Freedom and Genocide

Today is July 4^th, 2013 and the great United States is celebrating one of America’s proudest moments in American history: when we won our independence. Ironically, on July 3^rd when we went to the Toul Sleng Prison and the S21 Killing Fields, I was looking at Cambodia’s most tragic event in history. When Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, they committed an incredible amount of genocide. Pol Pot did not agree with some of the rules he had to follow from the Cambodian Government. He wanted total self-sufficiency in the country and thought the only way to do so was to kill anyone that was a scholar, had glasses, or even looked the slightest bit intelligent. When I was looking at the Toul Sleng Prison and the S21 Killing Fields, a sense of emptiness entered my body. To be honest I have never felt this stomach-dropping feeling before. While I was feeling such emptiness, all I could think of is how could someone have the audacity to do such a thing to his or her own people? Towards the end of the S21 Killing Fields tour, I started to get it together. I collected myself and my emotions while I was looking at one of the mass graves that Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge soldiers used as a “burial location” when they executed their own people. I couldn’t help but realize how the grass and flowers still grow on top of these mass graves. 

With a country that has been wounded as badly as Cambodia, you would assume that the people would be very angry because of their past. That is not the case at all. The exchange of a smile in Cambodia is so phenomenal, it is almost hard to believe. As Lisa Marie so lovingly put it, ”The people of Cambodia live in the moment. Right there and right then. They do not think about tomorrow because they know that tomorrow could be terrible. So when there is any type of opportunity for them, they take it right away.” This explains what happened when we entered the orphanage for the first time. Everyone greeted us with open arms and a smile on their face that I will never forget.