Becoming a monk for a period of time was/is considered a rite of passage into full adulthood is it not? I believe this was a source of resentment for poor peasant teenagers, whose families could not afford for their sons to be away from working in other people’s fields., tending to other people’s animals, and so were excluded from this. No wonder the leftist propaganda sessions skilfully disguised as basic education lessons carried out by sympathetic teachers in rural schools had an effect on them, showing them something to be confident about in matters of self-respect and a wider awareness of social injustice beyond their own experience. Monks or former monks have had involvement with revolutionary politics. The old Khmer Viet Minh leader Son Ngoc Minh was a bonze. I may have confused my facts, but I think a former and popular monk going by the name of Achar Kres, as well as being a veteran of the First Indochina War, was involved in the Samlaut rebellion, with a price put on his head by the Lon Nol military.

And interesting info about Ta Mok. I didn’t know that his father spent 20 years in monastery before he married and before Ta Mok was born. Ta Mok, himself spent 8 years studying Pali and Buddhist classics. He wasn’t that much of an intellectual contrary to usual perception.

On the subject of anti-intellectualism, the source of this could possibly be the experience of other Communist Parties, such as the French, and in relation to that the ICP. With regard to “proletarianisation” of the organisations. Workers and peasants finding it easier to join the Party, and those of intellectual background having to go through a process of longer probation until deemed trusted enough to enter into meaningful activity. The French-educated group of Communists, of which Sar was a part, had to go through this, probably in their eyes, humiliating experience. Cleaning latrines and doing the cooking isn’t what they would have expected. With not being trusted or seen as a threat by other, non-intellectual Communists of the old Khmer Viet Minh, prior to their taking leadership of the Cambodian movement. These younger Communists would find other allies who were probably more suspicious of intellectuals than the Communists they resented. Small-town rebels like Ta Mok. Into the DK period, anti-intellectual sentiments were in part influenced by the Communist’s main constituency — the poor peasantry. It wasn’t about complete antipathy, however, but what they in turn would see as a threat to their own power. The blank slate policy of their regime would, in theory, later create new Khmer, inculcated with the “correct” mental outlook in a modern socialist society. Better than anything produced in the old.

My blog about building a new human. I use a lot of information taken from the DK experience just to underline some of the ideas. Bashing “Mac-Lenin”, as they called in Vietnamese is necessary. Founding a new human is a difficult way, communists try to confuse regular people with their Talmudic philosophy, thus it’s a 50 % anti-communist and 100 % anti-intellectual.

Hardly anyone reads what I write as it quiet unreadable. Most of people prefer to cling to their old marxism-leninisms, then to accept something new. Plus it’s in Russian.

Anyways, I will re-read your page, I glad that I found a person who is obsessed with DK as I am.

Chum reab lea mit.

Pineapple, thank you for your blog!!! It’s awesome!

The music in the first clip is great.