How do you teach about genocide?

2001-02-28 20:47

Phnom Penh - Teachers in classrooms around the globe have long struggled with how to answer thorny questions from their students about such issues as race, religion and sex.

None of these questions are perhaps quite as prickly as those posed to teachers working in nations plagued with a brutal history under a genocidal leader.

Many of Cambodia's teachers still have few answers to provide their students when hit with the question, "Why did the leaders of our country mercilessly kill hundreds of thousands of their own people?"

"There are so many questions," said Samon Sany, 50, a long-time history teacher for 11th and 12th grade students in Cambodia.

"Especially among students whose parents were killed," he said. "Even after they learn about Hitler and other leaders around the world, they still can't understand what Pol Pot wanted at that time."

The question has haunted teachers and others living in Cambodia since the late 1970s, when the Khmer Rouge leaders committed some of this century's worst crimes against humanity.

The hermetic nature of the regime, the freshness of events and the integration of the movement's members into society with virtual impunity have left lingering a host of unanswered questions, often making educators uneasy when dealing with the topic.

Government Adds Khmer Rouge Chapter To Textbooks

Perhaps emboldened by a new-found sense of peace or the increasing possibility of a Khmer Rouge tribunal, Cambodia's Ministry of Education has decided to unveil this September a new Khmer Rouge chapter in twelfth grade social science books.

Many have criticised the section in the past as being too thin on substance or too heavy with propaganda, depending on the government of the time.

But with the early completion of the chapter by a committee consisting only of government school teachers and ministry officials, some are beginning to worry about what the government will be teaching hundreds of thousands of students across the country.

"Right now everyone wants to talk about the Khmer Rouge and suddenly a textbook's coming out," said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, which houses thousands of documents and photographs to be used during a future Khmer Rouge tribunal.

"They need to take time, do research, look at all the sources, because the quality of a book depends on its sources, not on who wrote it," he said.

Focusing On Their Lives

The chapter has yet to be released for public scrutiny, but those involved in the chapter's composition said they avoided the possibility of inserting errors or controversial information by focusing on the lives of those in Cambodia during that time.

The chapter will likely include descriptions of how families suffered, were forced to work long hours, and were often hungry during this period, but the writers tread lightly when it came to including details, one writer said.

The writer cited the 1980s occupation by the Vietnamese, the despised enemy of the Khmer Rouge, when teachers were forced to teach from "morality" textbooks instead of history books.

During this time, the leaders of the Pol Pot regime were villified on classroom walls, where graphic drawings of Khmer Rouge atrocities hung.

"We didn't want to show the children how the Khmer Rouge soldiers killed people with hoes, axes and bamboo over the head," Chhut Sereyrum said. "We need to think about the security of the students and how they will think."

'We Don't Want People To Remember Too Much'

"We need to think especially about the former Khmer Rouge who come back to live with the Cambodian community," he said. "We want them to live peacefully with us. We don't want people to remember too much."

The persistent wariness about Cambodia's future and the former Khmer Rouge leader's role in it caused a near silence on the subject that swept through most classrooms in the 1990s after the Vietnamese left the job of rebuilding the government to the United Nations.

"I got most of my information from parents and films," said Roath Sivalen, 17, a 12th grade student at Preah Yukunthor High School in Phnom Penh. "I talk about it with my classmates."

"I tell my friends what my parents' life was like under Pol Pot and they tell me what their parents' life was like under Pol Pot," he said.

Some non-government experts worry that the new book may be no better than the ones they have now, and say that focusing on the writers' personal experiences fails to reach far enough in helping Cambodian students to understand the past.

"The Khmer Rouge wasn't just about killing and victims," said Youk Chhang. "It was about foreign policies, music, fashion, slogans, songs, medicines, militaries, criminal justice and political science."

"Every kid in the country has heard the stories of personal experiences from their own parents every single day for the last 25 years," said Youk Chhang. "But there is a way to address sensitive issues for educational purposes." - Sapa-DPA

- SAPA