¶ … Killed my Father, by Loung Ung [...] what happened in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, and why it happened. It will make specific reference to the involvement of both Cambodian and international people/groups/forces, and it must draw specific evidence from the personal experience of the author. Loung Ung lived through four years of hell in Cambodia during the regime of the Communist Khmer Rouge. Her survival is somewhat of a miracle - but what is more miraculous is how she has turned the experience into a commitment to helping others who suffer under the hand of vicious and evil regimes. Her book is at once chilling and inspiring, yet opens up many questions about what happened in Cambodia, and why the world stood by and watched while two million people died horrible deaths.
CAMBODIA UNDER THE KHMER ROUGE
The Khmer Rouge was the name given to the Communist party in Cambodia. They came into power in 1970, and attainted the peak of their power by 1975, when the book, "First They Killed my Father" begins. As the author notes at the beginning of the book, "From 1975 to 1979 - through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labor - the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country's population" (Ung ix). As this dedication clearly indicates, historically, the Khmer Rouge was one of the most vicious and violent regimes in world history.
Ung's book opens quite naturally, and shows a comfortable life shared by many Cambodians before the regime of the Khmer Rouge. Her family obviously has money, for they own three automobiles, they eat many of their meals in restaurants, employ a maid, and have a large apartment. They have more to lose than many of the people of Phnom Penh, and they are more vulnerable to the whims of the Communists when they take power. All of the opening chapters of the book give hints to how normal life was in Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge took over, and how everything turned into a nightmare after they took control and stormed the cities. As the author poignantly notes, "Yesterday I was playing hopscotch with my friends. Today we are running from soldiers with guns" (Ung 27).
The Khmer Rouge controlled the people through fear and violence. They killed anyone who did not agree with them, and anyone they thought might rise up against them. They also have skewed views of technology and science, comparing them to capitalism, and eschewing them in their "new" society. The Khmer Rouge might seem ludicrous today, but to millions of Cambodian peasants, their ideas seemed relevant - created to equalize an extremely unequal population. As Ung's narrations shows, there was a deep divide between the middle class and the poor in Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge used this divide to urge the peasants to support them. They change everything from the people's lives to how they speak and dress. They are the ultimate dictatorship, and in many ways, they are far worse than even Hitler ever dreamed of being. They are consummate evil, embodied in their hatred of anyone that had gained any sort of success in the old regime. Ung's family embodies everything the Khmer Rouge detested, and so they had to transform themselves in order to survive.
In the ultimate paradox, in a society that is supposed to be totally equal, there are still divisions between the village leaders, villagers who first embraced the Khmer Rough regime, and those newcomers from the cities who are not yet to be trusted. Already, there are holes appearing in the Khmer Rough's thinking and processes, but the people are too oppressed to take advantage of these chinks in the armor, and that is just what the regime wanted. As the story progresses, it is clear the Khmer Rouge cannot survive, there is far too much wrong with their disorganized organization, but while they do, they will terrorize the people, hanging on to their power with knives, guns, and brutality.
The author carefully explains the regime that held power before the Khmer Rouge in the beginning of the book, to give the background of the country to the reader. Since her father had a high post in the prior government, he was especially vulnerable to the Khmer Rouge. He hid his identity as long as possible, but in the end, he is found out and taken away by soldiers, and...
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