Most museums in South East Asia have little english explanation, and show the artifacts, art or anything else they display very plainly without any context. So far I was surprised by a small museum in Chiang Rai that not only showed some hill tribe objects, clothing,.. but it also had a very good explanation about the opium trade and war and the tribes contribution or part in this traffic. In Hanoi I visited a very big Ho Chi Minh museum close to his mausoleum. the building is specially build for this purpose and is not cheap, since uncle Ho is almost a sacred or holy man for the country, you need a museum that honors the man. Vietnamese museums feel more nationalist and not neutral or completely without some underlaying propaganda.
Ending up in Phnom Penh we decided to visit the Tuol Sleng prison museum. We took the audio tour in Dutch and right after the entrance we signed a petition for women’s safety and slavery in sex trafficking. These people set up there petition in this prison every week. In the museum itself they try to also show women’s perspective and role during Khmer Rouge regime. The audio starts in the nice and serene garden where still a few tourists are talking and being a little noisy. That is what they do in every single tourist attraction anyway. They walk in your way, do not really care or understand what they are visiting and just try to get there selfie and walk like herds of sheep from one thing to the other to take exactly the same picture, especially those coming from all those tourist buses. But since they get a headset they have less chance to talk. The first part of the museum are empty rooms with a bed and a couple of pictures on the wall of a victim laying in this room. It is very empty and very clean, not how it must have looked like during the interrogation where there must have been some blood spill. You can walk upstairs where there is an exhibition about the role of women during the regime. Bit by bit you start to notice how much information the museum has collected and try to show some of it. All Cambodians from that time suffered in a way, every single family. They all have a story and a family member who died. Since they where killing everybody who could be a possible enemy, someone with intelligence, foreign, older and less easy to brainwash, any reason, they needed to recruit more people to compensate the death toll. So there where a lot of forced marriages, sex and pregnancies. With no help during or after the pregnancies. Wether the exhibitions are done perfect is questionable, but you see they do try to bring as much of information and perspectives on the same horror. They also try to bring not only numbers and facts, but also individual stories to bring it more personal and easier to understand and imagine what an impact such a regime can have on daily life, on any life and individual. This is exactly the reason why this museum is worth mentioning, at least for me. If you can shut up all those annoying tourist and make them walk in silence with faces that show actual misery and understanding without the need of sign that says: “Be silent and show respect”, then it must be a museum that is at least not bad and worth the visit. The more and more information you get, the more perspectives and viewpoints you get the more and more silently people become, more and more towards the end of the museum the load becomes heavier. Nobody is doing this visit in a group anymore. Everybody is now on their own, in their own thoughts and imaginary world, the faces show the horror they just seemed to witness. Me as well need some time alone on a bench, I do not want to speak, I felt their was nothing more to tell. Humanity, this is it. This is what humans do to each other, not a single place on earth that is inhabited by humans has not seen any terror caused by humans towards other humans. Enemies, we are our own enemy. It is nothing new. When an older lady passes me when I enter the room with victims skeletons and skulls I almost run to a corner in the room I feel more private. I barely manage to keep the tears in my eyes and not make them role over my cheek. The son of the lady puts his hand on her shoulder as support when she walks by me in tears trying to run away from the bones and skulls into the previous room. She must have had some family she lost and visits this museum to understand more about the regime and what happened to her family. In this room is also a stupa next to the bones and skulls as a tribute to the victims and as a way to pray for them and show they did not forgot. The museum also has a room to talk and share stories with other survivors. There is also an archive where you can try to find out more about your relative. Lots of information is gathered by universities who made studies and projects around this. One of the exhibitions also tries to bring more context and perspective on what happend in the rest of the world during the regime. What information did the Western countries and human rights organizations had? Why did it take so long for countries to recognize that this was happening or happened. Why is so little known about it as Westerner? How was communism seen during these years and the years before and after. Apparently Pol Pot did a good job showing Swedish people he made the communist utopia real. It was not believed that such terror was happening, on the contrary, it was praised and seen as a new beautiful utopia. And although people where sceptic after seeing the Russians version of communism, Chinese utopia and version, Maoism, was liked and people loved the idea of Pol Pot being able to create the perfect community. At the end I was waiting for my mom to finish her journey in the museum and we both wanted to sit on a bench for a little bit. As I stared in front of me I suddenly realized I was not bothered by all those tourist this time. Nobody was in my way or had been too loud and annoying. I look around and see how couples and groups all walk in silence and stare in front of them still in their world of thoughts. Those who shared something whispered. Serenity. Peace, no hate, but companion and grief in their eyes. Tuol Sleng Museum, Phnom Penh. A school turned into a prison for torture until confessions are forced, to bring an end to torture and finally finding death.
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