Tuol Sleng: Hill of the Poisonous Trees

Tuol Sleng (Photo: Tristan Clements)

Monday, May 10, 2010
Op-Ed by MP

There is a habit in most autocratic rules to invert conventional idioms and languages by hijacking their customary meanings and replacing those meanings with their exact opposite. Thus, we have ‘Democratic Kampuchea’, ‘People’s Republic of Kampuchea’, ‘State of Cambodia’ as well as ‘the Cambodian People’s Party’ just as we have ‘Security 21’ (S21 or Tuol Sleng), ‘Stupa’ of Choeung Ek, and now the excitingly named ‘Freedom Park’.

FROM a distance the Museum of Tuol Sleng looks much like most rundown building compounds in Phnom Penh. A former high school, the building was chosen by the Khmer Rouge to function as their foremost national security centre which they renamed S21 or Security 21 in 1975. It appeared where most prisons – referred to by the regime as ‘re-education centres’ – were spread throughout the country’s rural regions where virtually all of Cambodians were made to reside, Tuol Sleng was chosen for its physical proximity to the KR leadership as a soundboard for political activities being waged inside the regime in general, but more specifically, it provided the Pol Pot faction with a microcosm of what was at stake within the ranks of even this exclusive, tight band of close associates who had been together in one way or another since the 1950s. Among the thousands of victims who passed through the centre were also prominent figures and intellectuals such as Hu Nim who might have posed leadership contention threat to Pol Pot himself. Although, Pol Pot did lead a faction that decisively broke clear of the guidance and shadow of Hanoi and many commentators have since made references to ‘the Pol Pot faction’ as such, in reality, the man himself remained aloof and distrustful of most of his political colleagues and therefore the ascribed faction might well be – strictly speaking – misplaced.

There is something of a fateful coincidence that this aptly named location – Hill of the Poisonous Trees - was chosen as an incarceration site in the capital city otherwise emptied of its former inhabitants of 2 million plus. Yet there was certainly an irony in the fact that the leadership forcefully evacuated the city’s residents fearing espionage and enemies of the Revolution could be fermented and sheltered among the population, nevertheless, ensured that it had direct, personal command over its most feared dissidents by maintaining such an establishment in its own backyard. It was as if Pol Pot, himself used to a life of an incognito, could only feel ill at ease among the masses which had provided him what he most sought for his own personal security and protection: shelter and anonymity, yet at the same time dreading the same advantages that conceivably could be extended to his enemies, now that the table has been turned and he transformed from one of persecuted to Persecutor in Chief of the nation.

From this dialectic and pattern of thought beset by paranoia and fear that have underpinned Cambodian politics in the last 50 years; a perennial living condition that continues to shape present and foreseeable future political life, one discerns clear running parallels at work within the current leadership and its behavioural structure in terms of so-called national security decisions, notwithstanding its apparent relative openness and political inclusion. Where national leaders put in office through popular ballot in most genuine democracies have had to take up minimum precautions and means to protect their selves from possible assassination attempts or terrorist attacks, none to my knowledge has restricted public demonstrations to one confined single location, curiously named ‘Freedom Park’.

If the creation of the park is meant as a precursor of further reforms to come rather than a substitute for the citizens to bring their legitimate grievances to the notice of the government of the day by their preferred routes that could include marching in front of governing institutions like the National Assembly or the official residence of the PM, then it would be in line with democratic developments worldwide and accepted as within genuine national security and interest.

Many have pointed to the destabilising impact that on-going demonstrations in Thailand have exerted upon Thai society and well-being as an example to be avoided, but instances of violence apart, public protests and riots are the identifiable symptoms or indicators of a society in transition towards something far more substantive and wholesome than what it has hitherto been allowed to taste and enjoy: democratic freedom. In the 19th century the emergence of ‘Speakers’ Corners’ in a number of public parks and venues in England was also marked by public riots which led some observers to describe the event as the beginning of the English revolution, but if these observers were anticipating violence and bloodshed on the scale of the French Revolution, they would have been deeply disappointed.

There is a habit in most autocratic rules to invert conventional idioms and languages by hijacking their customary meanings and replacing those meanings with their exact opposite. Thus, we have ‘Democratic Kampuchea’, ‘People’s Republic of Kampuchea’, ‘State of Cambodia’ as well as ‘the Cambodian People’s Party’ just as we have ‘Security 21’ (S21 or Tuol Sleng), ‘Stupa’ of Choeung Ek, and now the excitingly named ‘Freedom Park’.

It is not comforting for individuals sympathetic to the current regime who otherwise feel they are nationalists or patriots, trying to do their bid to help the country advance socially to read this. However, overall reality presents them with a world far removed from their carefully inculcated dreams and indoctrinated visions. The country we know and love, the people and their smiles as well as their sorrows and tears are all real enough. But on the other hand, to suggest that the country is in their possession, that they have mastery over its destiny and fate, that the Party represents them nationally, that the Stupa is there to commemorate and honour the dead in the way traditional Khmer stupas do rather than exploiting their memory for political propaganda purposes, that Freedom Park denotes anything other than straight jacketing public expression of any kind deemed inimical to the stability of the regime, to assume all this is tantamount to taking a leap in imagination into the realm of pure make-belief.

This is far from implying that tyrants and autocrats lack conviction or belief in their own slogans - far from it. Belief can lead to conviction which could in turn harden into intolerance when confronted with contradiction or opposition where such a belief is held within, or derived from, narrow confines of temporal personal circumstances in combination with deep-seated insecurity and fear.

Take the issue being raised (legitimately, in my view) about the possibility of graffiti being applied inside the museum of Tuol Sleng itself. The man who brought his art to the museum is either being condemned for defacing this monument to human suffering or condoned for dramatising that tragedy by magnifying expressions of the dead on the walls of this former prison. The artist himself could have chosen a less sensitive place for showcasing his art, but whatever his motives, he would have found it exceedingly difficult - if not impossible - to do the same in other countries with a similiar past. Indeed everyone could have their piece of Cambodia if they are willing to go by the rules – Indian archaeologists and experts ruined most of the bas relief work at Angkor Wat with their acid like chemical substance that they used to ‘clean’ up the surface of the delicately carved gallery walls (why could not experiment be carried out on sample sandstones prior to the wholesale application of the chemical on the gallery proper itself?). After all, the artist worked in full view of the authority and therefore the weight of judgement (if graffiti has indeed resulted from his work) or censure falls heaviest upon the local authority that has allowed narrow political self-interest or manipulation to override considerations of national sentiment and collective values.

Cambodia stands today - three decades after the fall of the Pol Pot regime - like the Hill of the Poisonous Trees that is Tuol Sleng, a shattered, haunted society in desperate need of healing, but has instead found only the known certainty of its ill-fated past through tortured memory like the curse of the museum’s ill-fated name itself.

MP