I have been off of Facebook since the election results were announced, choosing not to submerge myself in all the opinions, outrage and pain. I limit my news consumption to one email newsletter per day that breaks down the need to know about Trump and other key global events; for the first time maybe ever, I am not convinced that knowing more or educating myself on the issues is going to benefit me or anyone else.
This has left me trapped, oscillating between feeling mentally healthier (maybe?) not knowing the minute details of the human rights travesties that are daily headlines and feeling un-American for not being informed. This combination often gets finished off with a large dose of fear of the future, uncertainty about whether I want to bring a child into this current world, and knowledge that, for all the shit that is going down, little to none of it impacts my daily life, so what right do I have to complain anyway?
Yeah, that sums it up.
On top of this twisted inner dialogue, my emotions have been on my sleeve as I have led a group of 12 students through an exploration of the fall of the Khmer Rouge and the aftermath of their regime. For those of you who never studied Southeast Asian history, the Khmer Rouge was a communist regime that seized power in 1975 and in a little over three years, managed to starve, torture and eventually kill between two and three million Cambodians. This seven-week project has included trips to Choeung Ek, better known as the Killing Fields; the S-21 Genocide Museum, a former high school turned torture prison; and several events in Phnom Penh, including one about the treatment of the Muslim Cham minority during the regime. This educational event, which was part of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal's reparations program, featured several Cham survivors and a new documentary about their historical attempts to fight the regime. In reflecting on the Muslim Cham event, where a boy in his early twenties stood on stage and talked about how many of his Cham peers refuse to believe the Khmer Rouge ever happened, I became even more astonished by my students' open and honest insight into this section of their history. They have so many conflicting feelings about the tragedies that occurred not forty years ago, but they are not afraid to grapple with and experience them head on.
For example, after more than two hours touring S-21, which displays thousands of mug shots of the actual men, women and children who were confined and tortured in the buildings we stood in, one fifteen-year-old said that the experience was the first thing that had truly made this study of the Khmer Rouge real. She said, fighting back tears, that once you were there, once you stood on that ground, you couldn't deny it. She had heard about it, read about it, seen photos and visited the Killing Fields, but S-21 in its stark intensity really brought it home for her. She later put together the short film at the end of this post.
Then, just last week, and apropos to nothing, a student raised his hand during class and asked if I knew that America had dropped more bombs on Cambodia in the 60s and 70s than all the bombs dropped during World World II combined. I said I did. He looked down at his desk, hands balled into fists and said, "You know, when I think about that. When I really think about that, it makes me so angry. Why did they do that?" I told him he had every right to feel that way -- that the more I learned about the US's role in the Vietnam War and its resulting impact on Cambodia, the more ashamed I grew. I told him he had hit on a really important point. While America stands as a beacon of hope to many -- the land of the free and the home of the brave -- it has wreaked havoc on countries across the globe. Despite this, Americans benefit from that skewed perception every day. On the other hand, from a global perspective, Cambodia is either completely unknown or is only known for genocide, when in reality, it is a wonderful place to live and work. I told him he was going to have to fight that characterization of his country and its citizens for a long time. And no, I told him, it's not fair.
I guess I need to take to heart the words of this fourteen-year-old girl. Right now, life for millions of people is not easy. There is heartbreak and fear and injustice running rampant, from refugees fleeing Syria to gay men in hiding in Lebanon. Families in Flint who still don't have clean water, women performing at-home abortions because they either can't afford medical care, or because other options don't exist in their country. Despite this knowledge, sometimes we need to just put our heads down and get through it. Lean into the fear? Read the headlines anyway. Donate time or money or resources to the organizations or individuals we believe can make actionable solutions. And for me personally, realize that the wisdom of Cambodian teenagers reflecting on the horrors of their past can teach me how to handle the fresh challenges and shocking dismay of 2017 America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q15GJKQ3KE
