In the Shadows of Utopia: The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Nightmare

'To keep you is no gain, to lose you is no loss.' That was one of the sayings of Angkar, recited by Khmer Rouge cadre to prisoners across Democratic Kampuchea. The ideology underneath it took shape more than a century earlier, in the factory towns of industrial England.

Time Period Covered: 1842 – 1900

Who are the proletariat? Who wrote the Communist Manifesto? What was the context in which it was written?

This episode is an introduction to the ideas of Marx and Engels, and more broadly to 'communism'. We begin with some common phrases used by the Communist Party of Kampuchea and their cadre that highlight the ideology of the movement. We then depart Southeast Asia for Europe in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, and look at the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as they form a new view of history based on economics and class, and forecast revolution.

Sources
Friedrich Engels The Condition of the Working Class in England
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels The Communist Manifesto
Henri Locard Pol Pot's Little Red Book: The Sayings of Angkar

In April 1925, a French resident named Félix Louis Bardez walked into the village of Kraang Laav to collect unpaid taxes. He was beaten to death, along with his militiaman and his interpreter. The trial that followed tells you more about how the protectorate actually worked than any amount of colonial paperwork.

Time Period Covered: 1880 – 1938

What did French control of Cambodia look like? How did this 'protectorate' function? What are the origins of Cambodian nationalism? And what was life like for your average Khmer in the early 20th century?

In this episode, Lachlan covers the early reactions to French rule, the treatment of the Khmer by the imperial power, and how the protectorate functioned in practice. The Bardez killing opens onto a discussion of the culture of the Khmer living outside the major towns and cities, based on May Ebihara's groundbreaking fieldwork at Svay.

The episode continues the early life of Saloth Sar and his family, and introduces Son Ngoc Thanh and Nagaravatta, the first Khmer-language newspaper.

Sources

David Chandler A History of Cambodia
Ben Kiernan How Pol Pot Came to Power
Philip Short Pol Pot: History of a Nightmare
May Ebihara Svay: A Khmer Village in Cambodia

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In 1860 a French naturalist named Henri Mouhot, in the region collecting beetles and birds, was guided to the ruins at Angkor. He died of fever in Laos the following year, and his journals were published posthumously in Paris and London. Within three years Cambodia was a French protectorate.

Time Period Covered: 1789 – 1887

What happened in the years leading up to the French colonisation of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam? How did Cambodian rulers become so dependent on either Siam or Vietnam for protection?

In this episode, Lachlan bridges the gap between Cambodia's 'middle period' and the dawn of French colonisation. We begin with the French Revolution and its links with the eventual Khmer Rouge revolution, then explore the imposition of Vietnamese control on Cambodia in the 19th century — the 'years of calamity', and the influence of that period on the psyche of a country dominated by an ascendant Siam and Vietnam.

Then Mouhot's journey, and the different ways in which the French conquered Cambodia and Vietnam. We also have an introduction to the early years of Saloth Sar, otherwise known as Pol Pot.

Sources
David Chandler A History of Cambodia
Henri Mouhot Travels in Siam, Cambodia and Laos
Philip Short Pol Pot: History of a Nightmare

If you have read one book about Cambodia, there is a good chance David Chandler wrote it. A History of Cambodia has been the standard introduction for four decades, Brother Number One remains the essential biography of Pol Pot, and Voices from S-21 is the definitive study of the Khmer Rouge's central prison. He has testified twice as an expert witness at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, against Duch in Case 001, and against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan in Case 002/01.

I had the privilege of sitting down with Professor Chandler at his home in Melbourne to discuss the current state of Khmer Rouge historiography, his thoughts on the tribunal, whether the crimes of the Communist Party of Kampuchea can properly be called genocide, and his experience of visiting the country in 1981, so soon after it reopened to the outside world.

David was Professor Emeritus at Monash University, where I first met him in 2011.

In the 1590s a Spaniard and a Portuguese, Blas Ruiz and Diogo Veloso, arrived in Cambodia and came close to taking the country over. It ended in a massacre and a farce, and it was Europe's first serious attempt at the place. The next one, two centuries later, worked.

Time Period Covered: 1500 – 1825

How will the forces of imperialism and colonialism come to the region of Indochina? What role will Europeans play in shaping what will eventually become the state of Cambodia?

In this episode, Lachlan relays the ridiculous story of Ruiz and Veloso, and spends some time on what the larger forces of colonialism looked like around the globe at this time.

The attention then shifts to France. The story of Pigneau de Béhaine, a French missionary stationed in Vietnam, sets up the long and tangential relationship between Vietnam and France — the conflict inside Vietnam, and the eventual unification of the kingdom under Emperor Gia Long with the missionary's help. The episode ends with 'the master's tea', the infamous Cambodian folktale about Vietnamese cruelty to the Khmer that can still be heard today.

Sources
L.P. Briggs 'Spanish Intervention in Cambodia', T'oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 39, 1950
David Chandler A History of Cambodia
Alex Hinton Why Did They Kill?