Palestine - Better Together?

It was interesting, last Monday evening, to watch the televised backbench debate from the House of Commons, on whether or not the British parliament should recognise a Palestinian state.  It wasn't a surprise to see Labour MPs speaking in favour of the debate but, the idea of a two-state solution for Palestine/Israel has gained such common currency in Britain that even Conservative MPs were speaking in favour of recognition, which surprised me.

International recognition of a Palestinian state

Free Palestine by James_London

The outcome of the vote for symbolic recognition was overwhelmingly in favour (274 ayes and 12 noes) and, although this vote doesn't officially change the British government's approach to Palestine, it's seen as a historic moment, atoning for past mistakes in British policy on Palestine and the first step towards official recognition of the Palestinian state by the UK government, which would then join the 134 other countries who currently recognise Palestine.

Since I started blogging about Palestine just over a month ago, Grenada and Haiti have officially recognised Palestine and the newly-elected Prime Minister of Sweden, Stefan Loftven, has announced that Sweden will recognise Palestine, becoming the first European Union country to make this commitment.

Parallels between Palestine and Scotland?

Pro-Palestinian protest in London by James_London

I can't help but draw parallels between the campaign to gain recognition for the Palestinian state and the recent referendum on the question of Scottish independence.  I don't really believe in nationalism, however, in the case of Scotland, it seems so obvious to me that Scotland is a country, that I unreservedly support the right of the Scottish people to have their own nation.  Having said that, people voted as they did and the majority in favour of remaining in the United Kingdom was clear, so it would seem that independence is not really what Scottish people actually want . . . well, certainly not right now.

The reality is always a lot more complicated and how we understand the nature of a nation very much depends upon the times we live in.  There are pluses and minuses for Scottish people, in terms of independence and, unlike in Palestine, a 'no' vote in Scotland won't necessarily lead to repression of the Scottish people or their being denigrated to second-class citizens (although there has been some anti-Scottish sentiment in the media 'south of the border').

Demonstration at Houses of Parliament by James_London

Of course, the situation in Palestine is very different and whether or not Palestinians have control over their own affairs is crucial to protection of human rights and dignity of the Palestinian people.  Unlike Scotland, Palestine isn't an equal partner in any kind of union with Israel and, in reality, it's difficult to compare the need for independence in these two countries, as their contexts are not the same.

As with Scotland, it's always been obvious to me that Palestine is a country and, logically, should have its rightful place at the table of nations.  Until I started researching for this blog, I never really questioned the two-state solution for Palestine/Israel, however, I'm beginning to see another side to this situation that hadn't really been obvious to me before.

The Palestinian population of Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank

One thing I didn't really grasp before I started researching for this blog, is the fact that 20% of Israel's population identifies as Arab/Palestinian.  After the 1948 nakba more than 700,000 Palestinians fled their homes and sought refuge in neighbouring countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, where they remain to this day.  However, many Palestinians didn't flee, but chose to remain, particularly in places like Nazareth, which is still predominantly Arab-Palestinian.

As I've been researching the literature, movies, music of Palestine, time and again I'm coming across Palestinian culture originating from the modern state of Israel, as well as the West Bank and Gaza. Whether it's the music of the Palestinian rappers DAM, who grew up in al-Ludd/Lod, just a stone's throw from Ben Gurion International airport, or the movies of Elia Suleiman, who was born in Nazareth - the culture of Israeli-Palestinians seems incredibly vibrant and sure of itself and gives me some hope for the future.



I'm now wondering what would happen to Israeli-Palestinians in a two-state solution?  Not to mention, the post-1967 Israeli settlements that have been built in the West Bank, which put more than 300,000 Jewish settlers within what is traditionally defined as the West Bank and, under international law, would be part of the new Palestinian state.  By deliberately 'colonising' the West Bank, Israel has, in a way, bound the two states together for the foreseeable future.

Would Palestine and Israel be better together?

Perhaps a single, bi-national state would be better after all although, similar to the situation in post-apartheid South Africa, it would have to be a state where the Arab/Palestinian population plays as great a role as the Israeli/Jewish population.

Israeli flag in Palestinian colours

This isn't a popular idea at the minute - certainly not for right-wing Israelis, who are living according to the principles of a Jewish homeland and I understand how a single state with equal rights for Palestinians wouldn't appeal to them, as that goes against everything they believe in.  Equally for Palestinians, the idea of belonging to a single state where Palestinians might end up becoming second-class citizens isn't really a solution.  The legacy of the 20th century for Palestinians is so full of injustice, that it would be hard for any Palestinian in the West Bank, Gaza or elsewhere to accept anything less than full nationhood.

I find myself in the strange position of supporting recognition of the Palestinian state whilst also acknowledging that this could possibly prolong nationalist agendas on both sides for at least another century. Ultimately, even with a two-state solution, the question of living together peacefully remains.  I also find it hard to stomach the idea of any nation based on a religious or racial identity, so it's hard for me to see how a purely Jewish state of Israel will be sustainable in the 21st century.

Universal human rights

Getting back to Edward Said's ideas on humanism - it would be better to facilitate the basic rights of people and their access to recognised citizenship in Palestine/Israel, rather than think along religious or ethnic lines.  We're all human and the fact this fact alone should entitle us to basic rights regardless of which part of the world we happen to have been born in.

Image credits:

For this blog post, I wanted to highlight the work of Flickr member James_London - James is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya and you can see more of his images on his Flickr photostream.

Thanks James for sharing these images with us, using the Creative Commons license.  

Palestine - The Cause of a Country

I've known for some time that I would be blogging about Palestine and it's interesting in recent months to see how the Palestinian Territories, particularly Gaza, have come and gone in the news. Palestine has become a real cause célèbre in the past hundred years, particularly on the left of the political spectrum and it's fair to say that most of us will know more about Palestine than we do about other places I've blogged about, eg. Eritrea or Kiribati!

Or do we? 

As I've started researching about Palestine and started trying to see the world through Palestinian eyes, my first conclusion is that Palestine is a place we think we know, through news headlines and politics, but what do most of us really know about Palestinian culture, beyond the political sphere? I don't want to criticise the well-meaning solidarity that exists for Palestine around the world, but I'm coming to the conclusion that Palestine is a cause for most people when, what the Palestinians really need, is a country.

The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict - A Very Short Introduction

The Dome of the Rock by F.R.L.

