You cannot reply to this topic Go to first unread post 22 replies to this topic

[zzaa09]

There are rather esoteric historical debates and controversies surrounding the model of influence that swayed the contradictory lunacy that created a one Saloth Sar {Pol Pot}. Eurocentric historians might except and promote the usual "Oriental Despotism" model to justify such theories and abstacts. But if one examines a different tact and truely explores his background of influenced factors, and finds that Pol Pot was a definitive product of purely Western/Christian/Catholic rhetorical culture, might we conclude that we hide our Western guilt and Asiatic apologies to what is real and true? Was Pol Pot a predispossessed wannabe European, and the attached caharacter that obliges with ingrained cultural and adopted inheiritance? Or was he truely a steadfast Buddist-type gone astray?

[PeaceBlondie]

Nah. Neither the pacifist Jesus, nor the peaceful Buddha, made Pol Pot do it. The Devil made him do it; and Karl Marx.

[zzaa09]

PeaceBlondie, on 2009-11-19 23:55:27, said:

Nah. Neither the pacifist Jesus, nor the peaceful Buddha, made Pol Pot do it. The Devil made him do it; and Karl Marx.

The Devil. Might that be a Occidental or Oriental perception?

[londonthai]

PeaceBlondie, on 2009-11-19 15:55:27, said:

Nah. Neither the pacifist Jesus, nor the peaceful Buddha, made Pol Pot do it. The Devil made him do it; and Karl Marx.

strange, how karl marx made me a democratic socialist, anti militarist and pacifist.

but again, jesus made some crusaders, inquisitionists, murderous missionaries, conquistadors

Edited by londonthai, 2009-11-20 00:33:47.

[khaowong1]

IMA_FARANG, on 2009-11-20 08:10:30, said:

PeaceBlondie, on 2009-11-19 17:55:27, said:

Nah. Neither the pacifist Jesus, nor the peaceful Buddha, made Pol Pot do it. The Devil made him do it; and Karl Marx.

I don't know if the Devil had that much to do with it but the training in Marxist/Communist ideology he had in Paris (where he attended University) with his underlying Cambodian Nationalist feelings did. Then he was influenced by Mao's "Red Gaurd" ideas...that in order to remake a society you first had to tear down the old society. That's where the Khmer Rouge developed their "Year Zero" ideology....which said that the old social order had to be eliminated first before a new social order could be begun. "Year Zero" was the first year...that was suppposed to destroy all the old order. Then the new perfect communist society could be constructed without any hinderence from the old corrupt society. That was straight from Mao's revolutionary "continuos revolution" creed.

spot on.....

[mrdome]

Were in his behavior would you even find a trace of anything influenced by spirituality or religion? That's like asking if Hitler was fond of jewish vegetarian cooking and influenced by it.

And it's not "brother to whom" at all. In that stone age communist system he was supposed to be brother number one and everyone else had a higher number. There was nothing above or beyond him.

[rabcbroon]

CIA

[zzaa09]

rabcbroon, on 2009-11-22 22:42:28, said:

CIA

To be fair, the underwritting was a triad of US, China, and Russia. If that wasn't a contemporary paradox of contradiction.

[wintermute]

I'd say animism. Pol Pot believed in ancestral worship and wanted a return to the old khmer ways of life as idealized in folk stories and agricultural history. He believed in an agrarian utopian society that has no place in reality. Sad to say such visions are brought on by mad men.

[otherstuff1957]

Many people ascribe to the belief that 'the ends justify the means'. Pol Pot simply took that belief to it's logical extreme.

[Xangsamhua]

Marx's thought had a millenarian component. Marx believed the apotheosis of revolutionary socialism would be the withering way of the state and the flowering of communism, where each received according to his needs.

Jesus was a millenarian as well, though he was anti-violence and believed he and his followers would not bring about the Kingdom of God, but announce it and prepare people for it. God would inaugurate the Kingdom in his own way and his own time, though Jesus believed it was imminent. (So did John the Baptist, who was Jesus' mentor.)

