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Speaker 1: Also media, Oh my goodness, gracious, jimminy Christmas. Welcome back

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Speaker 1: to Behind the Bastards, a podcast where Robert Evans is

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Speaker 1: using the phrase jimminy Christmas. For some goddamn reason, we're

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Speaker 1: allowed to curse on this. I don't get it your

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Speaker 1: Boston accent to you that. I don't know you're gonna do?

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Speaker 2: What?

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Speaker 1: What? What does the Sophie roberts, it's terrible. No, you

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Speaker 1: got it.

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Speaker 2: That's you.

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Speaker 1: Gotta put more Boston, rob.

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Speaker 2: For wash.

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Speaker 1: You gotta put like you gotta put more of like

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Speaker 1: a like a spit, like like rhyme on it, Sophie.

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Speaker 1: It's got to sound like it's got to sound like

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Speaker 1: you're you're screeching it over a bunch of wet rocks,

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Speaker 1: just like the Pilgrims did yes when they landed in Boston.

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Speaker 1: I just think that's something that only you can do.

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Speaker 3: I don't know what about Jimmy Cricket was like, I

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Speaker 3: want to do Robert's Boston.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we were there. Neither do I? Neither do I?

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Speaker 1: Andrew t what do you think of Ben Affleck's back tattoo?

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Speaker 2: Oh, Ben Affleck's back tattoo.

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Speaker 4: I think it's actually pretty pleasant commitment to It's like

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Speaker 4: the most authentic thing he has going on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Like he he is just a Boston guy.

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Speaker 1: See I think he is. I think he's he's our

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Speaker 1: most one of our most authentic male celebrities that we've

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Speaker 1: ever had. That doesn't mean, like I'm not saying he's

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Speaker 1: a good person. He's obviously not. But you can tell

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Speaker 1: in his face that he knows that and hates himself,

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Speaker 1: which is what I love about Ben Affleck.

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Speaker 2: He is keeping it real. He's keeping it indisputably real.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, when that that picture of him like looking

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Speaker 1: at j Lo's butt and just being having the look

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Speaker 1: on his face like he's just watched fucking Dresiden go

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Speaker 1: up in flames, is like it's because he's thinking, like,

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Speaker 1: obviously I'm going to cheat on her. Like I'm Ben Affleck,

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Speaker 1: I have no choice in them. I simply can't be

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Speaker 1: a scumbat and not be a scumbat the beloved tattoo.

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Speaker 3: I personally enjoy the video of Ben Affleck putting Jennifer

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Speaker 3: Lopez in the car and then slamming the door and

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Speaker 3: then realizing the paparazzi caught him.

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Speaker 2: Being like Christmas.

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Speaker 3: I have no idea what's what mood I'm in, but

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Speaker 3: this is how we're starting the.

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Speaker 1: Fun I had a friend of mine made me rewatch

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Speaker 1: Gone Girl recently. He's likening himself. I'm just like, oh yeah.

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Speaker 1: Ben Affleck didn't even know they were filming, Like he

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Speaker 1: was pleasantly surprised to realize he wasn't in trouble for

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Speaker 1: murder at the end of this movie.

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Speaker 3: Fun fact about Gone Girl is he had to stop

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Speaker 3: production for multiple days because he was refusing to wear

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Speaker 3: I think it was like a Yankees hat that they

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Speaker 3: wanted him to wear, but he's like, I'm from Boston,

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Speaker 3: I can't wear perfect perfect He ended up that they

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Speaker 3: ended up like settling on him wearing.

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Speaker 1: A Mets hat, and it's like it's like, come the

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Speaker 1: fuck on, Come the fuck on. Incredible stuff. Clearly was

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Speaker 1: a Yankee fan, like literally here.

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Speaker 4: I think that also means he possibly didn't really he

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Speaker 4: didn't read that movie the same way the rest of

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Speaker 4: us read that movie.

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Speaker 3: No, No, Yeah podcast has literally nothing to do with Boston,

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Speaker 3: the Yankees, Ben Affleck back tattoos.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know this hit. We're talking about a guy

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Speaker 1: who you could call the Ben affleck of Cambodian revolutionaries

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Speaker 1: because this week we're finally doing pole Pot. That's right, everybody.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and we're brought you up getting a pole

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Speaker 1: position here, baby, yeah, thank you. Well, when we're going

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Speaker 1: for the big guns andrew t, you can't do better.

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Speaker 1: And this is this is also unfortunately, like we did.

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Speaker 1: King Nordom Sahannak, who was the King of Cambodia and

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Speaker 1: also a massive piece of shit, had a lot to

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Speaker 1: do with how the Khmer Rouge got in power and

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Speaker 1: why they killed so many fucking people. And he's also

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Speaker 1: a lot less known. Like I think generally people who

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Speaker 1: have any kind of reasonable education are aware of Paul Pot,

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Speaker 1: whereas like King sah not nearly as well known. So

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Speaker 1: I thought it was important to start with him years ago.

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Speaker 1: I think Polepot is really relevant now. I think, actually

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Speaker 1: right now might be the most relevant he has been

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Speaker 1: since the horrible crimes against humanity he was committing because,

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Speaker 1: at least from a perspective of a podcast that is

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Speaker 1: primarily speaking to listeners in the United States, and it

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Speaker 1: is because the way in which he and his comrades

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Speaker 1: orchestrated the deaths of roughly between a quarter and a

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Speaker 1: third of their country something like that. We're talking a

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Speaker 1: death toll of about somewhere in between like one and

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Speaker 1: a half to three million. I think probably two million

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Speaker 1: is probably is generally kind of like the hedging your

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Speaker 1: guess estimate out of a pre war population of maybe

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Speaker 1: six million Cambodians.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: And the reason I'm saying that this is extra relevant

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Speaker 1: right now is that what essentially happened is in Cambodia

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Speaker 1: is you had this cadra of guys who started as

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Speaker 1: young men hanging out in reading groups, talking about politics

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Speaker 1: and making plans for how they would like to rebuild

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Speaker 1: their country and reorganize their country starting from this position

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Speaker 1: they called year zero, right like, We're going to totally

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Speaker 1: totally strip down everything that had existed before and start

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Speaker 1: new based on these ideas we had in our weird

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Speaker 1: little friend groups. Right. Well, that's essentially what's happening with

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Speaker 1: guys like Elon Musk and Peter Teel and the cadra

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Speaker 1: of fanatic young doge kids, right yeah, who are disassembling

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Speaker 1: the administrative state for fun and trying to rebuild it

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Speaker 1: based on a bunch of shit that they discussed on

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Speaker 1: four chan and eight chan over the years.

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Speaker 4: Right, there's the difference is the these motherfuckers have.

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Speaker 2: Never read a book. But otherwise yeah, pretty yes.

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Speaker 1: And the command and the Khmer Rouge guys both read books.

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Speaker 1: And also, one thing you can't take away from Polepot

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Speaker 1: and the other Khmer Rouge guys, they were hard as

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Speaker 1: fuck by the time they got in charge. They spent

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Speaker 1: twenty years fighting in the jungle. So right, we have

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Speaker 1: that going for us. But I do think there's a

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Speaker 1: lot relevant here in the story of how how a

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Speaker 1: group of people, and particularly the dude at the head,

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Speaker 1: come to believe a set of things about how the

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Speaker 1: world should be remade and then pursue those goals no

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Speaker 1: matter the cost. And that's kind of the story we're

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Speaker 1: going to be telling this week. So I hope you're excited.

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Speaker 2: I hope you.

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Speaker 1: Jesus, Chris, So let's fucking go and talk about the

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Speaker 1: man who, well, one of the men who really fucked

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Speaker 1: up Cambodia. It's it's yeah, I gotta say, their strong

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Speaker 1: competition for being the dude who was worse to Cambodia

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Speaker 1: in the twentieth century. You got Kissinger, you got Nixon,

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Speaker 1: you got King Sahannock, you got lawn Noll, who will

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Speaker 1: talk about later. But Polepot probably still does win the crown,

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Speaker 1: which which is hard being the worst guy for Cambodia

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Speaker 1: in the twentieth century, crowded ass field.

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Speaker 4: He's I mean, he's also just like he's got the

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Speaker 4: name recognition, and he didn't have a massive whitewashing campaign

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Speaker 4: waged on his behalf.

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Speaker 1: So no, no, he didn't have that. So the first

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Speaker 1: thing you need to know about Polepot is that Polepot's

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Speaker 1: not his name, right, Like this is a nom de revolution.

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Speaker 1: You know, you get this with all of these guys.

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Speaker 1: Joseph Stalin wasn't born Joseph Stalin. That he literally just

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Speaker 1: picked the name Joe Steele because it sounded cool, right,

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Speaker 1: And a lot of these guys do that because, for

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Speaker 1: one thing, it's just smart if you're planning to overthrow

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Speaker 1: your government to work under a fake name. And for

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Speaker 1: another thing, usually your fake name sounds cooler than your

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Speaker 1: real name. And one of the first thing that makes

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Speaker 1: Polepot unique is that Polepot is not a cool name

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Speaker 1: and it was never meant to be. It doesn't sound

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Speaker 1: it's not cooler. In Cambodian, it basically means like Joe Khmer,

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Speaker 1: like the Khmara or the ethnic people that are the

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Speaker 1: majority of Cambodia. Like he's basically Polepot is the Khmer

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Speaker 1: equivalent of calling yourself like Joe America almost right, Like

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Speaker 1: I'm the average man, right right, That's basically what he

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Speaker 1: was saying. Or like John Doe, sort of yeah, like

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Speaker 1: John Doe. His real name sounds like a fucking like

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Speaker 1: Marvel villain. He was born Saloth Sar, which is like

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Speaker 1: such a cool name like that. That is the name

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Speaker 1: of a guy who fist fights Batman like I'm sorry

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Speaker 1: and has done well. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. He

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Speaker 1: breaks Batman Batman's spine at one point, right, Saloth Sar,

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Speaker 1: it goes by Polpot. Now this name goes too hard.

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Speaker 1: Nobody will believe that Salad Sar was born in a

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Speaker 1: village called Prekshaw, a couple of miles west of the

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Speaker 1: capital of his province and about ninety miles north of Nompen,

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Speaker 1: which is the capital of Cambodia. For decades, there was

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Speaker 1: consider debate as to the precise year of his birth,

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Speaker 1: and we don't have perfect knowledge of when he was born.