I've always wanted to read a book that would explain the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in a concise and clear way and Martin Bunton's The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict - A Very Short Introduction (2013 - part of the Oxford University Press series that I love so much!) does just that.

Like most people out there, I had a rough idea of the history of Palestine/Israel and a sense of the reasons for conflict, but Bunton's book helped me order the events and understand the important milestones, particularly in the 20th century, when Palestinians saw their mandated territory shrink from 75% to 22% of the land currently recognised as Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The issues are complicated, needless to say, and I don't have time to go through all of them, but I will share one interesting thing that I learned regarding Jewish settlement in the eastern Mediterranean towards the end of Ottoman rule and during the period of the British Mandate (1920-1948).  At first the need for a Jewish homeland was so strong that most Jewish settlers bought land in the plains between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean Sea, rather than the ancestral Jewish homelands in the mountains of Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. the West Bank).

View from the Garden of Gethsemane by F.R.L.

The plains contain some good farming land, particularly for citrus fruits, with easy access to the port of Jaffa and European markets, however, this part of Palestine was also vulnerable to Bedouin raids, so the majority of the Palestinian population stayed in the mountains.

Thus, the Jewish homeland, which is now Israel, ended up in lands that weren't ancestral Jewish lands and the Palestinian population ended up in the West Bank, which is the ancestral homeland, not just of Judaism, but also of Christianity and with sacred Islamic sites as well.

Unfortunately, nationalism has dominated the Palestinian-Israeli discourse, with each side claiming the other has no real identity and a reluctance on the part of the Israeli government to fully hand over control of the West Bank to the Palestinian authorities, usually under pressure from right-wing Jewish groups to hold on to the Jewish ancestral homelands.

Which Palestine?

Christian nuns on the Temple Mount by F.R.L.

I'll probably need to explain what I mean when I say Palestine, as well, as Palestine means different things to different people.  There is Palestine as seen by the majority of Palestinians, an historic land incorporating the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

There are the Palestinian territories, the de facto political entities of the Gaza strip and the West Bank, currently under varying degrees of Israeli occupation.

There is the State of Palestine, the nation declared by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1988.  It's the most internationally accepted form of Palestine, being an observer state at the U.N. and recognised de jure by more than two-thirds of the world's countries (United States, Australia and European countries being notable exceptions).

The Palestine I want to blog about is not so much a geographical one, as a cultural one.  More than any other place I've blogged about, it's going to be hard to get away from the politics of Palestine (even food can be political!) but I'll try to learn more about the culture of Palestine through movies, books, music and cooking.

It's hard to learn about Palestine and not learn about Israel, but my blog posts will focus on Palestinian culture, rather than Israeli culture, regardless of the geographical realities or political understanding.

I hope you'll join me on this learning journey over the next month or so, I'm sure it will be an interesting experience!

Image credits:

To illustrate this blog post, I wanted to share some photographs from Flickr member F.R.L. who is originally from Munich in Germany.  Rather than create just another slide show for friends and relatives, F.R.L. took the brave move to put his photos on Flickr!  Thanks for sharing these images with us F.R.L. and yes, they are interesting!

You can see more of F.R.L.'s photos on his photo stream.  

Maharashtra - The Long Journey of the Magi

I always enjoy discovering new literature, when I'm researching for this blog and I absolutely loved Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey (1991) - shortlisted for the prestigious Booker prize in 1991, it went on to win the 1992 Commonwealth Writer's Prize, a year later.  Mistry's novels have been nominated for the (Man) Booker prize twice since then (A Fine Balance in 1996 and Family Matters in 2002) and I definitely look forward to discovering more of his work.

Such a Long Journey is one of those novels that is so finely crafted that every word finds its perfect place in the sentence and every sentence in every chapter.  It tells the story of Gustad Noble, a middle-aged Parsi from Mumbai, who is struggling to find serenity in the changing political turmoil of India in 1971.  Mistry himself was born in Mumbai (or Bombay, as it was known then) in the 1950's, but moved to Canada in the 1970's, which is where he currently lives. 

The Magi, book illustration by Heinrich Hoffmann

The title Such a Long Journey is taken from The Journey of the Magi (1927), a poem by T.S. Eliot which tells the journey of the Magi (a.k.a. The Three Wise Men) to Palestine, to visit the new-born infant Jesus (according to the Gospel of St Matthew).  The Magi came from Persia and were followers of Zoroastrianism, an ancient religion that survives today through the religious practices of small Zoroastrian communities in Iran and the Parsi and Irani communities in India.  Interestingly, the Magi have given us the words 'magic' and 'magicians' - ie. powerful sorcerers from the East. 

I became aware of the Parsis and Zoroastrianism when I was in Mumbai. For example, I'd heard about Mumbai's Towers of Silence, where recently deceased Parsi's are left to be eaten by a local population of vultures.  It's probably the most shocking and, therefore, well-known aspect of Parsi culture but, thanks to Mistry's book, I got a fuller sense of Zoroastrianism, which is quite distinct from India's main religions.

It was great to get an 'outsider's' view of life in Mumbai and Mistry not only delivers a fantastic story, but also charts the turbulent political situation in India, Pakistan and East Bengal (now Bangladesh), a mere twenty years or so after independence. 

Theme: Corruption

Unfortunately, corruption is a theme I come across again and again, as I'm researching for my blog.  Whether it's Maharashtra, Liberia or Dorset, corruption seems to be a global problem, to which, no-one seems to have a definitive solution. Like the narrator of TS Eliot's poem, Gustad Noble feels alienated and powerless in a world that is changing around him.  Having been brought up in quite a well-to-do family, his father's business is ruined and Gustad enters adulthood with a great education and upbringing, but no wealth.  His education sees him securing a job in a bank and he lives a lower middle-class life, investing his hopes and dreams in the education of his eldest son, Sohrab.

Indira Gandhi at Madame Tussaud's, London

Despite the tricks life has played on him, Gustad starts the novel with a naive belief in the modern Indian political system that has replaced a colonial one.  The novel deals with Gustad's struggle to cling onto this belief, as he begins to understand the corruption of Indira Gandhi's government, as well as the people around him, including his friend and neighbour, the ex-Army Major Jimmy Billimoria.  Another kind of corruption, in Gustad's eyes is the betrayal by his son, Sohrab, who refuses to follow the educational path his father had been setting out for him.

