Teaching the history of the Khmer Rouge to a new generation

The Khmer Rouge was a guerrilla group driven by communist ideals that took root in Cambodia in the 1960s, overthrowing the government and capturing the capital Phnom Penh in 1975. They proceeded to forcibly evacuate the city, sending the urban population to live and work in the countryside as peasants. This was the beginning of a four-year plan to systematically dismantle Cambodia with the goal of turning it into a classless, agricultural, communist society.

Schools, hospitals and factories were closed, money and private property were abolished, modern technology and religion were banned along with communication with the outside world and families were separated. An estimated two million people died, though the exact figure is contested.

The Khmer Rouge were removed from power in 1979 by Vietnamese forces, and bloody civil war followed until the 1990s. Since then, Cambodia has been gradually recovering from the ravages of genocide under one of the most violent regimes of the 20th century, and suffers from a particularly painful generation gap: those who survived the brutal regime, and their offspring, who may know very little about it.

Cambodia has a very young population: 68% of Cambodians are under the age of thirty, and are second and third generation offspring of the survivors of the Khmer Rouge era.

According to a survey conducted by the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, four out of five members of this young generation know little or nothing about the Khmer Rouge years. Many youth expressed doubt that the events of the Khmer Rouge regime ever took place.

Many only know of what they have heard from their elders, as there was no requirement to teach children about the Khmer Rouge atrocities at the time they went to school. Until recently, the subject was conspicuous by its absence from school curriculum. There was a clear need for accessible and transparent learning resources on this tumultuous period.

The Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center was founded in 2006 with the aim of collecting audiovisual archives related to Cambodia, and giving free public access to this unique heritage. The large, high-quality database attracts diverse audiences, with archives brought to life through conferences, debates, exhibitions, and workshops. The centre also trains young people in Cambodia in cinema, audiovisual and new media, enhancing their understanding of the creation process and inspiring meaningful productions about their own culture. Bophana Center staff consistently use their resources and networks to address the knowledge gap in the country, and this project continues this mission.

In 2009 new legislation required students in Cambodia to learn a module on the history of the Khmer Rouge. This project aimed to help develop the classroom module by updating information, diversifying the pool of resources and making them more widely accessible. It was decided that a mobile app would be an innovative approach that could effectively reach the target demographic of high school students.

The app contains a shareable database of learning resources that includes themed modules, films, photos, media articles, text documents, music and audio files, presented on a user-friendly, easily-accessible interface. The application could be expanded to include footage of trials, additional online resources, lesson plans, teaching aids, discussion forums and personal stories. This application is intended to aid teaching and learning on the Khmer Rouge era within schools and across communities, by enhancing the breadth and depth of the learning experience.

Using this resource teachers will be able to more accurately convey the history of the regime, doing so in a way that encourages young audiences to move beyond the classroom and into the community. This creates a more personal learning experience, in which the audience can connect what they learn to their own lives.

The Khmer Rouge Tribunal tried and prosecuted the most senior Khmer Rouge leaders. Included in the trials was the enhanced recognition of victims through collective and moral reparation, in the form of projects that benefit civil society. The project of developing the Khmer Rouge history app was officially recognised as one such repatriation project offered to the victims of the Khmer Rouge, represented as Civil Parties at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECC). In Case 002/02, the ECC recognised that the app fosters intergenerational dialogue and is an important way of educating the younger generation about the past in order to prevent the repetition of the events of the Khmer Rouge period, as and as such, is one way of addressing the harm caused to civil society during that period. Rei Foundation supports this project along with the European Union.

This project supports the pursuit of justice, human rights and reconciliation for Khmer Rouge victims by broadly disseminating educational resources and information on the Khmer Rouge era across schools and communities within Cambodia. The app is currently available in Khmer and English, with a Japanese-language version currently being created.