Turning to Language in the Aftermath of Genocide

Hi all-

This is my first reflection in a series of posts written by Global Arts Corps’ summer fellows. As we help GAC plan the next stages of their circus/theatre production with the performers of the Phare Ponleu Selpak in Battambang, Cambodia, we have all begun to read more about the lasting impact on the Cambodian people – both those who have lived through that time and the youth of our generation who have grown up in its aftermath. I wrote the reflection below after reading Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick.

You show you care, you die. You show fear, you die. You show nothing, maybe you live.
–Never Fall Down

In 1975, the communist party of Kampuchea, also known as the Khmer Rouge, took control of Cambodia and remained in power until January 1979 when they were overthrown by the army of their former ally, Vietnam. Throughout those five years, it is estimated that between one million and two and a half million people perished.

Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language.In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss
-Paul Celan

How can we find words for unrelenting loss? How can we find meaning when history has been systematically erased? How can we continue to live in the aftermath of human extermination?

Language.

Language makes our world. And when a world has been shattered—burnt, tormented, and left for dead—we look to language to see if it has any power left to help us, any potential to recover or renew. Tragically, words are often no match for tyranny. Words too easily give way to depravity or evil, all which have their own malevolent language. Yet, out of the ruins of a ravaged world, words are still the indispensible material with which to speak back, to speak anew.

Never Fall Down tells the story of Arn Chorn-Pond, (in the searing adaptation by Patricia McCormick) who at just eleven years old is separated from his family and assigned to a labor camp where he witnesses unrelenting horror. Just before the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Arn is forced to join his captors, now perpetrator as well as victim. Arn reflects, “Long time ago I kill all hope in myself. And live only like animal, survive one day, then one day more.” I take Arn to be saying that when a human is reduced to the basest level–the level without hope–anything becomes possible.

Like all totalitarian movements, the Khmer Rouge exercised their control not simply through physical violence, but by erasing history, destroying language, and decimating any possible alternative culture. Arn understands this obliteration of history and language from the moment he enters the labor camp and wonders about the letter he carries, “Very dangerous to have this letter. Danger, too, just to think about her. You can’t trust yourself to have a memory. Because these Khmer Rouge, they can see inside your head.”

Towards the end of the book, after Arn has been freed and then adopted by an American family, we see how Arn has not fully shed the violence of his oppressors, “…and I see my arm raise in the air–so strong, so beautiful–this arm, this knife now will speak all the thing I can’t say.” Like Arn’s oppressors, violence speaks his words. And yet, Arn finds that he will not always be ruled by the violence and horror. By speaking, he exists.

All of this talk of language — of words and worlds destroyed, and of words remade – reiterates how language can be utilized to speak back against silence and erasure. It is only when Arn speaks his story for the first time that he once again returns to the world of living. To echo his American adoptive father, “Speaking out, telling the story, it’s a way to choose living. To say you are with the living now. Not the dead.” In today’s Cambodia, many people do not know the story of the Khmer Rouge or of the countless other Arn’s. There are so many stories that have not been told, and thus lie troubled beneath the silence.

This silent erasure makes the urgency of speaking and sharing the most painful chapters of history all the more pressing. Arn’s story shows how sharp and deep the struggle can be to speak once again. His story also stands as a sharp and deep reminder of the work of remembrance and recovery that confronts a “post-conflict” world. Global Arts Corps helps to rebuild language, recover memory, bridge differences and tell vital stories we all need to hear and remember.
-Hallie SekoffFind more information here about Global Arts Corps work around the past, present and future of Cambodia.