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Speaker 1: There are a couple of reasons for this. Just beyond

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Speaker 1: the general fact that record keeping and impoverished rural Cambodia

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Speaker 1: wasn't great in the twenties. People were not like keep

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Speaker 1: it did. No one was digitizing anything right, and Cambodia's

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Speaker 1: educational system hinged a lot on your birth date because

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Speaker 1: the central administration was lacking a culture that sorry this

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Speaker 1: the central administration. Basically, if you had if you wanted

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Speaker 1: your kid to kind of get into the best kind

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Speaker 1: of school that they could get into, if you came

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Speaker 1: from a prosperous family, and Saloth does, it was common

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Speaker 1: to alter your kid's birthday to maximize which school they

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Speaker 1: would get into. And that was as easy as literally

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Speaker 1: just changing markings on a piece of paper, because there

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Speaker 1: wasn't anything like centrally kept right. So there was a

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Speaker 1: strong culture of changing your kid's birthday at least by

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Speaker 1: a but sometimes by a couple of years, in order

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Speaker 1: to get them where you wanted them to go. Bigrapher

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Speaker 1: Philip Short says that salath Czar's real birthday was probably

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Speaker 1: March of nineteen twenty five. Others will say May of

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven. Polpot himself told journalist Nate Thair that

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Speaker 1: he'd been born in January of nineteen twenty five. But

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Speaker 1: he just recalled that because he saw like basically a

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Speaker 1: post it note, not it was a literal posted, but

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Speaker 1: like a note that was like posted on top of

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Speaker 1: like a cabinet in their kitchen. And this would be

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Speaker 1: him memory remembering it as like a five year old.

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Speaker 1: So we don't know when he was born, but somewhere

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Speaker 1: in that period.

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Speaker 4: My grandparents literally also had this. I wonder if now

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Speaker 4: I'm realizing they did this for the same reason. But

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Speaker 4: they were very, very squarely about what their actual birthdays were.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I knew someone had interviewed someone once who had

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Speaker 1: grown up as a like hunter gatherer in the highlands

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Speaker 1: of Vietnam. They were a Montagnard and like, didn't they

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Speaker 1: were like sixteen or seventeen the first time they heard

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Speaker 1: music that wasn't being played in front of them. They

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Speaker 1: didn't know what electric lights were for a while and yeah,

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Speaker 1: and then yeah, we're like, yeah, I have no idea

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Speaker 1: what it was born. I'm probably twenty six. I think

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Speaker 1: at the time.

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Speaker 4: It's like if I really sat down, I could maybe

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Speaker 4: make an educated guest. Yeah. Yeah, my grandparents were like

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Speaker 4: it was a it was a war records got lost.

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Speaker 2: We don't know.

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Speaker 1: Well, we had a lot of other priorities.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, birthday, Yeah, birthdays were at high even for.

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Speaker 1: Yeah Salas Star's family was upper middle class, right. He

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Speaker 1: came from about as much privilege as a non noble

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Speaker 1: member of camp of Cambodia of Khmer society could in

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Speaker 1: this period of time. His father, Pin Salaf owned a

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Speaker 1: lot of land. Now how much a lot, Like, I

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Speaker 1: think something like two to three hectares would be like

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Speaker 1: a normal amount for a peasant farmer to own. Biographer

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Speaker 1: David Chandler says that Penn owned about nine hectares, but

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Speaker 1: Philip Short, whose book is more recent and I think

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Speaker 1: works off of better information, says that it was more

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Speaker 1: like fifty hectares, so about ten times the average. And

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Speaker 1: their house was probably the largest of the twenty or

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Speaker 1: so houses in the village. So they're not rich as like,

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Speaker 1: they're not one of the people who run the country,

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Speaker 1: but they're they're they're the wealthiest guy in town. Rights,

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Speaker 1: that's his dad, you know, Pennsaloth was prosperous enough to

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Speaker 1: hire his neighbors to help out during harvest time, So

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Speaker 1: like that's the kind of money he had where like

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Speaker 1: I am paying my neighbors to do my harvest for me, right,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to like.

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Speaker 2: They just can't do that. Right.

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Speaker 1: He also owned multiple oxen, which was like that's like

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Speaker 1: having like a sports car or something in other day. Right,

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Speaker 1: if you've got your own oxen and more than one,

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Speaker 1: you're like, that's a sign of wealth. His wife, Salathsar's mother,

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Speaker 1: came from a prominent family and was well known as

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Speaker 1: a humanitarian and a pious Buddhist. The two had nine children.

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Speaker 1: I think five of them survived into like the nineties,

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Speaker 1: so like pretty good record for you know, as a

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Speaker 1: mom and dad. Saloth was number eight, so he comes

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Speaker 1: near the end. And he and his two siblings, like

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Speaker 1: around his age, were very close short rights, they played

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Speaker 1: and swam in the river to other and in the evenings,

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Speaker 1: by the light of a rush lamp, listened to the

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Speaker 1: old people of the village recounting stories and legends from

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Speaker 1: the days before the French established the protectorate in the

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixties. And if you'll remember back to our Napoleon

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Speaker 1: the third episodes, like right while France was getting ready

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Speaker 1: to lose a bunch of territory in a major war

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Speaker 1: to what became Germany. The Navy was largely kind of

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Speaker 1: put carrying out, to some extent on its own recognizance,

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Speaker 1: the conquest of a sizable chunk of Indo China, right

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Speaker 1: of what came to be known as French Indo China.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: And this is why France is running Vietnam, and it's

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Speaker 1: also why France is running Cambodia. Right. So they have

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Speaker 1: this dominion in Cambodia, and that for about a century

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Speaker 1: Cambodia is governed by the French. In the capital, which

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Speaker 1: is the primary place you would see the white French colonizers.

