut le jour où Khieu Samphan reconnut que S21 était une institution d’Etat. Ce jour-là, je t’ai vu sourire.

La qualité et la précision de tes récits étaient irremplaçables. Tu ne décrivais pas seulement la vie des détenus à S21 mais tout le processus de déshumanisation qui était mis en œuvre pour vous effacer, pour vous réduire en poussière. Ta mémoire signe l’échec des Khmers rouges.

Tu as toujours été habité par le pardon, l’impossibilité de faire le moindre mal à un être humain. C’est ce principe là qui te guidait même sous la torture à Battambang, même quand vous creviez à petit feu sur le carrelage de S21. C’est ce principe-là et un courage inouï qui t’ont conduit à demander à Duch d’épargner ton compagnon, le peintre Bou Meng, dans l’atelier de S21 où votre vie ne tenait qu’à un fil.

Nath, tu étais un homme juste.

Ce calme et cette douceur qui te caractérisaient ont désarmé les anciens Khmers rouges. Je ne voulais pas que tu rencontres Houy quand je tournais avec lui à S21. Mais tu es revenu chercher tes pinceaux. Tu l’as vu. Tu as fumé cigarette sur cigarette puis tu l’as conduit par l’épaule vers tes tableaux. Tu lui as demandé si ce que tu avais peint était vrai ou pas. Ce geste que tu as eu n’était pas un geste de réconciliation mais un geste pour lui faire comprendre : «Tu dois dire la vérité, tu nous dois ça, à moi et aux victimes ». Houy a tout reconnu. Une étape essentielle venait d’être franchie : un bourreau entamait à son tour un travail de témoignage.

Et quand je t’ai demandé il y a quelques années pourquoi ce jour-là tu étais revenu à S21, tu as répondu que les âmes des morts t’avaient guidé. Comme eux, avec eux, je sais que tu continueras à nous guider.

Tu as toujours témoigné pour les victimes, tu as été leur voix, leur porte-parole. Les victimes voulaient savoir, elles réclamaient justice.

Vous étiez 36 dans le camion de la mort, qui vous a transportés de Battambang à S21. Vous vous étiez faits une promesse : celui qui survivra, témoignera.

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