Genocide Museum

This was probably one of the most depressing places I have ever seen. It was an old high school, then the Khmer Rouge regime turned it into a prison and torture place for thousands of Cambodians. The place was called S-21, or security office 21. Horrifying place. Creepy. Eerie. The most horrifying place. I have alot to write about this place, but I am not ready to write about it yet. I have some things to think about.
One thing I need to think about first:
-Could any of us have done this? Could you or me have been members of the Khmer Rouge regime? Because it wasn't crazy people or psychos who were the Khmer Rouge, it was regular everyday people... So, it could have been me or you. Do we all have the ability to kill within us? If faced, would be murder thousands of people for our own survival? I think, actually, yes. My guide book says about Tuol Sleng Museum: "it demonstrates the darkest side of the human spirit that lurks within us all." I read that and that, "ohmy god!! That spirit does not lurk within us all, that spirit does not lurk within me!! How can they say that!!" But, I've changed my mind, I think that statement is correct. This murdurous, torturing spirit does lurk within you and me. It is something anyone reading this will never have to think about. We read and learn about genocide and think, "how can people do that? it's so horrible! how could another person ever do that to another human?" At the museum there are torture devided the Khmer Rouge used on it's victims. Disgusting stuff. I'm sure all of us visitors, mostly Westerners, were thinking: it's so disgusting how people did that. And it is disgusting, but the people who did it were just the same as you and me. We won't ever have to think about what it would be like for us, because it won't happen to us, I don't think at least. But when faced with economic hardship, poverty, and other such things would it be possible for us to turn into murder machines who would kill others? And, if you were selected for the Khmer Rouge and instructed to execute hundreds of men, women and children into a mass grave, would you do it to save yourself? I think probably yes. These questions are sort of scary to ask ourselves, and we probably rarely think about it. We hear about Darfur, Cambodia, Rawanda, the Holocaust, andthink how horrible. Millions of people dead. What bad people they are that are doing it. But I think there is something wrong with thinking that. There is some sort of thing we won't ever understand, or at least not fully. This is what I need to think about more. Would I do it if I were in that position? I don't want to be vague here and say: would you do it you were in that position? I want to ask myself, would I do it? Would I murder people if I were in that position, a Khmer Rouge cadre. Would I become convinced that the Vietnamese were the arch enemy, and that many Cambodians were against the Angkar and should be killed. I don't like to think about it, but to be honest, I probably would. It is hard for us Westerners to think about because it will not happen to us. I could think: "No way, I am a fine upstanding citizen. I'm no murderer." But faced with your own life, isn't the survival impulse greater? Wouldn't you rather kill someone else, and live yourself? Strange to think about. I have more to say about this later.
-Genocide: Killings and murders and death has become so desensitized. Everyday in the news we hear about murders, killings, hundreds dead in suicide bombings. To be honest, those things don't phase me at all. I hear them everyday. 20 people, 40 people, 60 people bombed, killed, murdered. They are just numbers to me. There is no way I can imagine death and pain on this scale. I hate to say it, but hearing those numbers don't move me at all. The media has desensitized me to those deaths so much. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Africa, it's all so far away... I think. But when you look at the pictures of the faces of the dead. You think: "This person is dead now. they were murdered and tortured." When you look into their eyes, see their face shape, their shirt, their hair, their teeth, their sunken cheeks. It is different then. You think that this one person is a human life. This one person had a whole network of people. A real life, not just some number on Fox news. Then it becomes much more real. Then you start to realize the breadth of a genocide, and the number of people killed, even though it is still hard to imagine millions killed.
-Something that annoyed me at the museum: There was this little area that all bunch of people had written on the walls. Some wrote sad sounding poems, or peace signs, or quotes. Alot wrote things and then signed their name and country at the bottom of the scratching. Most of the things were written by Westerners. I was annoyed because alot of the quotes were somehting of the nature of "Never again","we will learn from this, and never let it happen in the future." Stuff like that... well that's all very heartfelt and nice and stuff... but obviously, we are letting it happen again, and again and again and again. The messages seemed very... worthless? Because you can say "we will never let it happen again" as many times as you want, and scratch "we learned our lesson" in every genocide museum in the world, but as long as millions of people are still being mass killed in places, it doesn't have any meaning.
-I hate saying "what can you do?" but really... What can you do? One of the messages on the scribble wall said "You never have NO choice." That's not true, in my opinion. Sometimes, you don't have a choice, and this is the thing I don't think Westerners realize, because we usually do have a choice. We can't imagine having no choice. But when you are given a machette and told to execute 100 people because they are traitors and the country is run bythe Khmer Rouge, what choice do you have? You can either do it, or be killed yourself. So I suppose you always do have a choice, but in these sorts of situations, the other choice is probably to die yourself.

More to come...