Why Did They Kill?: Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide (California Series in Public Anthropology, 11)

Rating:
Summary: Obedience -- last refuge of killer, observer, victim
Review: Alexander Hinton obviously put heart and soul into this work. Our intellectual side never ceases trying to understand the beast that lies deep within every human.

The chapter entitled "Manufacturing Difference" touched me most. Today we invent sterile legalistic terms like "person under control" [PUC] and "enemy combatant" [EC] to replace "prisoner" to avert our consciences from the denials of due process. Labels are just as important to us as they are to "evil doers," it appears. The self-imposed and external pressures that influenced the behavior of Khmer Rouge interrogators are described in some depth, and help explain our own recent failures and abuses.

The chapter "Power, Patronage, and Suspicion" is rich with fascinating examples from post Khmer Rouge Cambodia. Upon reflection, we see the same instinct to curry the patronage of powerful political figures is alive and well in today's America. Once again, we start off studying what we assume is a more primitive society only to end up shining a light upon our own human failings. Somehow our own faults are held deeply submerged, probably because of the same instinctive self-defense tools which the "perpetrators" employ when asked, "Why did you kill?"

The leaders of genocide always appear to me to be simple power seekers who have an instinctive sense of the tools of human control. Strange how the "godless" Khmer Rouge and the Taliban "student seekers of God" were so alike. I cannot stare into the vacant eyes of one without thinking of the other. The common perpetrator hides within each of us under the label "cowardice." As David Chandler explained so well in his own masterful work on S-21, when men attach themselves to a bureaucracy they place themselves in a "state of agency" which allows them to do evil for self-interest and self-preservation while evading their own conscience in the process. One who finds himself obedient and "moveable" in terms of his principles is a prime candidate to find in himself the perpetrator of shameful acts.

Along the path of this penetrating study, Alexander Hinton has done a wonderful job annotating the twisted Khmer Rouge terminology which still never fails to send a chill down my spine.

I read "Why did they kill?" trying to use it as a mirror to see if I could recognize my own face. As I feared, some shadows were all too familiar.



Rating:
Summary: Essential reading
Review: Deep and deeply disturbing study of genocide and of Cambodia. This book is essential reading - easily the most insightful work on the motivations of people which give rise to genocide and a mine of information on the origins, history and consequences of the period. A superbly researched and well-written study. Anybody interested in what happened in these years in Cambodia, as well as anybody interested in what motivates societies and the individuals that constitute those societies to act as they do should read this book - but be aware that the book may also be a mirror.