Anti-Intellectualism & Genocide: The Khmer Rouge & Cambodia

The Cambodian Genocide is a marker for the spread of communism and anti-intellectualism, illustrating the devastation of a society pulled apart by economic and societal fallacies exacerbated by fervent brutality and the authoritarian regime of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot.

The Khmer Rouge attempted to create a classless agrarian society in the wake of class division and income disparity, persecuting ethnic and religious minorities and intellectuals in favor of the uneducated rural peasantry. 

In doing so, the Khmer Rouge dismantled the Cambodian education system, grossly mismanaged the economy, killed hundreds of thousands in labour brigades, and starved millions to death and/or succumbed to disease.

The beginning of this cruel regime is marked by the Khmer Rouge’s implementation of indentured servitude. On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh and forced urban intellectuals into the countryside in an effort to “purify” Cambodian society. This exodus of potential dissenters fully classified the genocide as one built around anti-intellectualism.

This attempt in counterurbanization was based on a desire to eliminate capitalism, intellectualism, imperialism, societal structures, and political systems, specifically targeting those who seemed too “Western”. The people were dehumanized, forced to work inhumane hours, with refugees seen as “impure” who needed to be educated in favor of the Khmer Rouge’s ideologies. 

They expanded on this alienation of previous systems and beliefs by indoctrinating children. They wished to dismantle the familial structure in Cambodia by turning them against their parents and instilling an unwavering loyalty and “love” for the Khmer Rouge.

This grassroots methodology is what condemns Cambodia. Even after the deposition of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in 1979, their influence was still strong. Their communist beliefs and targeting of the country’s intellectuals effectively destroyed any semblance of structure in Cambodia and left them with very little to recover.

Cambodia was thereafter invaded and occupied by Vietnam until Vietnam’s withdrawal in 1989, after which Cambodia rebuilt. Cambodia signed the Paris Peace agreements of 1991, ousting the Khmer Rouge from their seat in the United Nations (UN), which they held until the mid-80s. 

In 1997, Cambodia and the UN created the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a judicial body that wielded the power to prosecute the senior aggressors of the Khmer Rouge with victims’ testimonies. Effectively marking a new period of growth for Cambodia, and ushered in a new era of political liberation.