Theme: Spiritual renewal

The novel opens with a great scene where Gustad is trying to concentrate on his morning prayers, whilst around him Bombay screeches, hollers, beeps loudly and distracts him.  I have to say, Mumbai is probably the noisiest place I have ever been to, so I can relate to Gustad's frustrations, as he tries to find an island of serenity in the chaos of one of the world's biggest cities. 

Gustad is an incredibly 'pure' person and he gets upset at the fact that so many passers-by (men) are urinating against the wall of the compound that he lives in, leaving an awful stench and attracting mosquitoes.  Rather than resigning himself to this state of affairs, Gustad employs a local pavement artist to transform the wall, by sketching drawings of figures and buildings from the world's major religions.  The images of Krishna, Christ and the Ka'aba deter passers-by from urinating there and, within days, the wall has become a religious shrine and a place of beauty and fragrance. 

Theme: Misplaced sexuality

2006 paperback edition, Darren Wall at Faber

Although Mistry's novel promises to explore the father-son relationship, a common theme in Indian literature and movies, actually Gustad's son is absent for most of the novel, withdrawing his story from the reader's imagination and letting us focus on another, incredibly interesting relationship - the one between Gustad and his young neighbour Tehmul.

Tehmul suffers from physical and mental disabilities, after a childhood accident and is almost completely on his own, being neglected by his elder brother.  He and Gustad form a really lovely friendship.  Gustad is the only person who can (or perhaps, makes the effort) to understand Tehmul's rapid-fire speech and, whilst the rest of the neighbours find Tehmul's disability frightening or distasteful, Gustad shows a genuine concern for the young man and tries to help him control his, often frantic, behaviour.

One aspect of Tehmul's behaviour that Gustad finds particularly challenging is his awakening sexual drive.  As part of another parallel story within the novel, Gustad's daughter wins a beautiful life-sized doll in a school raffle and Tehmul becomes obsessed with the doll, eventually stealing it and having sex with it in his room, where Gustad walks in on him on the evening of the first black-out in another war with Pakistan.  At first Gustad is angry, but then he shows compassion.  Understanding that Tehmul's physical needs have no other outlet, Gustad allows him to keep the doll.

Mistry deals with the issue tenderly and raises important questions around the taboo of disabled sexuality. I found this theme rather interesting, as it's not one that you come across often and is as taboo in the Western culture I grew up with, as it is in the Indian culture of Mistry's novel.

Other themes

It's a complex book, with many strands and themes - there are other themes that I found interesting, which I'm listing below:

The danger of superstition
The importance of education
Enforced charity-giving
Reverse racism - seeing white skin as superior
The different diets of Mumbai's religious communities
Indian (especially Maharashtran) nationalism
Fear of money
The mystification of medicine
The modernisation of India
The interdependency of physical and mental aging
The appeal of adventure in an otherwise mundane world
Death replacement (how one character's death removes the fear from another)
A life suspended (comparing Mistry's Miss Kutpitia and Dickens' Miss Havisham)

Image credits:

The image of the Three Wise men is from a book illustration and is deemed to be in the public domain. 

The image of the wax model of Indira Gandhi at Madame Tussaud's was taken by me and you can see more of my photos at my Flickr profile.  

The photo of part of the book cover was taken by me and is from the 2006 paperback edition published by Faber and Faber.  The cover design of this edition was created by Darren Wall. 

Maharashtra - What ever happened to Bombay?

When I was born, in 1975, the map of the world looked a little bit different than it does today.  European colonialism was on its deathbed and most parts of Asia, Africa and the Americas had managed to gain independence and establish their own colours on a world map that had previously been British Empire pink.

I was born into a world where Zaire, Malagasy, Kampuchea, Upper Volta and Rhodesia were countries.  I grew up with the names Leningrad, Bombay and Peking firmly planted in my mental geography!

But the map of the world is continually changing - whether it's the addition of new countries, like South Sudan, or the renaming of cities, from Saigon, in the year of my birth to the more recent changes, such as St Petersburg, Mumbai and Beijing.  I guess the older one gets, the more confusing the map of the world becomes and some habits (like calling St Petersburg, Leningrad or Mumbai, Bombay) are hard to break!

Map of Hindoostan from 1831

So why do countries decide to change their names, or the names of their major cities?  Well, I guess it's a natural process of redefining your national identity.  For many ex-colonies, like India, name-changing is an opportunity to reclaim cultural identity.  India seems to have gone through a wave of name-changes in the last 20 years - some of the main ones being Bombay to Mumbai (1995), Madras to Chennai (1996), Calcutta to Kolkata (2001) and Bangalore to Bengaluru (2007).

I wonder how much the growth of nationalism, especially Hindu nationalist parties like the Marathi Shiv Sena party, have influenced this recent tendency to change the names of Indian cities.   Whilst Kolkata and Bengaluru seem to be more accurate spellings of the names of these cities, I was surprised to find out that Mumbai is not simply a 're-spelling' of Bombay, but is a name with its own significance, from the Koli goddess Mumba and the Marathi word Aai, which means 'mother'.

In other countries, like China and Korea, redefining the way their languages are romanised (ie. written in the Latin alphabet) has resulted in name changes that sometimes seem quite different to speakers of European languages.  Particularly in China, where many of the romanised names were originally based on Cantonese rather than Mandarin, the resulting changes meant that Peking became Beijing and Canton became Guangzhou.  It's interesting to note that the names haven't actually changed in Chinese, but are a result of the adoption of the pinyin system of writing Chinese by other, predominantly European languages. 

Map of France in Hindi

Countries in the ex-Soviet world have seen many name changes in the past century.  After the Russian revolution, many cities such as Petrograd, Yekaterinburg and Tver - were renamed after heroes of the revolution, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk and Kalinin - only to regain their former names after the death of Stalin or the collapse of communism.  Likewise, Tsaritsyn named in honour of the Tsars was renamed Stalingrad (1925) and then Volgograd (1961).  Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan was once called Frunze, Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe spent more than 30 years with the official name Stalinabad.

So is all this name-changing really worth it, especially if the purpose is to establish political supremacy or nationalism?  Perhaps the most controversial name where I come from is Derry or Londonderry, Northern Ireland's second biggest city.  I grew up calling it Derry and I still find it hard to think of Londonderry as a place that exists anywhere outside my adult experience of geopolitics.  It's a contentious name and, like Bombay, Calcutta or Madras, symbolises British rule for a population that is dissenting or independent.

Free Derry corner by Paolo Trabattoni

It's interesting to think about who has the right to decide a city's name.  Logic would say that it should be the people who live in the city who decide what it's called - in which case, I'd imagine Derry/Londonderry would end up being just 'Derry' - but what about others who have a relationship with the city?  The administrators in Belfast, Beijing or New Delhi?  As with the adoption of pinyin by European mapmakers, people in other countries/places also somehow have a right to decide what they will call the cities in other parts of the world and how they will spell these names in their own languages. 

Personally I think it's important for names to change - although I grew up with Bombay, Peking and Leningrad, I recognise the symbolic nature of city name-changing and see this as an important process in countries that are going through political and cultural change.  How the rest of the world reacts is another matter.  I'd imagine most of us have a very personal mental map of the world which captures our understanding of geography in a way that no paper or digital map ever could. 

It'll be interesting to see how the world continues to change as this blog ages (there have already been some small changes to the world map since I started in 2009).  Perhaps I'm blogging about places that will cease to exist - what will the countries and cities of the future be called?  I can't wait to find out!

Image credits:

The first two images are from Wikimedia commons and are in the public domain.

The image of Free Derry corner was taken by Italian photographer Paolo Trabattoni who is a graphic designer.  You can see more of Paolo's work on his Flickr photostream or on his website.  Thanks Paolo for sharing this image with us using the Creative commons license. 

Korea - The Final Word in Basketball Diplomacy

As I'm blogging about a new place, I like to keep an eye on the news coming from that country - generally, things are pretty quiet and it makes you realise that, political hot-spots apart, not much happens in other parts of the world that would catch the attention of the international media. Not so with Korea, especially North Korea - which has been constantly in the news in the past few weeks. 

Whether it's the 60th anniversary celebrations, the wrangling over the Kaesong Industrial zone, or the South Koreans shooting dead a man trying to cross the border to enter the North - Korea is one of those places that easily makes the news headlines. 

Basketball coaching in Pyongyang by Scot Byrd

One of the weirdest news stories I've read about North Korea in the past few weeks, involves the US basketball player Dennis Rodman who has, quite famously, made two trips to North Korea this year - he is believed to be the first American to meet North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong-un and, being interviewed at the airport in Beijing, declared that 'He [Kim Jong-un] is my friend for life - I don't care what you guys think about him'

Rodman has quite a reputation for (what people in England would call) eccentricity, back in the States - he's probably just as famous for his piercings and ever-changing hair colour, as he is for his basketball legacy and awards, not to mention dating Madonna and appearing naked with basketballs on the cover of his autobiography, Bad As I Wanna Be. 

I can see what's in it for Rodman - perhaps a genuine desire to do something useful, backed up with the need for continued celebrity, now that his heyday as a basketball player is over.  But what's in it for Kim?  Does he even realise (or care) how all of this is perceived in the West? 

North Korean kids playing basketball by Scot Byrd

I'm also wondering why sport is increasingly seen as a major political arena for the big issues of 21st century life?  Sure, sport can bring people together, despite its competitiveness, it's something that's enjoyed the world over - the Olympic games, the FIFA World Cup, ping pong, cricket, even basketball can create wonderful opportunities for cultural exchange.  But sport can also be divisive - North Korea boycotted the Seoul Olympics in 1988, a real missed opportunity for both Koreas to welcome the world and celebrate the Olympic games together.

But does sport really have all the answers?  To homophobia in Russia?  To racism on the football fields?  To nuclear weapons in Pyongyang?  And is someone like Dennis Rodman really the best person to manage diplomacy with an erratic regime like Kim Jong-un's?  Will his attempts to bring NBA players to North Korea really bring Americans and North Koreans closer together, or will it backfire, when Kim Jong-un realises what a circus this whole thing is?  Who knows - but it'll be interesting to see what happens next in the Rodman/North Korean story!

Image credits:

I found these wonderful images by Scot Byrd (aka byrdsiz) of young North Koreans playing basketball on Flickr and they have been shared with us using the Creative Commons license.  It looks as though Scot travelled to North Korea with a basketball initiative known as Project uNKnown - which looks like a genuinely ground-breaking initiative to use basketball as a way of overcoming cultural boundaries and getting to 'know' each other.   Thanks Scot for sharing these images with us. 

Korea - Something to Envy?

I've just finished reading Barbara Demick's book Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea (2010).  It's a fascinating read and I feel that this book has given me a real insight into what has happened on the Korean peninsula, especially North Korea, in the past 60 years.  I'm also left wondering, as so many have been left wondering before me, how the North Korean regime has managed to hold on to power for so long?

I wanted to share three things I learned from Demick's book, that I think are important or resonate with places I've blogged about in the past.

1. The Famine

View from the Juche Tower by Marcelo Druck

I'd normally consider myself to be quite well up on world affairs but, somehow, I seem to have completely missed the fact that there was a major famine in North Korea, between 1994 and 1998.  True, it was a time in my life when I was bit disengaged from the bigger picture, mostly concentrating on my final exams at university and my first attempts at travelling and living abroad. 

Or perhaps I'm not the only one who missed this?  Perhaps it wasn't really known in the West at the time, due to the secrecy surround the hermitic People's Democratic Republic?  It's estimated that anything up to 3.5 million people died during the Famine (Demick puts the figure between 600,000 and 2 million) and I find it astounding that this could happen, in the closing decade of the 20th century, in a country surrounded by some of the most prosperous nations on Earth!

2. The North Korean Army

Portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il by Marcelo Druck

I also learned that North Korea, which has a similar population to Ghana and less than half the population of the UK, has the fourth largest army in the world!  There are 1.1 million people actively serving in the Korean People's Army, out of a total population of around 25 million people.  Unbelievably, North Korea has a larger army than Russia and is only surpassed in size by the new Superpowers; China, the United States and India. 

If you also count reserves and paramilitary forces, then North Korea has the biggest army in the world, almost 9.5 million people!  Perhaps this explains why the regime has stayed in power for so long?  Demick also explains North Korea's Songun or military-first policy, which prioritises the People's Army, in terms of resources and food supplies.  It has to be said that South Korea is also an incredibly militarised society, for its size.  With a population similar to England, South Korea's army is three times the size of the British army.

3. Mongolia's soft spot for religious dissenters?

Juche Tower by Marcelo Druck

Much of Demick's research is backed up by real-life stories of North Koreans who defected to South Korea and I found it interesting to read about the Mongolian route to South Korea.  The only way out of North Korea is across the northern border to China - those who can afford it organise fake passports that will get them on flights from Harbin and Beijing to Seoul.  For those with limited resources, fleeing to Mongolia is the best, albeit, more perilous option.

I noticed that the stories about defectors via Mongolia seemed to mostly involve North Koreans who were practising, or claiming to practise Christianity and it reminded me of my previous blogging about Mongolia, when I learned about the 'loss of religion' in Mongolia and how this has impacted on the national psyche.  Perhaps the Mongolians have something of a soft spot for the religious refugees fleeing North Korea?

Nothing to Envy

The title of Demick's book is from a popular slogan used by the establishment in North Korea.  She uses this slogan ironically - it should mean 'North Korea has nothing to envy in the rest of the world', but it could also mean 'The rest of the world has nothing to envy in North Korea' - also the fact that 'envy' is suggested at all, reveals that it's probably the greatest fear that the North Korean regime has - ie. that it's people will finally succumb to the temptations of the decadent capitalist world around them. 

I've just started reading another great book - The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (2013) by Victor Cha and he also makes a reference to this slogan.  I'm not sure if I'll have time to finish Cha's book, before my month (or so) with Korea runs out, which is a pity, as I'm already getting quite involved in his interpretation of recent events. 

Who knows what the future holds for Korea - every political analyst and commenter seems to have underestimated the power of the North Korean state and we've been led to believe that the People's Democratic Republic could fall any day now, except it never does!

Image credits:

For this blog post, I wanted to highlight the photography of flickr member mardruck - aka Marcelo Druck.  Marcelo has taken some really beautiful photos in Korea and North East Asia - these photos are from the set Pyongyang - thanks Marcelo for sharing these images with us, using the Creative Commons License. 

Korea - a Tale of Two Nations

Taking on Korea is quite a challenge - with a combined population of around 74 million and a land area slightly smaller than that of the UK, both the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) offer a rich tapestry of culture, music, movies and literature, which will be hard to capture in a small number of blog posts.  I see this as my starting point with the Koreas and I may come back to either country in more detail at a later date.

I also feel that it's important to look at both Koreas, in this first virtual journey around Korean culture.  Perhaps South Korea is much more familiar to us, because of links with the US and the West?  North Korea seems distant and remote - an experience which lies outside the realms of Western imagination - but a place that is fascinating, nonetheless.

Koreans in Uzbekistan and Ireland

My experience of Korea comes mostly through the many Uzbeks and Tajik families, who saw their fathers and older brothers heading off to Seoul and Pusan, to earn money which they would send back home to Uzbekistan.  Their experience of Korea sounded pretty harsh to me - uncomfortable living conditions and relentless work in a society where they are, on the whole, regarded with suspicion.

In an ironic reversal of history, I also met my first Koreans in Uzbekistan, Russian-speaking descendants of Korean peasants who were moved away from the Russian border with Korea, so it could be populated by white Europeans.  I also briefly taught two Korean students during a summer I spent in Dublin - they were incredibly polite, deferential and diligent.

Korea in the shadows

I find Korea interesting as a place that has lived in the shadow of its two, more powerful, neighbours - Japan and China.  As I've started researching Korean history, I can see that it is dominated by Korea's relationship with these two neighbours and, more recently, with other big countries, such as Russia and the United States.  Through it all, the Koreans have remained independent, proud of their language, culture and heritage although, sadly, still divided by the political manoeuvring which took place at the end of World War 2.

A tale of two nations?

Korean reunification flag

I also want to blog about both Koreas, as it feels natural to think of Korea as a whole or single nation.  Of course, the reality of 60 years of separation means that the two Koreas which were created in 1948 have followed different paths and really started developing their own distinct histories and cultures.

It's hard to undo the sense of 'difference' which is created when a country splits in two and I wonder if, one day, Korea will reunite, like Vietnam, Yemen and Germany - or whether the years of separation will reinforce the countries' distinct identities, as it has done in my own country, Ireland?


However you feel about Korea, I hope you'll join me over the next few weeks, as I read books about Korea, listen to Korean music, cook Korean food and watch Korean movies!

Honduras - El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido!

To kick off my research about Honduras, I read a really inspiring book called Don't be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart (1987).  Translated and edited by the US political activist, Medea Benjamin, it tells the story of Honduran community leader, Elvia Alvarado and her involvement in the campesino/a struggle for land rights. 

Elvia had a pretty tough life, born into poverty with no real opportunity for education, she got pregnant as a teenager and went on to have six kids, working as a maid for rich people in the city, who fed their dog better than Elvia could afford to feed her children.  She settled down with a typical campesino who worked in the fields, earning very little money, drank a lot and was against her having a life of her own. 

Campesina by ndbutter

After 15 years of being a housewife, she decided to get more involved in her community, initially with the Catholic church's Mothers Club, then with FEHMUC, the Federation of Campesino women and, ultimately, with national political movements of the 1980's, such as the Central Nacional de Trabajadores del Campo (CNTC).  From housewife to political dissident, hers is a fascinating story - whilst feeling fulfilled as someone who could really make a difference to her country and bring justice for landless campesinos, she also faced state intimidation, imprisonment and even torture. 

I was quite interested about the role the Catholic church had to play in Elvia's becoming politicised.  The Mother's Club she first got involved with had the objective of providing food to impoverished mothers and children in isolated asentamientos (settlements) around Honduras.  The very act of organising relief politicised the women and, when they really started organising themselves to improve life in the asentamientos, the Church got scared, pulled the funding and branded the women as Marxists.  In Elvia's own words:

They (the Catholic Church) wanted us to give food out to malnourished mothers and children, but they didn't want us to question why we were malnourished to begin with.  They wanted us to grow vegetables on tiny plots around our houses, but they didn't want us to question why we didn't have enough land to feed ourselves. 

Despite her disillusionment with the Church, Elvia didn't lose her faith in God. 

'I don't think God says, 'Go to the church and pray all day and everything will be fine'.  No.  For me God says, 'Go out and make the changes that need to be made, and I'll be there to help you.''

Campesinos by ndbutter

I guess these statements highlight the basic contradiction of organised religion - is it about acceptance of the status quo or empowering people to make the most of their lives?  It also made me think that the message of Jesus was a radical one - about equality and peace.  By all accounts, Jesus told his followers it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:23-26) and this kind of teaching inspired Elvia to fight for the rights of the poor in her own country. 

She also mentioned the persecution of celebradores de la palabra (celebrants of the word), bible-study groups that were seen as subversive by the Honduran church and state.  It's interesting how threatening religious sentiment becomes when it doesn't conform to the state's religious identity! 

I experienced this in Uzbekistan, where there was a real fear of the wahhabis - an ultra-conservative form of Islam, but used in Uzbekistan as a catch-all term for anyone who was too interested in following their own religious path.  We can also see it in countries like China, where the government has cracked down heavily on religious movements, such as the Falun Gong.

Central America is famous as the birthplace of Liberation Theology - a grass-root movement involving many Catholic priests, who fought alongside the campesinos to protect their rights.  Elvia mentions the massacre at Los Horcones, which took place in June 1975, in Olancho, Honduras' 'wild west' province.  It's an event which has scarred modern Honduran politics and involved the murder of two priests, as well as some of the villagers who were reclaiming land that they believed belonged to them.

Campesinos by ndbutter

I'd like to do some more research on Liberation Theology, perhaps in a later blog post.  Growing up in Ireland in the 1980's, where the Catholic church pretty much controlled people's lives, education and freedom to believe in whatever they wanted to believe in, it's hard for me to reconcile the words religion and liberation. 

What inspired me most about Elvia was her dogged optimism and determination to make the world a better place, in spite of the obstacles she faced.  I'm going to leave you with another quote from this inspirational woman - one I feel encapsulates the spirit of this blog, Learning about the World:

So I've learned that if you want to know what's going on in the world, you should study as much as you can.  You should read or listen to as much news as you can.  You should take it all in, but digest it in your own way, and judge for yourself what you think the truth is. 

Image credits:

For this blog post I want to highlight the work of flickr member ndbutter who is from Phoenixville in Pennsylvania - I really love his portraits - the ones in this blog post were taken in Honduras, but he has many more amazing portraits, which you can see on his photostream.  Thanks ndbutter for sharing these wonderful images with us, using the Creative commons license. 

Please note, the old woman in the photo above isn't Elvia Alvarado - unfortunately, I couldn't find any copyright-free images of Elvia, but you will surely find her, if you Google her name - she looks like quite a tough cookie!

Eritrea - A Nation Once Again

If Eritrea is known at all, to many people in the West, it will most likely be for its long and bitter independence struggle against the central government of Ethiopia.  In fact, judging by what I've read so far on the subject, it's probably fair to say that Eritrea has been defined by its struggle for nationhood.

Emperors and Revolutionaries

Whilst the rest of the world reacted by (at best) remaining indifferent or (at worst) actively supporting the various Ethiopian regimes, against all odds, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front fought for almost 30 years, defying the might of Hailie Selassie, the last Emperor of Ethiopia and his successor, the Communist Mengistu Haile Mariam. During that time they gained the respect and trust of the Eritrean people who suffered through years of hardship and war.  So successful was the Eritrean struggle that they not only freed Eritrea, but also helped rid Ethiopia of the Stalinist Dergue, as Meles Zenawi and the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front swept into Addis Ababa in 1991.

A Nation forged on the Battlefields

Eritrean woman by United Nations

Even if Eritrea had never been a nation before, it certainly became one after the years of fighting in the battlefields of Nafka and Keren.  As with any newly-independent nation that has gone through a long period of struggle against colonial rule, the question now remains as to how Eritrea will define itself outside the context of war. Having a well-defined enemy or coloniser can bring your national identity into sharp focus, but once that enemy is removed, what exactly is needed to hold the conceptual 'nation' together?

The Balkanisation of Africa?

Eritrea's claim to nationhood is quite different than many others in Africa.  On a continent struggling with multi-ethnic nations which were defined by European powers, with borders haphazardly criss-crossing linguistic, tribal and cultural divides, many Africans would like to see an Africa that has moved on from its colonial legacy.  Whilst the Organisation of African Unity is opposed to the balkanisation of Africa, some kind of redress is necessary, if not inevitable, and I think events like the recent independence of South Sudan are part of that process.  Eritrea, ironically, has fought to return to its colonial borders, which were politically, historically, perhaps even psychologically, established by the Italians in the late 19th century.

Welcome to Gelatoland

Ice-cream parlour by thecomeupshow

Whilst Eritrea, in some ways, owes its existence as a nation to lines drawn on the map by the Italians, being colonised by the Italians was, ultimately, Eritrea's downfall (although they did leave a legacy of stunning architecture and refreshing gelaterie or ice-creams parlours!).  Post-WW2 British and US governments weren't all that interested in preserving a state created by their erstwhile enemies and favoured the federation of Eritrea with Ethiopia, which is what eventually happened.  It's clear that the Eritreans never really wanted federation but, I guess the issue of Eritrea/Ethiopian identity is complex, considering the fact that tribes like the Afar and Tigrinya straddle both sides of the Eritrea-Ethiopian border.

Self-determination versus Federation

I find Eritrea's tenacity and commitment to self-determination fascinating.  I guess, being Irish, I can relate to the desire for 'nationhood' - although it's a modern concept and, equally, one that will be redefined in the next century, in Europe, as much as in Africa.  I guess the question of self-determination versus federation, is one that many nations have had to face and, in the case of places like Scotland, Catalunya or Quebec, will be facing in the near future.  Ireland was faced with this question at a time when the British Empire covered one third of the globe.  The consequences for us, as a nation, were pretty harsh. But we live in a different world now and, one might hope, nations should be able to go their separate ways in an amicable fashion.

So what happens next?

Eritrea addresses the UN by United Nations

Indeed, the separation of Eritrea and Ethiopia was relatively amicable in the beginning - a civilised agreement between revolutionary comrades - but this mutual goodwill, unfortunately, evaporated with a border war, which cost thousands of lives and devastated the Eritrean economy, in the late 90's.  It sounds as though things are still pretty tense between Eritrea and Ethiopia (and Djibouti and Sudan!). It's hard to stop fighting and move on but I believe that Eritrea will, eventually, need to accommodate its dominant neighbours - to recognise commonalities whilst respecting each nation's right to follow its own path.  That is, as long as nations continue to exist!

Zenawi, the Tigrayan People's revolutionary leader and Prime Minister of Ethiopia has just passed away. Eritrea's leader, Isaias Afewerki, keeps a firm grip on the reigns of power. Ethiopia's future seems as uncertain as ever.  Equally, Eritrea faces greater challenges than ever before, to forge a nation which is prosperous, future-proof and at peace with its past.

Image credits:

The image of the ice-cream parlour was taken by Flickr member thecomeupshow aka Adulis 'Chedo' Mokanan, a hip-hop and R&B DJ who is based in London, Ontario!  Adulis took a trip to Eritrea in 2011 and has shared his photos with us, using the Creative Commons license.

The other photographs are from the United Nations flickr account and have been provided using the Creative Commons license, as the UN wishes to foster greater understanding on the work they have done down through the years.  You can also find out more by visiting the United Nations website.

Dorset - A Hot Bed of Radicalism?

For a county that routinely returns Conservative MPs to parliament, Dorset has a surprisingly radical history! As far back as the 1640's and the English Civil War, when Cromwell's army was fighting against the Royalists, the Clubmen of Dorset decided to have their own war, against both sides, in a bid to protect their families and property.

The Monmouth Rebellion

The Duke of Monmouth by Willem Wissing

When Charles II died in 1685, the Duke of Monmouth, who is rumoured to have been Charles' illegitimate son, lead a rebellion against James II, which started in Lyme Regis in May and ended with the Battle of Sedgemoor in Somerset in July.

It's no coincidence that Monmouth chose Dorset as his landing point - he was a Protestant claimant to the throne, who was opposed to the succession of James II as a Catholic King.  Dorset has long been a Protestant stronghold and I'd imagine that many of the participants in the failed 'West Country rebellion' were Dorset farmers, who found themselves being 'transported' to Barbados (see my blog post about the Red Legs of Barbados).

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Dorset also holds an important place in Britain's Trade Union history with the famous case of the Tolpuddle Martyrs.  In 1833, a group of agricultural labourers, from the village of Tolpuddle just outside Dorchester, they were sentenced to transportation (a lovely euphemism - makes it sound like a relaxing rail journey!) to Britain's new colony in Australia.

Their crime?  Being members of a Friendly Society - which was an early form of trade union.  This wasn't illegal in itself, but the landowner who brought the case against them was determined to get a prosecution and his lawyers managed to find an archaic law about 'swearing secret oaths' which was used to find them guilty. Their real crime was that they had demanded reinstatement of their wages, after the landowner had cut their pay to a level that meant they were barely able to support their families.

In those days, being transported to Australia was a fate worse than death and the case of the Tolpuddle labourers caused uproar and led to the largest demonstrations of working-class people that had ever been seen in England.  I'm sure this rattled the nerves of the ruling classes, coming at a time when the British Trades Union movement was finding it voice.

Comrades

As part of my research, I watched Bill Douglas' film Comrades (1986). It's quite a beautiful movie and tells the story really well, although it is quite long (around 3 hours).  It was mostly shot around South Dorset and, as well as dealing with the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, Douglas uses a narrative frame that addresses the art of story-telling, through the character of the Lanternist.





British Trade Unionism today

Being a trade union rep, I'm a great believer in the role of Trade Unions in a democratic society.  I think it's fair to say that Britain was the birthplace of the modern Trade Union movement, but the situation for Trade Unions in Britain today is worse than it has been in some time.  It's estimated that less than one third of workers in Britain still belong to a Trade Union.  With all of the emphasis on capitalism, privatisation, competition and individualism, it feels a little bit like collective bargaining is going out of fashion.

Union demonstration outside the National Gallery by me

I dipped into a book called A History of British Trade Unionism (1963) by Henry Pelling where he starts off by saying that Trade Unions in Britain are stronger than ever, with almost 3/4 of workers being union members.  How things have changed over the past 50 years!  Not long after Pelling published his book, there was a great shown-down between government and the Trade Unions, in the 1970's, followed by attacks on the Trade Union movement by Margaret Thatcher and successive governments and a perceived loss of political representation, as New Labour effectively 'sold out' or rather, 'bought into' the establishment.

The Future of the Trade Union movement?

So the question for many trade unionists in 21st century Britain is Where do we go from here?  The answer seems to involve regaining political power and, increasingly, trade unions are thinking about turning the votes of people like me into an effective political force, by-passing the politics of Labour.

It's a story which is far from finished and, despite many setbacks, the Trade Union movement is still relatively powerful.  It's interesting to note that the Scandinavian countries enjoy the highest 'density' of trade union membership.  It's hardly a coincidence that the gap between rich and poor tends to be much smaller in Scandinavia and everyone benefits from a higher standard of living, not just the 1%!

Tolpuddle March in 2004 by Tom Roper

Compared to a country like the United States, where a mere 1 in 10 workers are members of a Trade Union (or Labor Union),  US society appears to be increasingly wealth-divided, with little or no provision for workers who lose their jobs or fall on hard times.

Tolpuddle in the 21st century

Although it seemed to lose momentum some years back, this year's Tolpuddle Martyrs festival saw a record number of people turning out to march, commemorate, sing and make political speeches.  Although I've never been there, I'd love to visit the Tolpuddle Martyrs museum sometime soon.

Wahhabis in Weymouth?

As I've been blogging about Dorset, I've been keeping an eye on news items from the county and I couldn't help but notice news regarding the arrest of Richard Dart, aka Salahuddin al Britani.  Dart is originally from Dorset and converted to Islam, which is a pretty radical thing, in itself, in Britain in 2012!  He appeared in the BBC documentary My Brother the Islamist and is accused of plotting a terrorist attack on Britain.  He has been living in West Ealing for several years, so we've probably walked past each other on the Uxbridge Road!  He's been portrayed in the media as a mad fundamentalist who wants to bring Shari'a law to England - I can't help but wonder how historians of the future will view people like Richard Dart?

Image credits:


The image of the Duke of Monmouth is by the Dutch portrait artist Willem Wissing - this image is in the public domain - the original painting currently hands at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

The Trailer from the movie 'Comrades' is taken from YouTube.

The picture of the Trade Union demonstration outside the National Gallery was taken by me.

The photo of the Tolpuddle March from 2004 was taken by flickr member Tom Roper, a Medical Librarian from Seaford. You can see more of Tom's work on his flickrstream or on his blog.  Thanks to Tom for sharing this image with us, using the Creative Commons license.

