Wednesday 10 July 2024

Pol Pot's Most Infamous Deputy

Khmer Circle

'Social engineering' is undeniably apt when it concerns the mindset, mentality and ideology of any totalitarian rule. Whilst humans are inherently flawed and 'fall short of the glory and perfection of God', is not killing people en masse - most of whom out of surmised crimes such as "treason" or "traitors" against the Party or even for "stealing" coconuts or sweet potatoes - the worst form of 'corruption' in itself? 

It should be noted that Hun Sen along with many of his former KR comrades who fled Pol Pot's reign in the senventies to avoid being purged as such 'traitors' are repeating and enacting this same totalitarian mindset upon Cambodia and the Khmer people on pretext of this exact perceived 'threat' - real or imagined. 

It's hard to blame even the killings of some 40-60,000 defeated Lon Nol regime soldiers [which Pol Pot himself admitted to have ordered] or the mass persecution of the ethnic Chams as the work of the Party's "internal traitors" alone. 

Rationality does not always lead to humanity; and needs to be balanced or tempered with wisdom and compassion. 

What the present and past regimes of Cambodia and the perils they have brought to the Khmer people and their nation have taught is how disastrous and dangerous totalitarian power and national 'leadership' rested in one person or a handful of people can be.     

^^^

 

No comments: