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On Pol Pot, Cambodia’s Killing Fields, and the Power of an Idea to Transform–or Destroy. (In Cambodia with Tearfund)

By Anita Mathias

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 Stupa in the Killing Fields, commemorating the victims of the Khymer Rouge

 We wandered around the “Killing Fields” today, where thousands of the  3 million Cambodians who perished (out of a population of 8 million) were clubbed, hacked, or axed to death by the minions of Pol Pot, leader of the murderous Khmer Rouge

 Pol Pot apparently was a sweet child, and then a brilliant student, sent to Paris by the Cambodian government on a doctoral scholarship. (Most of the Khymer Rouge leaders, incidentally, were intelligent and highly educated, mainly in Paris).

 Pol Pot’s barbarity started with an idea. That the simple agrarian society he had stumbled upon on Cambodia’s borders was the very best society. 

 Sadly, his personality was dangerous. On the DISC personality assessment, he would score as DI, dominant and influential. And so instead of living a peaceful agrarian life himself, and buying farms, and inviting people to live and toil on them, he enforced his idea on society, forcing the entire population of Pnomh-Penh and other cities into the countryside, where they toiled for 12-14 hours  a day in forced labour in rice paddies, etc.

 The Pol Pot regime was control in the extreme. What does control stem from? From wanting your own way. From thinking you know best and wanting everyone to do what you want them to do.

 But of course, everyone wants their own way, and so control will never be complete. Everyone has at least a residue of stubborn autonomy which cannot be snuffed out, and which leads oppressors to suspect, rightly, that their control is not complete. And leads to increasingly cruel, fearful and desperate attempts to control.

 So Pol Pot, instead of trusting the power of his idea, used greater and greater barbarity to force society to accept it, killing intellectuals and the educated, those who knew a foreign language, those who wore glasses, doctors, professors, and eventually, in growing paranoia, loyal members of his own Khymer Rouge.

 It was eugenics in reverse, a single-handed attempt to lower the IQ of a nation, murdering the educated and cultured, and I would expect that 35 years later Cambodia is still suffering from the effects of having her entire intelligentsia murdered.

 Nations and human history, however, tends towards equilibrium and balance. Great evil has within itself the seeds of its own extinction. Pol Pot was overthrown to great rejoicing within 4 years, just as the extreme evil of Hitler and Stalin reduced the shelf-life of their regimes.

 

   Peaceful agrarian scene, just outside the Killing Fields.

Peaceful agrarian scene, just outside the Killing Fields.

 I walked through the killing fields, in which now birds sing, trees flower, hens march outside followed their chicks, and skinny cows graze.

 Cambodia was an agrarian society, and Pol Pot could have enjoyed it peacefully and privately , without three years of stress for his people and himself–for like all dictators he grew increasingly paranoid as he realized that absolute control was impossible,  suspecting everyone, friend and crony alike, killing people on suspicions, and dubious information extracted over months of torture.

 Was it just Pol Pot? Nope, I think every parent, every lover, every friend, every church leader, or small group leader has in themselves a urge to control things. I’ve been meditating on control after hearing  an acquaintance, a “good” and respected Christian woman say that her greatest weakness was that she wanted to control everything, her family, her work, her church, her small group and that this was the greatest source of stress in her life.

 Like her, I would really like to have things go the way I think they should go, and want them to go. I resolved then to give up this silliness, to persuade but not control, to go with the flow in relatively unimportant things, instead of directing the flow. And if people don’t behave the way I want them to, or think they should– to “control” them, in the only way God has left open to us, by the immense force of prayer, which as Paul Miller repeatedly points out in his book The Praying Life, does change people but with the invisible force of the spirit.

 * * *

 I chatted to our tour guide at the Genocide Museum, an intelligent man who was made to work in the rice paddies, essentially as a slave, on a ration of two bowls of rice a day, sometimes more gruel than rice. Pol Pot viewed his people as expendable, since he thought he needed only 2 million out of the 8 million to run his communist society. Those who died from overwork and malnutrition died. The rice they produced he exported.

 Obviously, having to live and work in community—the same food, the same clothes, all colour banned, with the fruits of your toil going elsewhere was not a trust-inspiring taste of community for the people of Cambodia. Tearfund’s Umoja process in healing in encouraging to work in community.

 * * *

 Cambodia’s Christians don’t lack for uncoordinated help from well-meaning Western Christians. I saw concrete pigpens and water butts in a Tearfund Project today, donated by Samaritan’s Purse.

samaritans

 Heck, who wouldn’t be tempted by a hand-out? There is something magical about something for nothing; it has the whiff of grace about it; it would sure tempt me. 

 But as I’ve mentioned in his blog, one of the turning points of my life was when I fell in love with a house I could not afford (in which I now live). Roy hopefully suggested to his mother who has inherited wealth from her husband’s family and her own that she help us buy it, since she has bought houses for his brother David, and Jeph Mathias, who, consequently, no longer needs to work.

 She refused. Providentially. So we bought the house with a crazy mortgage, almost 7 times his salary and I started a business. I gained confidence. I changed my self-definition. I thought I was not detail-oriented. Heck, I was wrong. I could be obsessively detail-oriented when I needed to be. I thought I was no good with money. Nope, if I prayed for guidance and God’s ideas, I discovered I could be brilliant with money.    

 I learnt dozens of things I did not know—including working in a team and biting my lip often, and  how to plan something step by step from concept to execution, to plan with enough detail that you intuitively know it is going to work because your detailed step by step plan is concrete, credible and practical.

 That has helped me in other areas of my life, my blog, for instance.

 * * *

The worst thing about poverty is hopelessness. At a meeting at ICC (International Cooperation for Cambodia) they described Tearfund’s Umoja process (which encourages communities to dream about what they want to see, to set aside a small sum of money every week into a savings and loan program, and to use some of that money in  micro-entrepreneurial enterprises).

 At the first meeting, they ask, “What resources do you have?” The people say, “We do not have any resources. We are poor.” But they realize they have unused land around their houses in which they can grow things in containers. They have enough to buy a laying hen or two. They can buy a community pig. Put fish in a pond. Dig a well. Pool together for a water butt for the hot, dry season (i.e. now!)

 The self-definition—that we are poor, and so we need help is self-limiting. One you define yourself as a poor person (or a fat person with a bad metabolism, or someone not techie, or not smart enough to learn X, or do Y well, you have limited yourself. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy). A pervasive hopelessness spreads.  

 Hand-outs don’t work permanently (except in disaster relief, where they make the difference between death from starvation or thirst and life). They are like putting a finger in a dyke, which sooner or later will burst. Once you have spent your hand-out, you will need another. And another.

 What changes people is ideas, not dollars. The idea that they DO have resources—physical strength, optimism, a bit of land around their houses, the ability to keep chickens, and to pool money and work together on a community garden, a piggery, a fishery.

 Tearfund is helping train people in new agricultural and animal husbandry techniques, and in starting small businesses like sewing shops.

 A donation of £3 a month will pay for a family to go through Umoja, Swahili for togetherness, the Church and Community Mobilization programme.

 Would you care to donate here by direct debit, please.

 Alternatively, text HOPE TODAY to 70444 to give £3 a month to See For Yourself, Tearfund.  It will be added to your mobile phone bill. Tearfund receives 100% of the money. This subscription service will cost £3.00 per month until you send STOP to 70080. 

If you’d like to sign up to support Tearfund’s work in Cambodia through either of these links, I’d like to send you a beautifully formatted PDF version of one of my books

Wandering Between Two Worlds—a series of memoiristic essays on my life and faith journey

The Meek Inherit the Earth—a meditation on that Beatitude

The Church That Had Too Much—a recording of a vivid dream.

 Just leave me a comment saying you have done so, and  send me your email address at anitaATanitamathias.com. Thank you

 

 

 

 

 

More from my site

  • Images and Magic Moments  from my trip to Cambodia with TearfundImages and Magic Moments  from my trip to Cambodia with Tearfund
  • In which I will be Visiting Cambodia with Tearfund in March 2014In which I will be Visiting Cambodia with Tearfund in March 2014
  • Why I want to go to Tonle Batie, Cambodia with Tearfund   Why I want to go to Tonle Batie, Cambodia with Tearfund
  • Anita’s Belated 2014 Christmas Letter and Early New Year LetterAnita’s Belated 2014 Christmas Letter and Early New Year Letter
  • “Prosperity Theology” as a Hook for the Gospel: Hanging out with Christians in Cambodia   “Prosperity Theology” as a Hook for the Gospel: Hanging out with Christians in Cambodia
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Filed Under: In which I Travel and Dream Tagged With: #TFBloggers, Cambodia, Killing Fields, Pol Pot

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anita.mathias

Writer, Blogger, Reader, Mum. Christian. Instaing Oxford, travel, gardens and healthy meals. Oxford English alum. Writing memoir. Lives in Oxford, UK

Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford # Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford #walking #tranquility #naturephotography #nature
So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And h So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And here we are at one of the world’s most famous and easily recognisable sites.
#stonehenge #travel #england #prehistoric England #family #druids
And I’ve blogged https://anitamathias.com/2020/09/13/on-not-wasting-a-desert-experience/
So, after Paul the Apostle's lightning bolt encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he went into the desert, he tells us...
And there, he received revelation, visions, and had divine encounters. The same Judean desert, where Jesus fasted for forty days before starting his active ministry. Where Moses encountered God. Where David turned from a shepherd to a leader and a King, and more, a man after God’s own heart.  Where Elijah in the throes of a nervous breakdown hears God in a gentle whisper. 
England, where I live, like most of the world is going through a desert experience of continuing partial lockdowns. Covid-19 spreads through human contact and social life, and so we must refrain from those great pleasures. We are invited to the desert, a harsh place where pruning can occur, and spiritual fruitfulness.
A plague like this has not been known for a hundred years... John Piper, after his cancer diagnosis, exhorted people, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer”—since this was the experience God permitted you to have, and He can bring gold from it. Pandemics and plagues are permitted (though not willed or desired) by a Sovereign God, and he can bring life-change out of them. 
Let us not waste this unwanted, unchosen pandemic, this opportunity for silence, solitude and reflection. Let’s not squander on endless Zoom calls—or on the internet, which, if not used wisely, will only raise anxiety levels. Let’s instead accept the invitation to increased silence and reflection
Let's use the extra free time that many of us have long coveted and which has now been given us by Covid-19 restrictions to seek the face of God. To seek revelation. To pray. 
And to work on those projects of our hearts which have been smothered by noise, busyness, and the tumult of people and parties. To nurture the fragile dreams still alive in our hearts. The long-deferred duty or vocation
So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I have totally sunk into the rhythm of it, and have got quiet, very quiet, the quietest spell of time I have had as an adult.
I like it. I will find going back to the sometimes frenetic merry-go-round of my old life rather hard. Well, I doubt I will go back to it. I will prune some activities, and generally live more intentionally and mindfully.
I have started blocking internet of my phone and laptop for longer periods of time, and that has brought a lot of internal quiet and peace.
Some of the things I have enjoyed during lockdown have been my daily long walks, and gardening. Well, and reading and working on a longer piece of work.
Here are some images from my walks.
And if you missed it, a blog about maintaining peace in the middle of the storm of a global pandemic
https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/  #walking #contemplating #beauty #oxford #pandemic
A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine. A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine.  We can maintain a mind of life and peace during this period of lockdown by being mindful of our minds, and regulating them through meditation; being mindful of our bodies and keeping them happy by exercise and yoga; and being mindful of our emotions in this uncertain time, and trusting God who remains in charge. A new blog on maintaining a mind of life and peace during lockdown https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/
In the days when one could still travel, i.e. Janu In the days when one could still travel, i.e. January 2020, which seems like another life, all four of us spent 10 days in Malta. I unplugged, and logged off social media, so here are some belated iphone photos of a day in Valetta.
Today, of course, there’s a lockdown, and the country’s leader is in intensive care.
When the world is too much with us, and the news stresses us, moving one’s body, as in yoga or walking, calms the mind. I am doing some Yoga with Adriene, and again seeing the similarities between the practice of Yoga and the practice of following Christ.
https://anitamathias.com/2020/04/06/on-yoga-and-following-jesus/
#valleta #valletamalta #travel #travelgram #uncagedbird
Images from some recent walks in Oxford. I am copi Images from some recent walks in Oxford.
I am coping with lockdown by really, really enjoying my daily 4 mile walk. By savouring the peace of wild things. By trusting that God will bring good out of this. With a bit of yoga, and weights. And by working a fair amount in my garden. And reading.
How are you doing?
#oxford #oxfordinlockdown #lockdown #walk #lockdownwalks #peace #beauty #happiness #joy #thepeaceofwildthings
Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social d Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social distancing. The first two are my own garden.  And I’ve https://anitamathias.com/2020/03/28/silver-and-gold-linings-in-the-storm-clouds-of-coronavirus/ #corona #socialdistancing #silverlinings #silence #solitude #peace
Trust: A Message of Christmas He came to earth in Trust: A Message of Christmas  He came to earth in a  splash of energy
And gentleness and humility.
That homeless baby in the barn
Would be the lynchpin on which history would ever after turn
Who would have thought it?
But perhaps those attuned to God’s way of surprises would not be surprised.
He was already at the centre of all things, connecting all things. * * *
Augustus Caesar issued a decree which brought him to Bethlehem,
The oppressions of colonialism and conquest brought the Messiah exactly where he was meant to be, the place prophesied eight hundred years before his birth by the Prophet Micah.
And he was already redeeming all things. The shame of unwed motherhood; the powerlessness of poverty.
He was born among animals in a barn, animals enjoying the sweetness of life, animals he created, animals precious to him.
For he created all things, and in him all things hold together
Including stars in the sky, of which a new one heralded his birth
Drawing astronomers to him.
And drawing him to the attention of an angry King
As angelic song drew shepherds to him.
An Emperor, a King, scholars, shepherds, angels, animals, stars, an unwed mother
All things in heaven and earth connected
By a homeless baby
The still point on which the world still turns. The powerful centre. The only true power.
The One who makes connections. * * *
And there is no end to the wisdom, the crystal glints of the Message that birth brings.
To me, today, it says, “Fear not, trust me, I will make a way.” The baby lay gentle in the barn
And God arranges for new stars, angelic song, wise visitors with needed finances for his sustenance in the swiftly-coming exile, shepherds to underline the anointing and reassure his parents. “Trust me in your dilemmas,” the baby still says, “I will make a way. I will show it to you.” Happy Christmas everyone.  https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/24/trust-a-message-of-christmas/ #christmas #gemalderieberlin #trust #godwillmakeaway
Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Gratitude journal, habit tracker, food and exercise journal, bullet journal, with time sheets, goal sheets and a Planner. Everything you’d like to track.  Here’s a post about it with ISBNs https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/23/life-changing-journalling/. Check it out. I hope you and your kids like it!
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