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Speaker 1: They were a tiny minority whose control was so great

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Speaker 1: that they were people who were young Cambodians in this period,

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Speaker 1: like Gung Khmer described French like white French residents of

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Speaker 1: the cap is almost deities, right, because they were untouchable.

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Speaker 1: You did not have social contact with them, and they

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Speaker 1: had access to like resources that were almost unimaginable to

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Speaker 1: regular people.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: And again, despite this being the capital of Cambodia, it

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Speaker 1: has the lowest Khmer population of any part of the country.

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Speaker 1: The entire like business class, the people who are handled

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Speaker 1: running companies and who are doing trading and thus have

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Speaker 1: the most money outside of the white French class are

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Speaker 1: primarily Vietnamese and Chinese khmre right. And these are in

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Speaker 1: a lot of cases still people who were born in Cambodia,

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Speaker 1: but they are ethnically Chinese and ethnically Vitmes. And this

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Speaker 1: is this is because Cambodia for most of its history

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Speaker 1: has been for large chunks of its history has been

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Speaker 1: the property of either like China or Vietnam or Thailand,

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Speaker 1: like bits and pieces of it. Right, there's been constant

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Speaker 1: it's in the middle of everything, right, It's like Poland,

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Speaker 1: It's like the Southeast Asian Poland and that like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you guys are usually like under but he's thumb right.

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Speaker 4: Well, and yeah, that's also just like like as much

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Speaker 4: as like the French colonialism, you know bad obviously, it's

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Speaker 4: like a should just be doing that.

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Speaker 2: And China's probably the biggest culprit.

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Speaker 1: Well. And that's the one of the initial surprises that

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Speaker 1: the Communists have that kind of slows down them getting

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Speaker 1: off the board, is they initially expect, well, everyone must

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Speaker 1: hate the French, and the regular Khmer people don't hate

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Speaker 1: the French as much as they hate the Vietnamese, and

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Speaker 1: in fact, it's going to be true even with the

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Speaker 1: Khmer Rouge gets in power, Like, even with all the

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Speaker 1: horrible shit the US does, for the Khmer Rouge and Polepot,

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Speaker 1: Vietnam is always the enemy, right, and it's because they've

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Speaker 1: got a thousand years of shit, but it's always the

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Speaker 1: last war. Yeah, it's just like that's the one that sticks. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: It's like, no matter how racist Americans get about a

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Speaker 1: foreign country, Texans will always hate Oklahomans more, right, and

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Speaker 1: vice versa. So the fact that the people with money

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Speaker 1: in the capitol and running these businesses, the kind of

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Speaker 1: saying capitalist class isn't super useful in this sense, but

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Speaker 1: that's kind of our closest thing. The fact that their

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Speaker 1: Vietnamese and Chinese contributes to a long standing cultural grievance

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Speaker 1: among the majority Khmer population who see themselves they have

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Speaker 1: an inferiority complex. And this is something that is written

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Speaker 1: about extensively by Khmer people, right that there is within

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Speaker 1: the culture and within like even a lot of like

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Speaker 1: the Buddhist kind of writings at the time, there's this

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Speaker 1: discussion of like the Khmer we're fundamentally good people, were

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Speaker 1: humble but we're also kind of like naive and easy

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Speaker 1: to be taken advantage of by these kind of savvier

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Speaker 1: foreign peoples around us. Right, This is the way they

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Speaker 1: talk about themselves to a sizeable extent, right.

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Speaker 4: Sure, although how much there's a question, I guess I'm

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Speaker 4: asking more than like poking at this, but it's like

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Speaker 4: that is also exactly the type of thing that like

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Speaker 4: a broad multinational religion could start to spread well, right,

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Speaker 4: Right in terms of supporting imperialism.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And there's there's some I mean that this

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Speaker 1: is I'm not I'm certainly not qualified to give you detail,

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Speaker 1: but I think it's there's there's plenty of evidence that

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Speaker 1: a lot of the way they discuss themselves is in

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Speaker 1: sort of this context of we are we really need

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Speaker 1: to get our shit together and stop being ruled by

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Speaker 1: these people, right, Like that's kind of the attitude, And

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Speaker 1: it depends with the Chinese Khmer. There's this mix of

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Speaker 1: like respect with kind of some jealousy and some anger.

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Speaker 1: Vietnam is seen almost into Vietnamese people are seen almost

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Speaker 1: entirely as imperialists, right, as like this arrogant force that

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Speaker 1: has continually dominated us over our history. And again Khmer

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Speaker 1: people often have friends who are Vietnamese Cambodians and Chinese Cambodians.