European and Russian communism incorporated much of the social ethic espoused, but not widely practised after the early years, by Christianity. Egalitarianism is very much a Christian ethic (believe it or not, despite the hierarchicalism of the main Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches). Jesus was revolutionary for his time and place because of his egalitarian ethic (though he was anticipated in a way by Spartacus some 70 years before his birth).

Pol Pot would have absorbed the ethic and doctrine of the Marxists and people on the Left (including some Catholics) in Paris in the postwar years, a time when the old world of Europe looked dramatically like it needed renewing (physically the new Europe was built on the ruins of the old). One could not blame those young people for wanting to make a new heaven and earth that resembled little of what had brought Europe to Fascism, War and the Holocaust. Young people from the colonies like Saloth Sar, Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan took up the millenarianism and converted it into apocalypticism. The experience of the US and allied campaigns in Vietnam and, later, Cambodia (and airwar over Laos), the naked opportunism of the pro-US elite in Phnom Penh that displaced Sihanouk, the example of the Cultural Revolution in China, some residual Jacobinism absorbed from France (the "Year Zero" idea), and, perhaps a return to primitive romanticism, as a poster suggested, all added up to a virulent brew, one that "made men mad", where violence led to greater violence and people were categorised as were the Jews in Europe, their humanity denied in proportion to the shedding of all remaining human feeling among their Khmer Rouge persecutors.

Obviously Buddhism has nothing to do with any of this. One can point the finger, as conservatives do, at the potential implications of Christian egalitarianism, especially when it is taken up by the State. However, it's a pretty long shot to blame Pol Pot on Jesus. The Inquistion is a lot closer, as it combined the tyranny of ideas with the chance for material gain. The Khmer Rouge seemed to be more dominated by the tyranny of ideas. They are a shining example of Wrong View. Their lesson for us is to be unattached to ideology. One can have Right View, but having Right View cannot by definition lead to fanaticism.

[PeaceBlondie]

Xangsamhua, thanks for that.

[SpoliaOpima]

Also of note is that Pol Pot was a vegan.

http://vegetariansar...om/killers.html

[numpty]

i believe pol pot was attracted by the ideas of the french revolution and his mate khieu samphran (sp?) wrote a fairly lengthy treatise on some agrarian utopia which may have been influenced by the frnechies.

he also spent time in china during the red guard time and possiby before and was, i seem to reacall, enthusiatsic about the chinese great leap forward

[jdinasia]

It was certainly the revolutionary extremist element that Pol Pot was exposed to in Paris that so affected him that killing up to 1.8 million of his fellow countrymen seemed like a sane option.

Sad days .. and worse yet that he was never tried for his crimes.

[canuckamuck]

I think it was the barking soi dogs at 3 AM that broke him down

[F4UCorsair]

Buddhism??? Christianity??? I'd guess it was more like mental illness afflicting him!!

What an unfortunate history Cambodia has, and yet what a delight the people are. I worked there for six months back about seven years, and loved the people; every one with whom I had contact had a terrible story to tell (one had her father and seven siblings murdered), yet they were getting on with life, and that was all boxed up as the past.

Buddhism plays a big part in their lives, maybe even more so than Thailand, and perhaps that has assisted them in dealing with the horrors of 75-79.

Canuckamuck, the barking dogs theory is a good one; I also lived in Bali for quite some time, and the barking dogs in the middle of the night, come to think of it, all night, were enough to drive me nuts/nutsier.

And possibly the greatest injustice of it all is that Pol Pot didn't stand trial, and I think the only one who will/is is Duch (could be wrong on that), who was a relative underling, but still extremely nasty. It almost seems that the attitude is that 'this happened a long time ago and is it worth pursuing?'

The fact that it took so long to do anything about this terrible episode in history is possibly tied to the role of the current PM in that episode.

Edited by F4UCorsair, 2010-01-13 02:40:00.

