Avoidance

Aside from the nasty ‘live sex’ icon on this computer the Cambodia I have seen this last week is lovely, warm and friendly, full of gorgeous food and flowers, relaxed and very nice all round really…

I realized today however that I am avoiding something important to understanding this place… Cambodia’s recent, and from my vague* knowledge, dark dark dark history. Those pages in Lonely Planet detailing period 1970 onwards are unread, the books I've been given about the Pol Pot era also lie untouched… the thought of going to the museums and seeing piles of skulls is not something that I want to do… although I will do it I don’t want to… I’m pondering over why not? I don’t like horror movies and this seems worse than a horror movie, and it is real and it happened relatively recently… I guess also it will change my current perceptions of the country and people… and perhaps I just don’t want nasty images going round my head?

I think I would describe myself as optimistic, particularly regarding human nature… but how can there be anything optimistic about an auto-genocide that kills one-quarter to one-third of a country’s population? How can people butcher each other like that? How? How? How? It happens all over the world, I know, but in the UK we don’t have to stare it in the nose… so we (me in particular) can live in some sort of self-acknowledged oblivion, aware… but not too close… now I guess I have to read, visit and understand… and hopefully not get too depressed???

Jack be warned I will be on a serious anti ‘army’ mission when I come visit.

*Vague is an understatement knowledge is almost entirely based on the movie ‘The Killing Fields.