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Speaker 1: But this is this idea of like this is what

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Speaker 1: this race is done to our race, right, Like that's

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Speaker 1: really common. A very like popular story that would be

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Speaker 1: told to children at the time when Salasar was a kid,

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Speaker 1: described three Cambodian prisoners being buried up to their necks

341
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Speaker 1: around a fire so their heads could be used as

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Speaker 1: a tripod to hold their Vietnamese master's teapot. And it's

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Speaker 1: like a joke that like this is what they think

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Speaker 1: we're good for, is like you know, like that that's

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Speaker 1: the bit. Now, when it came to like the looking

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Speaker 1: back at periods of time in which things were different,

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Speaker 1: the real one period of like glory that educated Cambodians

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Speaker 1: in particular would think back to was the time of

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Speaker 1: the An Korean Empire, which had ruled northwest Cambodia from

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Speaker 1: the nine hundreds eighty to about fourteen hundred eighty and

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Speaker 1: included parts of modern day Lao, Thailand and Vietnam as well. Right,

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Speaker 1: this is the Ang Korean Empire, and Sala Tsar and

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Speaker 1: his peers would have seen themselves as being raised in

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Speaker 1: the ruins of a once great culture. The attitude these

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Speaker 1: people have is almost we're growing up in a post

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Speaker 1: apocalyptic empire, right, And this was not far from the truth.

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Speaker 1: By the twelve hundreds, which is right around if you've

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Speaker 1: heard of angkor Watt, it's still to this day the

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Speaker 1: largest surviving religious complex on the world. And it's this massive,

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Speaker 1: incredibly complex, beautiful like temple complex that was part of

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Speaker 1: the heartland of this empire. And while it was at

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Speaker 1: its height around the twelve hundreds, the in Korean Empire

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Speaker 1: contained a higher population than lived in all of Cambodia

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Speaker 1: in the thirties. So if you're looking at like the

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Speaker 1: degree to which things got worse, there are in the thirties,

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Speaker 1: this area is capable of supporting fewer people than it's

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Speaker 1: supported in the twelve hundreds, right, right, right, So they

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Speaker 1: are really living in a post apocalypse in a lot

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Speaker 1: of ways. Now, some of the first stories Sar would

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Speaker 1: have heard would have been tales of his grandfather Fem,

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Speaker 1: who came up during one of the many periods of

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Speaker 1: domination by Vietnamese and Thai invaders. Cambodia came close to

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Speaker 1: being destroyed as an independent culture and Sar would have

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Speaker 1: been raised on tales of Vietnamese soldiers gouging the eyes

375
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Speaker 1: out of captives and salting their wounds before burying them alive.

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Speaker 1: And this is a thing that happened. We are talking

377
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Speaker 1: about really hideous wars that happened between these people in

378
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Speaker 1: these periods, and I mean in every period of time.

379
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Speaker 2: Right, these are.

380
00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:04,879
Speaker 1: Ugly conflicts, and he grows up with stories about like

381
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Speaker 1: this is what war is like. It's not just fighting

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Speaker 1: and killing do gain territory. It is like torturing and

383
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Speaker 1: destroying your enemy, and like that is the norm. Right.

384
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Speaker 1: The French, by comparison, would have seemed benign to him

385
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Speaker 1: as a child, in large part because the French were

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Speaker 1: the backers of the royal family. That was like, because

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Speaker 1: there's still a king in Cambodia and he's a useful

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Speaker 1: figurehead for the French. And Salatsar's family is really close

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Speaker 1: to the royal family, and so they kind of owe

390
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Speaker 1: their privileges and their good position two in part to

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Speaker 1: the French occupiers, right, just like the king does. Salot's

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Speaker 1: early childhood then was mild. His father was noted for

393
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Speaker 1: being less strict and for beating out leading, he didn't

394
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Speaker 1: beat his kids as much as most fathers did. Right.

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Speaker 1: This is a culture where strict parenting is the norm,

396
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Speaker 1: and where children it's believed that you need to be

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Speaker 1: you need to use violence very strictly to maintain the

398
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Speaker 1: behavior of your children. Right. And this was not just

399
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Speaker 1: common with parents, it was extremely common with teachers.

400
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Speaker 2: Uh.

401
00:21:05,119 --> 00:21:08,280
Speaker 1: These are like the like the strain of Buddhism that

402
00:21:08,359 --> 00:21:13,000
Speaker 1: is dominant in Cambodia is called Theravada Buddhism, and this

403
00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:17,359
Speaker 1: is a faith that has an incredibly sharp delineation between

404
00:21:17,400 --> 00:21:20,120
Speaker 1: good and evil. There's not really shades of gray, right,

405
00:21:20,480 --> 00:21:22,720
Speaker 1: and so if you're doing the wrong thing, you need

406
00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:25,399
Speaker 1: to be punished very severely. Right. This is like a

407
00:21:25,520 --> 00:21:28,679
Speaker 1: very black and white faith in a lot of ways.

408
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:31,119
Speaker 1: At least that's the way it's interpreted at this period

409
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Speaker 1: of time. One common punishment from school masters was to

410
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Speaker 1: make a disobedient child lie down on an ant's nest.

411
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Speaker 1: That's like if you fuck up in school, they make

412
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Speaker 1: you light out on.

413
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Speaker 2: Our red ant torture.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I just want to point out Robert, of course,

415
00:21:46,560 --> 00:21:48,960
Speaker 4: is not saying that if you don't beat your kids enough,

416
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Speaker 4: they will become polepot but it is not.

417
00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:53,120
Speaker 2: Saying that.