[vinniekintana]

Quote

Also of note is that Pol Pot was a vegan.

http://vegetariansar...om/killers.html

I will kick a shitstorm here but there you.

Haven't you noticed that all vegans hate humans?

But they all want to save the spotted,left-handed,l#sb#an,owl of Borioboola Ghan?

Humans First I say...Vegans last!

Hallelujah..

Edited by vinniekintana, 2010-01-13 13:46:23.

[londonthai]

vinniekintana, on 2010-01-13 13:40:58, said:

Haven't you noticed that all vegans hate humans?

happened to be a vegan, do not hate anybody

[Briggsy]

Many of the atrocities visited upon the Cambodian populous were very similar to what had happened in Stalin's Russia, and Mao's China. The difference was a per capita death rate far higher due to more barbarous punishment usually execution and the starving of the population due to insane rice exports.

Whilst the communist ideology originated in the West, it is a far stretch to blame "the West" for Pol Pot's regime's actions.

One can point the finger at the West for the bombing of Cambodia which gave rural support to the Khmer Rouge during its war to overthrow the American-backed Lon Nol regime and again after the 1979 Vietnamese overthrow of the Khmer Rouge, the West, through Thailand, kept the war going near to the Thai border by allowing the Khmer Rouge a safe haven and allowing or actively assisting them to recoup and re-arm to mount a sustained campaign against the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian Army. This lasted for over 10 years.

[toptuan]

The title of your thread is as tunnel-visioned and damning as the question: "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

Sad attempt to pin religion with the crime of influencing this madman.

Sorry, but it actually tells more about the OP than it does Pol Pot.

Very insightful replies by Xangsamhua and Ima-Farang. Thanks much for your historically accurate and philosophically-focused contributions.

[Seismic]

Religion is an excuse Not a cause.
There is really no rational way to explain Pol Pot, because he is simply Human, and trying to explain his actions in aftersight is an attempt to show that "Human beings", dont do this type of thing rationally. Unfortunatley history has proved that we do, again and again.
Its about time people stopped trying to find excuses for despotism et al and realised that People can, and are, genuinely bad. Its not cause daddy didnt give them the toy they wanted on their 12th birthday, its not because two schoolfriends suddenly started telling bad stories about them, its about the human psyche and the fact that some of us really get off on this power/persecution complex/I AM GOD trip and are quite happy slaughtering hundreds of thousands as long as it bolsters our personal ego/creed/sense of worth.
In the end they would have done it anyway, why??, because they could.

[dumbnewbie]

No, I think it's a bit trite to blame it all on "humanity". I think ideas are to blame. Ideas have consequences. Most of the massacres and atrocities in history have been committed because of some hateful, murderous totalitarian worldview, whether a religion or political ideology, like Christianity, Islam, Fascism or Communism.

Pol Pot's ideology was Communism, learned while studying in France. Same for many other top Cambodian, Vietnamese and Chinese Communist leaders. If French Communists had been allowed to take power in France, the same thing would've happened there.

Also, if the French movie "Indochine" (beautiful movie - see it!) is anything to go by, French colonialism was especially cruel, which might go a long way in explaining the fanaticism and ruthlessness of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao Communists.

Pol Pot's massacre took place between 1975 and 1979. No way you can blame the US for that. Sure, prior to 1975 the US bombed the "Ho Chi Minh Trail", which used Lao and Cambodian territory to smuggle weapons from North Vietnam to Communist insurgents in South Vietnam. So what? Bombing Communists made them mad and then they massacred millions? That's like blaming allied bombing of Germany in WWI for Hitler's genocidal regime in WWII. Shall we blame the US for Hitler too? Ridiculous.

It's also true that the US (and China and Thailand) supported the Khmer Rouge and two smaller Khmer parties/armies AFTER the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, in an effort to help the Cambodians drive the Vietnamese back out. But the massacres had already ended by that point. So again, nice try, but you can't blame the US for everything.