MAGAZINE: SEARCHING FOR THE TRUTH, JUNE 2009
BUDDHISM UNDER POL POT
Ian Harris
This pioneering study of the fate of Buddhist monks and their pagodas during the communist period in Cambodia is based on the analysis of interview transcripts and a large body of contemporary manuscript material, much of which is held at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, Phnom Penh [DC Cam]. It represents the first sustained attempt to cross-examine the widely- held assumption that Angkar, the revolutionary organization (angkar padevat) at the heart of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, had a centralized plan to liquidate the entire monastic order (sangha) during the Democratic Kampuchea period.
While not seeking in any way to minimize the horrific monastic death toll and collateral damage to Buddhist spiritual, intellectual and material culture the book indicates that while compelling evidence exists to suggest that senior Khmer Rouge leaders were determined to track down and “smash” senior members of the pre-1975 ecclesiastical hierarchy, structural reasons related to the economy of Theravada sangha also made it difficult for institutional Buddhism to survive conditions in which the lay population were strongly discouraged from providing its necessary material support.
The very rapid diminution in sangha membership and vigour from the beginning of the communist insurgency in 1970 to its almost complete annihilation by the end of 1977 was the consequence of a number of factors – militant anti-clericalism among some high-ranking cadre, the effects of high levels of coercion in the population as a whole, mind-numbing levels of economic mismanagement, the impact of war, famine and disease, plus the traditionally fragile relationship between Buddhist ecclesiastics and their lay supporters. For these reasons the author expresses some uncertainty over whether there was a centralized plan for the complete suppression of religion, and asks whether the perfectly understandable desire to find someone to blame for the horrific state of affairs that pertained at the end of the decisively failed Democratic Kampuchea experiment is likely to be successful given our present understanding of the evidence.
Theravada Buddhism had experienced a significant resurgence throughout Southeast Asia during the 2500th year anniversary of the Buddha’s enlightenment, or Buddha Jayanti (1956/7), and Sihanouk as the leader of his newly independent kingdom capitalized on the atmosphere by forging a modernist political ideology that, in common with parallel developments in Burma and Sri Lanka , he termed “Buddhist socialism”. For a variety of reasons the specifically Buddhist elements in this somewhat ill-considered political assemblage were soon revealed to be threadbare and some members of an increasingly politicized sangha appear to have approved Lon Nol’s ouster of the Prince in 1970. Indeed, a minority enthusiastically signed up as supporters of the new Khmer Republic ’s US-supported Buddhist holy war against communism.
Sihanouk’s overthrow marked the end of Buddhism as the central axis around which all other aspects of Cambodian existence made sense. The majority of the country’s population, especially those in the countryside, had regarded the ruler’s legitimacy as deriving from Buddhist principles. His removal, then, threatened catastrophe on a grand cosmological scale and through this one act the entire structure of political, economic and cultural life would be disrupted.
This is, indeed, what happened. The new central government rapidly lost control of large swathes of the country and communist insurgents began a radical experiment to reshape Cambodian culture and society in the zones that they easily captured. It is clear that some of their leaders were aware of the treatment of religion in late eighteenth century France and during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. With these historical precursors in mind anti-religious measures were applied in the liberated areas with some initial attempts to win over “progressive” elements in the sangha to a common cause. But once this divide-and-rule phase had met its objectives (or in some cases had been frustrated), the wheel of history moved on swiftly to crush all obstacles to revolutionary progress.
The book suggests that the genesis of the distinctive form of communist ideology of the Khmer Rouge owes much to indigenous modes of thought in which Buddhism played a dominant role. This can be seen most strongly in the revolutionary emphasis on asceticism, renunciation, puritanism, a quasi-monastic form of discipline and a distinctive notion of independence mastery (aekareach mchahkaa). The author attempts to embed these notions in the biographies of key senior figures, many of whom had received a conventional Buddhist form of education in their early years. While such influences were easily abandoned by some, others appear to have retained a residual Buddhist allegiance and it is suggested that at least one significant though unsuccessful internal rebellion against Angkar have been led by those who were unwilling to shed the Buddhist mantle in its entirety.