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Speaker 1: Look, there's obviously an amount of beating your kids that

419
00:21:56,280 --> 00:21:58,600
Speaker 1: will turn them into polepot, right, But there's an amount

420
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:03,480
Speaker 1: of beating your kids will turn them into polepot, not

421
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:04,920
Speaker 1: polepot too, So you.

422
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:07,200
Speaker 2: Know it's a five line.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe don't punish your kids with ants?

424
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Speaker 1: Can we see? Can we agree on that? Quotes one

425
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:19,439
Speaker 1: of Polpot's peers, King von Sack as saying this about

426
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Speaker 1: discipline in schools. At the time, I didn't like arithmetic

427
00:22:22,760 --> 00:22:25,160
Speaker 1: and I hadn't learned my multiplication table. So every time

428
00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:26,680
Speaker 1: we were going to have a lesson, I said that

429
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Speaker 1: I had a stomach ache and wanted to go home.

430
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:30,920
Speaker 1: The third time I did that, the teacher said, all right,

431
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,440
Speaker 1: you may go, but first recite the seven times table.

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Speaker 1: Of course I didn't know it. How he beat me

433
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Speaker 1: kicks and punches. He was brutal. Then he took me

434
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:40,879
Speaker 1: outside and put me under a grapefruit tree full of

435
00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:44,320
Speaker 1: red ants. After that I knew my times tables. Oh

436
00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:50,200
Speaker 1: my god, Well, I guess if it works. No, I

437
00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:51,160
Speaker 1: don't guess that at all.

438
00:22:54,600 --> 00:22:57,480
Speaker 4: You know, in general philosophy, I think held on for

439
00:22:57,560 --> 00:22:58,280
Speaker 4: quite some time.

440
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:00,120
Speaker 2: If my parents are any education.

441
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:03,760
Speaker 1: And like, yeah, there's unique Cambodian. The whole ant thing

442
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:07,159
Speaker 1: pretty unique to Cambodia. But the whole you beat the

443
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:08,960
Speaker 1: shit out of a kid if they're not learning, right,

444
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:12,200
Speaker 1: that's more normal than not. In the twenties, you gotta oaklow.

445
00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:15,639
Speaker 1: I got beat as a kid in Oklahoma by my principle,

446
00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:20,720
Speaker 1: So like not trying to like but yeah, what's really

447
00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:23,959
Speaker 1: interesting to me though, is that Vansak recalls this teacher

448
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 1: who like beat him and then tied him to an

449
00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 1: auntrey as a saintly man who was adorable, Like, yeah,

450
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:33,080
Speaker 1: this was my nicest teacher.

451
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:36,760
Speaker 2: Oh, kicking a kid is really nuts.

452
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:38,080
Speaker 1: That's nuts. That's wild.

453
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:43,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, like truly, Yeah, it just requires so much

454
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:45,199
Speaker 4: intention and preparation.

455
00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:48,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. It says a lot that like and

456
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:50,960
Speaker 1: that's your good teacher, Like, that's the guy that you're like,

457
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:53,880
Speaker 1: can you know what? You really really straightened me out?

458
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:55,159
Speaker 2: Yeah.

459
00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 4: They say you never forget your teachers or how many

460
00:23:58,280 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 4: aunts they tort you you with, And it's true.

461
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 1: See why you wouldn't forget that teacher. If anybody kicked

462
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:05,720
Speaker 1: the shit out of me and tied me to an antry,

463
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: I would remember that motherfucker. Uh speaking of beating Nope,

464
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:26,879
Speaker 1: speaking of not amusing children. Jesus products. And we're back. So,

465
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:30,199
Speaker 1: as I've established, we're not talking about a society. This

466
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 1: is a Khmer society is in a lot of ways,

467
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 1: and I don't there's other aspects of it, but there's

468
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:38,399
Speaker 1: a lot of brutality here, right, and this is not

469
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 1: unique among the Khmer. But this is a black and

470
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 1: white society, and it's going to be meaningful in terms

471
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 1: of how the Khmer rouge act in power that punishments

472
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 1: like this are very normal when they're kids, right, There

473
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 1: is already a high level. It's just like you, the

474
00:24:54,160 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 1: ultra violence of the Nazis is not detached from the

475
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:01,160
Speaker 1: fact that the initial group of the Nazis all spent

476
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:04,639
Speaker 1: four years in the trenches, you know, Like you can't

477
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:07,359
Speaker 1: separate those things, and you can't separate what the Khmer

478
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:09,440
Speaker 1: rouge does from the fact that this kind of stuff

479
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 1: is normal when they're kids, right, And the legends that

480
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: we're told often in Khmer society, because this is a

481
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:19,879
Speaker 1: group of people who have been constantly conquered and beaten

482
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 1: and massacred by their neighbors, and of course done a

483
00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:25,080
Speaker 1: little bit done some of that themselves. To be fair,

484
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:28,399
Speaker 1: it does not be the stories. The fairy tales one

485
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:30,919
Speaker 1: that they grow up on don't depict a just world,

486
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:34,439
Speaker 1: right they are. Instead of like you know, happy endings

487
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:36,399
Speaker 1: in the Good Guy Winning, there's a lot more stories

488
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 1: of murderers going free and honorable men being hideously executed

489
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 1: by the king. Right, that's a lot a very common

490
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 1: kind of thing. This is the lore of a culture

491
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 1: formed through centuries of domination, defeat and murder. Right, that's

492
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 1: the result. Right, There's a lot of trauma in the

493
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 1: collective history of the Khmer, and it comes through in

494
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:58,399
Speaker 1: their legends. Salat Sar's cousin Meek joined the Royal Ballet

495
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 1: Corps in the nineteen twenties. Now that sounds nice, right, Ah,

496
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:07,720
Speaker 1: ballet good way to express yourself. Great, we love the arts.

497
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:10,919
Speaker 1: This is not that kind of ballet troop. The ballet

498
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:15,120
Speaker 1: troop is primarily a feeder organization for the king's harem. Right.

499
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:19,119
Speaker 1: That is the reason why you collect all these ballet artists, right.

500
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: This makes it easier for the king to pick out

501
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 1: who he wants to make a cortissan. Right. David Chandler

502
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 1: in the book brother number one, which is a biography

503
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:30,360
Speaker 1: of Polepot writes quote. Each dance involved thousands of movements,

504
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:32,719
Speaker 1: each keyed to moments in a particular story and in

505
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 1: the mythological character being portrayed. None of the gestures was improvised.

506
00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:39,160
Speaker 1: Although some dancers might be more beautiful or more graceful

507
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:42,400
Speaker 1: than others, their movements depended on memory, tradition, and practice,

508
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 1: in other words, on what they had been taught, rather

509
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:47,639
Speaker 1: than on what the individual wanted to express. The dancers

510
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:51,400
Speaker 1: were vehicles for tradition rather than its interpreters. So while

511
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 1: this is an art form, it is not one in

512
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:56,159
Speaker 1: which self expression is prized. It is how can you

513
00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 1: ab exactly recreate this right.

514
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 2: Do the thing that as I was done before and again?

515
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:07,360
Speaker 1: This whole Ballet Corps, its primary audience is the royal family,

516
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:12,199
Speaker 1: and the royal family within Khmer society is it's so

517
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: high above everything else, right. The Khmer word that like

518
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: people who are high level advisors and counselors for the

519
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 1: king would use for themselves literally translated to something like

520
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 1: we who keep the king shit in our heads, like

521
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:26,920
Speaker 1: our brains are his shit.

522
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 2: Right?

523
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 1: Yeah? And as I said, the Ballet Corps existed in

524
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:33,399
Speaker 1: large part to provide raw material for the royal harem,

525
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 1: but it was traditional for kings and princes to have

526
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:39,360
Speaker 1: eyes bigger than their heads in this regard, and especially

527
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: once kings got old, they would pick a lot of

528
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: concubines that they wouldn't really get around to having sex

529
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: with because they're like old and sish, and these women

530
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: are untouchable to any other men, but often also untouched themselves,

531
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:56,919
Speaker 1: and they're kept prisoner in a network of huts in

532
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: the palace and are forbidden from contact with non royal

533
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 1: bays over a certain age right, so most of their

534
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 1: time was spent arguing and gossiping among each other. Raising

535
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 1: the few kids that they have, there's a lot of

536
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 1: gambling and when at the few outsiders who are allowed

537
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:15,159
Speaker 1: to visit, obviously they socialize with as much as possible

538
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:18,439
Speaker 1: because they live in such a closed little society, and

539
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: soon enough Salatsar would be one of those visitors. His

540
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: older brother. They was the first to be sent to

541
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:27,439
Speaker 1: the capital to attend one of the few Western style

542
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 1: schools in the country. And these are schools the French

543
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:33,439
Speaker 1: have started, and they're often sometimes they're run by Khmer

544
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 1: educated Khmer, but they're like patterned off of French schools. Right,

545
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: and Saloth followed into the capital in nineteen thirty four

546
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: at age nine, and the plan was he's going to

547
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: start attending one of these proper Western schools. But as

548
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: is not uncommon for a lot of Khmer, his parents

549
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: don't want him to go fully western, right, They still

550
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 1: do want him to be Khmer. So he spends a

551
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: year in a Buddhist monastery just south of the palace

552
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 1: before he goes to school. Right, This is a really

553
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: common experience, and in fact the princes all do this too, Right,

554
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: like the guy who's going to become the king nor

555
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: Dam Sahanak spends like a year or some amount of

556
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:12,480
Speaker 1: time as in this monastery, because it's a thing that

557
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 1: you do in part to like show I'm authentically.

558
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 2: Of this culture.

559
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: And this is also going to be the only education

560
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: that Polpot ever gets in his native language. This is

561
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: the only the rest of his schooling he'll be taught

562
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 1: in French. So this is the only time he's being

563
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: taught like in Khmer.

564
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 3: Right.

565
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: Sure, now, about one hundred kids a year had this experience,

566
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 1: and the accounts that we get make it sound pretty

567
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 1: miserable to me, Like the worst summer camp you can imagine.

568
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: There is no room in this for personal creativity or expression.

569
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 1: Every single person has a strictly delineated role in stepping

570
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,960
Speaker 1: out of it was met with traditionally brutal punishments. One

571
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: of Sar's contemporaries later explained, you were given a thrashing

572
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: if you didn't do as they said. If you didn't

573
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: walk correctly, you were beaten. You had to walk quietly

574
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: and slowly, without making any sound with your feet, and

575
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: you weren't allowed to swing your arms to move serenely.

