Your Voice Counts 2007

A Khmer Rouge survivor speaks out

I was that child too. I was playing outside on the street while thousand of people flocking the street with guns, bombing and noise and people are running for theirs lives.  I remembered so well that I can't never forget the horrific times of my life.  I am in my late 30 and yet still so much pain for me to forget and move on with my life.  I couldn't understand why it happen to my country. Why we are forced out of our home, our families are separated.  We done nothing wrong and yet we were forced to leave our home, our jobs, school and our families are scattered everywhere.  Within 4 years times, over 2 millions were executed, starve to death, malnutrition, died of sickness but worst of all innocent people were executed specially if they are educated.  I realized all this horrible things happen the American were not inform or they were watching us suffered?  In the back of mind I still have that question after 20 something years later.. I prayed everyday that I will never have to face what I had face 32 years ago. I still have night mare because I witness people being executed in front of me, I still have nightmares because a mother carried her death son walked across me, a Monk who got shot in front of me. I tried to move on but it is so difficult, many of my people tell me they are the only survivor out of 100 members.  I am crying in pain sometimes because of the lost of my grandma.  Only God heard my sadness and my cries. 

Sovath Nhar works for the Socio-Economic Development Center for Southeast Asians in Providence, RI. She is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge

Be Transformed - Posting By Gail Ostrow

University life is filled with opportunities to learn and grow, often in ways no one can anticipate. Who can say what will have the most influence on you during your time here. A word from a professor may alter the direction of your studies. A line in an assigned reading may stun you. A discussion in class may anger or arouse you. A banner in the Campus Center may halt you in your tracks.

Eight plus years ago my daughter was on her way from San Francisco to visit us here in Connecticut when she met a man who had worked at the Nuremberg Trials. From that brief, unexpected meeting came a journey that culminated in her movie about a Cambodian family’s search for truth and justice, “Out of the Poison Tree.” Everyone who supported her along the way—family, friends, even strangers—became a part of this larger community that now knows about the Cambodian genocide and its aftermath.

And this is what I find so exciting about teaching here at Fairfield. Being part of both the larger university learning community and the smaller one in each of my classes places me right in the middle of all these opportunities to learn and grow. I never know which one of you will transform me—how my perspective may change because of something you say or do.

Like me, you may sometimes find yourself challenged both intellectually and emotionally. Learning can be uncomfortable, especially when the content is controversial or ugly or unpleasant. This is the double-edged sword of knowledge. Once we learn something, be it a fact about long-ago events or a disaster that is unfolding right in front of us, we can’t ever not know it again.

Now that we have read "Lucky Child," we can’t not know about what happened in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 while the world was busy elsewhere. Her story demands that we examine not just the past but also what is happening now in places like Darfur, where ethnic cleansing and genocide have been going on for over four years. There is no better way to honor Luong’s story than to bear witness to and try to stop the atrocities of the present.

Gail

Gail Ostrow
Adjunct Instructor, English

Loung Ung Asked Us to Re-Post This for You, on Her Behalf:

"A Birthday Wrapped in Cambodian History"; [Op-Ed] by Loung Ung.   April 17, 2005 pg. 4.15

Here is an excerpt from the New York Times Op-Ed piece:

"TODAY is my birthday. April 17 is what's on my driver's license and other documents. But I don't know for sure, and probably never will. All I know is that I was born in Cambodia, sometime during 1970."

She continues later in the piece ,"On April 17, 1975, the Communist Khmer Rouge regime took over my country, and my charmed life came to an abrupt end. I remember that day well. I was on the street playing hopscotch with one of my sisters when rows of mud-covered trucks drove by. On the trucks, men in uniforms were yelling into bullhorns, ordering us to leave our homes, telling us that the Americans were going to bomb us and if we didn't leave we would die. Chaos and fear swept through Phnom Penh. More than two million people were evicted in less than 72 hours."

Click here to read the entire  New York Times article - A Birthday Wrapped in Cambodian History.

Out of the Poison Tree

This morning I had the opportunity to pre-screen the film Out of the Poison Tree, made by Beth Pielert, the daughter of Fairfield University professor, Gail Ostrow. This film documents a Cambodian-American family's quest to find out what became of their father during the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. The documentary takes the viewer on a trip back to Cambodia on the eve of the long-delayed U.N. tribunal.

This movie is very well made, with great camera work and captivating sound. After having read Lucky Child, it was the closest I could come to visiting Loung's homeland without traveling myself. Hopefully, we'll be able to show this film in the Library when you arrive on campus this fall. I think you will find it remarkable.

Because of this film, I have learned about the Landmine Relief Fund and a dedicated Cambodian named Aki Ra who tirelessly removes landmines so his country will be safe for his people. He and his wife have adopted some 20 children maimed or orphaned by landmines. Learn more at Landmine Relief Fund.

Ramona Islam, Senior Reference Librarian & Instruction Coordinator

What films would you recommend to raise awareness of genocide or land mines? Join the conversation by clicking on the Comments link.

College Students in Today's Cambodia

"In a country where half the students who enter grammar school never finish, Cheak Socheata, 18, is among the most privileged of her generation: She made it to college. But even Cheak, a first-year medical student at Phnom Penh's University of Health Sciences, has learned next to nothing in school about the Khmer Rouge. . ." Read More.

from The Washington Post, Tuesday, May 8 2007

Is there an event in your own country's history that you believe hasn't received adequate coverage in schools?

Courage - Posting by Josh Kenney, Regis RA

While Loung's story is most exceptional and inspirational, I find her sister Chou to be the sister that has overcome the most adversity.  Bound by her customs, she is faithful and unquestioning of the authority of her family and her husband.  She also had to endure the aftermath of the Khymer Rogue regime far longer than Loung.  The patience in which she braved the war-torn third-world conditions of Cambodia- without a mother or father - is truly remarkable. 

Were you inspired by a figure in Loung's story, or your own life who overcame adversity or a particular challenge?