As far as Buddhist practice is concerned this was increasing restrained and finally almost completely extinguished. Although it seems reasonable to assert some underlying strategy, it has very rarely been possible to establish that local restrictions — be they on ordination, the feeding of monks, the celebration of annual festivals or on funerary customs — ultimately emanated from Angkar. The same applies to the desecration of pagodas, sacred images and texts and other forms of Buddhist material culture. The chaotic nature of the regime largely explains this. Anti-religious measures could be pursued with dogmatic fervour but almost until the end there remained scope for determined individuals, occasionally with the connivance of sympathetic officials, to maintain a minimal level of religiosity. In the case of a very limited number of courageous elderly monks and lay people living the life of a white-robed ascetic became an option, if only for a short period. A slightly larger group determinedly confronted their terrors and performed devotions in secret. But by far and away the largest proportion of previously active Buddhists rapidly and completely abandoned any semblance of the religious life. A decision born of rationality and fear in equal measure, it definitively improved one’s chances of survival.
The author identifies a three-phased process in the Khmer Rouge treatment of Buddhism: bureaucratic interference and obstruction, explicit harassment and a final meting out of extreme measures to the obdurate and those close to the previous Lon Nol regime. The establishment of a separate revolutionary form of sangha administration, with its associated differentiation of monks into two segments — “base” constituted by rural monks who had been under Khmer Rouge administration since the early days of the insurgency and “new” made up of those expelled from the towns and cities emptied after final victory on 17 April 1975 — constituted the bureaucratic phase. The harassment of monks, both individually and en masse, was a partial consequence of an uprooting of the traditional monastic economy in which lay people were discouraged from feeding economically unproductive monks. It also involved widespread efforts to force younger members of the order into marriage or military service, plus a policy of disrobing to ensuring the maximisation of labour.
The evacuation of monasteries meant that they could be re-used for a variety of non-religious purposes. But one of the distinctive features of the period is that few monks resisted for long, perhaps because Buddhism does not value martyrdom as highly as is the case with the great monotheistic religions. Indeed, this may be one of the reasons that the Cham Muslim minority suffered correspondingly more severe treatment under the Khmer Rouge. A surprisingly small proportion of the sangha managed to escape to places of safety in neighbouring states. Some, mainly older, members of the order did resist, however. Their elimination along with senior figures from the ecclesiastical hierarchy and assorted “spies” comprised the final act in the tragedy of Buddhism under the Khmer Rouge.
The author argues that previous “guesses” about monk mortality have been wildly inaccurate and that the one attempt to calculate monk mortality rates between 1970 and 1979 on the basis of some statistical evidence cannot be correct. The same tendency towards inflation also applies to the number of pagodas putatively destroyed by the communists. The issue is fraught with major difficulties – quite apart from anything else it is an ideological minefield - making any accurate quantification of monk mortality deeply problematic.
Insofar as it is possible to speak with any precision about violent deaths in the sangha the author offers a figure of approximately 12,500, ie. around 19% of the 65,062 individuals officially recorded as being in robes in 1969. This figure may be further broken down into three categories: c. 2,200 fatalities resulting from the bombardment of the country until its halt in August 1973, c. 900 senior members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy who were executed within a few days of the fall of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975 as functionaries of the hated Lon Nol regime, rather than as members of a despised religious group, and a remaining c. 9,300 monks who suffered unspecified fatalities while in robes. It is not possible to be certain what proportion of the latter figure can be attributed to the civil war or Democratic Kampuchea periods. All other monastic casualties must be assumed to have occurred after disrobing. These cannot easily be attributed to individuals’ specific associations with Buddhism, and may have resulted from other causes.
The book concludes with a discussion of the slow re-establishment and official supervision of the Buddhist order during the People’s Republic of Kampuchea period plus some detailed, Buddhist- inspired, reflections on the cultural appropriateness of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (or Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, ECCC) with a discussion of possible alternatives. A lengthy afterword provides the most detailed account to date of the circumstances of the Khmer Buddhist minority in the Mekong delta region of southern Vietnam (Kampuchea Krom) under communist rule.
Ian Harris. 2007. Buddhism Under Pol Pot. Phnom Penh : Documentation Center of Cambodia . ISBN: 99950-60-05-1
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
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