Cambodia - The Final Word

A summary of the themes

It’s time to say goodbye to Cambodia.  It’s been a great learning experience and I hope I get to visit Cambodia again sometime in the future. During the past couple of months, I’ve learned about Norodom Sihamoni, Cambodia’s Czech-speaking King and an unusual role-model for the country, as it moves through the 21^st century.  I learnt about Chaul Chnam Thmey, the Cambodian New Year, which took place in April.  I learned about the Cambodian script and its influence on other writing systems in South East Asia.  I learned about the Cham people of Cambodia and Vietnam and I learned how to make Somla Machou, or Sour Fish soup, one of Cambodia’s national dishes.

Tools for research

I read three books as part of my research into Cambodia. 

Research for this blog

Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Robinson

First they killed my Father by Loung Ung

River of Time by Jon Swain

I used the Insight Guide to Cambodia and Laos for some of my background research

I watched two films about Cambodia:

The Killing Fields

Voices of the Killing Fields (a documentary about the work of the Cambodian reporter Thet Sambath.

To provide some background for my research and studies, I’ve been listening to lots of Cambodian music.  I’ve become a bit obsessed by Dengue Fever, the US group who sing in Cambodian and English.  I’ve also been listening to traditional Cambodian music, which is an acquired taste, but I find it really beautiful and, strangely, some of the songs remind me a bit on Bob Dylan!  I’m sharing a video from YouTube below which shows Dengue Fever's track Seeing Hands.

Other themes

And of course, there were plenty of other themes I would like to have explored, if I’d had more time to do so.  Some of these were:

UNESCO

The French in Asia

Ghosts

Ieng Sary, Brother Number Two

Exodus

Children and war

Mt Meru, the holy mountain of Hinduism

Landmines

Laughter

War photography

Landmines

The Irrawaddy dolphins

Casinos in Cambodia

Cambodian classical ballet

The Reamker – Cambodia’s version of the Ramayana

Artists who disappeared under the Khmer Rouge, eg. Ros Sereysothea and Sinn Sisamouth

Dinner Party trivia

And for those of you who are regular readers – here are some lesser-known facts about Cambodia that you can use to impress people at your next dinner party!

Tourist taking photo of Angkor Wat

Cambodia became independent in 1953.

There has been a long-running dispute between Cambodia and Thailand in relation to a temple complex, Preah Vihear, which sits directly on the border of the two countries.

‘New people’ was the term the Khmer Rouge used to describe Cambodians from the towns and cities, ie. Those who weren’t from a peasant background.  The famous Khmer Rouge slogan about the New People was ‘To keep you is no benefit.  To destroy you is no loss.’

The leaders of the Khmer Rouge were very well-educated, eg. Pol Pot studied in Paris. 

The US, Britain and Thailand continued to fund the Khmer Rouge, even after the Vietnamese had ousted them from power. 

Cambodia’s main ecological threats are from logging and shrimp farming.

The Sap river, which fills central Cambodia to form the lake Tonle Sap, reverses its flow every half-year, a very unusual phenomenon.

Cambodians count in blocks of 5.

The main entrance to Angkor Wat faces west, towards the setting sun, rather than east, which has led to speculation that the temple was somehow associated with death. 

The French use an expression called Le Mal Jaune (the yellow sickness) to describe nostalgia. 

Kaj Bjork, Sweden’s ambassador to the Beijing, was the only foreigner allowed to visit Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

The Final Word

Of course, the ‘Elephant in the Room’ when it comes to Cambodia, is the period between 1975 and 1979, when Cambodia was controlled by the Khmer Rouge.  The Khmer Rouge regime was brutal in its attempts to turn Cambodia into an Agrarian Socialist state and it’s distressing to read the stories of those who lived through that time.  As a ‘national trauma’, the Khmer Rouge regime has left scars that are barely healed today.  Loung Ung’s story, as told in her book, ‘First they killed my Father’ is the second first-hand account I’ve read about life under the Khmer Rouge.  Loung Ung was a young girl when, in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh.  Shortly after the arrival of the Khmer Rouge, the entire city was evacuated and sent to work in the countryside.  Ung’s father had been an official in the old regime and they were particularly vulnerable, living in fear of discovery.  What really touched me about the book was the sense of anger Ung had as a young girl.  That a child would have to suffer so much and become so angry is saddening, in her own words, ‘My hate empowers and scares me, for with hate in my heart, I have no room for sadness’. 

Like many other Cambodians, Ung managed to escape Cambodia, first to Vietnam, then Thailand and the United States.  I was unaware of the suffering that many refugees experienced at the hands of (mostly Thai) pirates, as they crossed the Gulf of Thailand in small boats from Vietnam. 

Sunlight catches dancing Apsara at Angkor Wat

Jon Swain’s book, The River of Time, was also really interesting – although from a completely different perspective, ie. Through the eyes of a Western journalist living in Cambodia and Vietnam.  By all accounts, Swain was the last foreigner to be granted a visa under the Lol Non regime (ie before the Khmer Rouge gained power).  He was also one of the first Westerners to return to Cambodia, after the Vietnamese invaded in 1979.  He took great personal risks to report what was going on, both in Cambodia and Vietnam and his passion for ‘French Indochina’ is infectious.

I watched The Killing Fields again, which is a great movie and I also came across a fascinating documentary called, Voices of the Killing Fields – by the Cambodian journalist, Thet Sambaht.  Sambath lost most of his family under the Khmer Rouge regime and spent ten years as an adult, making contact with surviving Khmer Rouge members, most notably with Nuon Chea (Brother number 2), but also with minor Khmer Rouge officials who he records, quite shockingly, talking about the people they killed ‘under orders’ from above.  There has been a real desire from the survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime, to get some kind of justice for those who were murdered by the regime.  Sambaht’s documentary is an attempt to establish the power structures involved and prove that the order to kill came from the top of the Khmer Rouge leadership. 

The Khmer Rouge officials he interviewed seemed distressed and regretful of their role in the killings.  It also seems as though there was a lot of ‘peer pressure’ to kill and that, somehow, once a person had broken the taboo of taking another human being’s life, the only way they could feel better about it was by forcing others to do the same. 

I just can’t imagine what it would be like to be in a situation like that.  Cambodia is slowly recovering from the intense revolution of those four years, but it could take another generation before the violence of that period is finally put to rest.  Here’s hoping the future for this small nation is much happier than it’s more recent past. 

Image credits:

All photos on this blog post were taken by me.  Please feel free to reuse them under the Creative Commons License:

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