The
exhibition conducted by the Living History Forums of Sweden was
launched at 4 pm of September 8, 2009. The opening was participated
by approximately 200 guests, including members of the Swedish press,
government officials from the ministry of culture, officials from
Swedish International Development Agency, professors, students and
members of the public. With the participation of the Swedish
minister of culture, it is interesting to see how discrete her
presence was. It was without the motorcade and blocking of roads as
seen in Cambodia. If one had not seen her before, it was difficult
to know that such a high-ranking official was among the crowd.
Gunnar Bergstrom said that only several years ago that high-ranking
officials working in the Swedish government buildings locating on
the north side of Gamla Stan (Old Town) walked to work without
bodyguards. This gave an impression that Sweden is a more socialist
and welfare state than one thought.
Indeed
Sweden has a very generous social welfare program that serves toward
more equality among Swedish. This is probably a good example for
Cambodia which is suffering from having vast socioeconomic gaps
among its people. It is believed by some Khmer Rouge experts that
one of the driving forces behind the Khmer Rouge revolution and
behind the dedication of some Khmer Rouge revolutionaries was the
vast gap between the rich and the poor, between the elite and the
mass, between the royalists and ordinary people and between the
urban and the rural. It seemed the Khmer Rouge attempted to close
the gap, but their radical ways of doing it and their lack of
conscience toward their fellow countrymen led to the destruction of
the country. It was the one time that Cambodia attempted to achieve
equality by revolutionary means, but failed dramatically.
The
exhibition in Stockholm on Pol Pot by the Living History Forums is
not an accident. Despite being far away from each other, Sweden has
had a long history of relations with Cambodia since Sweden began to
take interest in international humanitarian events, especially the
anti-Vietnam War demonstration. Sweden was one of the few countries
which had some diplomatic ties with Democratic Kampuchea. In August
1978, a group of Swedish delegation of people from the
"Swedish-Kampuchea Friendship Association" visited Cambodia. Gunnar
Bergstrom was among the four people in the group. He and the other
three members were allowed to have dinner with Pol Pot on the final
day of their visit. They were one of the few foreigners to be
invited to Democratic Kampuchea since the Khmer Rouge took power in
April 1975.
The
delegation was one of the few believers of the Khmer Rouge
revolution. They had supported them before they visited Cambodia and
it was very difficult for them to believe otherwise during the trip
when the Khmer Rouge seemed to have arranged everything before they
arrived. A Cambodian villager said, "The delegation won't see
anything bad about the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge would give
clothes to healthy people to appear before them and would arrange
everything." Not being able to see Cambodia in a more gloomy way,
Gunnar Bergstrom has been struggling to come to term with and to
forgive himself for believing in such a monstrous revolution.
Although
there are some pictures about communist revolutions elsewhere, the
"Dinner with Pol Pot" was mainly about the Swedish delegation's
visit and Sweden's relations with the Khmer Rouge. Being a
psychotherapist who works in a rehabilitation center for drug and
alcohol addicts, Gunnar decided in November 2008 to come to Cambodia
for the first time since that haunting visit thirty years ago. For
Gunnar this was a trip for closure, to show remorse and to ask for
forgiveness from the Cambodian people. Gunnar wrote in 1979 in a
Swedish newspaper recognizing his mistake for supporting the Khmer
Rouge, but he had never apologized Cambodian people directly. In the
his visit to Cambodia, Gunnar showed photographs he took during his
visit in 1978 in a mobile and permanent exhibition and talked in
front of Cambodian crowds in three seminars in Phnom Penh, Kampong
Cham and Battambang when he spoke about his visit and apologized
them directly.
Living
History Forums and the Documentation Center of Cambodia were honored
to have organized this visit. The exhibition at Living History
Forums in Stockholm, Sweden, is another exhibition aimed directly
toward the Swedish audience. It was an educational and moving
exhibition. Unfortunately there have been some critiques among the
Swedish press against the exhibition and particularly the Youtube
advertising that Living History launched a few days before the
exhibition. As a Cambodian and an outsider, I feel that the
political debate about whether or not Swedish government should take
initiatives in working on the atrocities committed in genocide
and/or by communist governments, as Living History Forums is a
government institution, could lead to an absence of recognition of
the pain and suffering of the people going through the atrocities.
This is exactly what happened in the case of Cambodia during the
1980s when the Democratic Kampuchea was recognized as the lawful
government of Cambodia, representing the people they victimized at
the United Nations. In retrospect it was indeed absurd.
Three
members of DC-Cam staff, Kok-Thay Eng, Sirik Savina and Sayana Ser,
were fortunate to be invited by Living History Forums to attend the
opening of the exhibition along with Bou Meng and Vannak Huy. Bou
Meng is one of the few survivors of the notorious S-21 prison of the
Khmer Rouge in which approximately 14,000 people were murdered.
Vannak Huy is a journalist from Radio Free Asia and the author of an
upcoming book detailing the life and experience of Bou Meng as a
survivor of S-21 prison. The five people took part in many talks
after the opening. They also met with staff members of Living
History Forums. Bou Meng was interviewed by Swedish Television and
other members of the media. He also gave a talk about his paintings
to a large Swedish audience. It was coordinated by Vannak Huy and
interpreted by Kok-Thay Eng.
Professor
David Chandler was also invited to the exhibition. He gave a talk a
day before Bou Meng did about his knowledge regarding the Khmer
Rouge, Cambodian history and sociopolitical situation in general. We
were grateful to meet him in Stockholm. Kok-Thay Eng, Sayana Ser and
Savina Sirik met the educational team, the oral history project
leader and other teams at the Living History Forums. They were also
lucky to visit the film school and Amnesty International office in
Stockholm. In each visit they presented their works at DC-Cam and
were briefed about the important works that those institutions were
doing. We are very grateful to Eskil Frank, Erika Aronowitsch, Bosse
Linquist and staff members of the Living History Forums for inviting
us to the exhibition.
END.
