Opium… the opium of Cambodia’s masses

Although I can say nothing of hell, I can faithfully attest that I waded through high-water for a cup of coffee this afternoon.

For that matter, walking across a flooded campus has almost become routine the last few days.

My fish, after three and a half years, died yesterday. Number one. The control group, as it were.

I’ve stopped reading the newspaper. I find myself too distressed by it– too much burning with the knowledge of suffering and injustice, and my powerlessness to affect it. Instead, I’ve turned my reading to some history works and some American classics. It’s too easy to be uninformed about politics and world news, and too comfortable. For the time being, I choose my happiness over my informedness, and defy anyone to chastise me for that.

I will (some day!) give a cookie to who ever can correctly identify which totalitarian regime (hint: not the Bush administration!) the following excerpts describe:

Not long after the coup, crude signs appeared on store windows questioning the loyalty of [ethnic group] proprietors within. Word-of-mouth campaigns started boycotts of [ethnic group] establishments, from restaurants to automobile repair shops.

By early April [Year], [Dictator] had ordered his military to set up detention camps of holding centers for all [Ethnic group] citizens. Soldiers rounded up the [Ethnic group] and placed them in large abandoned buildings, where they were held as prisoners. One [dominant nationality] woman remembered a bleak detention center near her home. “The soldiers took over a deserted house near our [religious building] and the [ethnic group] had to live there. They had nothing. They slept on hammocks and had to sit in the compound all day with nothing to do. The women sat on the ground nursing their babies; the man just walked around. [Dictator] hated the [Ethnic group].”

The campaign grew into a pogrom. The government admitted to arresting some 30,000 [Ethnic group] and jailing 7,000 of them under suspicion of treason. They did not acknowledge the stories of racial murders that were reaching [capitol city]. On April 10, [year], in the town of [town], eighty-nine [ethnic group members] were summarily killed by [Dictator’s] soldiers. There were unconfirmed reports of murders in other parts of the country-side. Two weeks later the army went after one of the biggest [ethnic group] communities, the largely Catholic [ethnic group] settlement on the isthmus…

The soldiers came at night and took the men away, some 800 [ethnic group] laborers. They tied their victims’ hands behind their backs and shoved them onto waiting boats. Then the soldiers executed every man and threw the bodies overboard in the [river]. For days, these bloody, bloated corpses floated on the waters, an open, hideous warning to all [ethnic group] living in [country].

Bonus points to anyone that can fill in the omitted text (heh– or should I say “Bonus points, Meekyung, if you can fill in the omitted text–?”).

Along those lines, I’m done with midterms, with the exception of my Thai-language course. They were a joke, but I fear for my life with regards to next week’s Thai exam.

I’m leaving for Cambodia tomorrow. I’ll be gone till Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. I may find occasion to stop in an internet cafe, but I certainly wouldn’t count on it. If, for some reason, you should find that you need me desperately, I’ll have my cell phone with me.