576
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: You had to learn by heart the rules of conduct

577
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: and the Buddhist precepts so that you could recite them

578
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: without hesitation. If you hesitated, you were beaten. And I

579
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: think I encountered a whole lot, especially as like an

580
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 1: angry young atheist. This idea is you here? This I

581
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: think more common among liberals that like, uh, you know,

582
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 1: these Christians and Muslims, and like all the violence that

583
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 1: comes out of these these Western like Judeo Christian religions,

584
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: why can't we all be like the Buddhists. They never

585
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: have Tons of Buddhist terrorist groups plenty of Buddhist genocides.

586
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 1: Every religion has it, and also non religions have it.

587
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 1: People love committing genociside. It's not no, no culture has

588
00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:42,719
Speaker 1: a fucking lock on that.

589
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 2: Religion is a handy tool, but it's not the only

590
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 2: hand It's not.

591
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 1: The only tool. Get that out of you again. If

592
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 1: you blame genocide fundamentally and the fact that people can

593
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 1: be pieces of shit, that's that's what's to blame.

594
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 2: The real genocide juice is in here.

595
00:30:56,800 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's in here. If you to understand how a

596
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: person can be moved to genocide driving traffic for twenty

597
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: two minutes, that's the most I'm ever like, Yeah, we

598
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: just got to start killing people.

599
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 2: If no one was here, I'd be home.

600
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:14,360
Speaker 1: I no, no, no, I'm three more, but still three

601
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: minutes away from the fucking burger risk. God damn it.

602
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: So the religious texts that they were made to memorize

603
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: were rooted in a rigid respect for hierarchy and Theravauta Buddhism.

604
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 1: Children were treated almost as robots, right, They are the

605
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 1: product of cause and effect that accumulate rather than people

606
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: in their own right. And so what matters is modifying

607
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: what goes into them, right, in order to produce the

608
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 1: desired outcome. There's almost again, this is very mechanical understanding

609
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: of like, this is how you make a good person.

610
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 1: Right now, Their holy book was the Spop's pap. It's CPAP.

611
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: It's like spelled like a c pat machine. Right, And

612
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 1: it's basically a collection of morality plays and anecdotes which

613
00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 1: reinforce the sense of Khmer inferiority next to their neighbors.

614
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 1: One relevant portion reads, learn arithmetic with all your energy,

615
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 1: lest the Chinese and Vietnamese cheat you. The Khmers are

616
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: lacking in judgment. They eat without giving thought for what

617
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: is proper and right. Each season they borrow from the Chinese,

618
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 1: and the Chinese gained control of the inheritance their parents

619
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 1: have bequeathed. So again, this is.

620
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 2: The hell.

621
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: There's a lot of racism in this upbringing, and it's

622
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 1: racism against these ethnic minorities in the country who have

623
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,280
Speaker 1: also periodically controlled the country.

624
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 2: Right, reasonable, yeah, of course, like.

625
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be pissed. But as a spoiler in

626
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: part two, this is going to lead to a bunch

627
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: of genocides.

628
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how it goes. The resentment turns into the

629
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 2: worst thing.

630
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: Yeah.

631
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 2: Yeah.

632
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: Now, by the time star I finished his year at

633
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: the monastery, and I've heard nine months, I've heard a year.

634
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: I don't know that they were keeping that good attrack.

635
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 1: He will often lie about having spent longer time there

636
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,480
Speaker 1: because he's kind of proud of this period in his life.

637
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 1: By the time Sala Czar finished his time in the monastery,

638
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 1: his cousin had become the highest ranking woman at the palace.

639
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 1: She was like in charge of the harem basically, and

640
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:11,959
Speaker 1: this was in part because she had borne the prince regent,

641
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 1: and that's the prince who's going to become the king

642
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 1: when the king dies a son right before he was

643
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: made the new king, so obviously that elevates her in

644
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 1: his eyes. His older brother, loth Swung had started working

645
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: as a clerk in the palace in the late nineteen twenties,

646
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 1: and it was decided that he would taken his younger

647
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 1: brother Sar and raise him with his wife, so that

648
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: Salasar could live in the capitol and attend a modern

649
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:36,840
Speaker 1: French style school. David Chandler writes that lost Song considered

650
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:41,160
Speaker 1: his younger brother quote an even tempered, polite, unremarkable child

651
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: as a primary student, Sammy told the Australian journalist James

652
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: Jerrand Sar had no difficulties with the other students, no

653
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 1: fights or quarrels, and examining his early years, I found

654
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 1: no traumatic events and heard no anecdotes that foreshadow his

655
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 1: years in power. People who met him as an adult

656
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 1: found his self effacing personality, perhaps a carryover from the

657
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 1: image he projected as a child and laf Swung's words,

658
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 1: the contemptible Polepot was a lovely child. And this is

659
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 1: the weirdest thing about him. Almost every source agrees he

660
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:13,400
Speaker 1: was an incredibly nice, like polite, pleasant guy to be around,

661
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: which you don't most dictators. You really do get like,

662
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 1: oh yeah, there's hints of the megalomania. Maybe they can

663
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 1: be nice to some people. But there's other people who

664
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: are like, oh yeah, I got a sign of the

665
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 1: crazy Polepot. Everyone's just like, yeah, he was pretty cool.

666
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:31,280
Speaker 1: He seemed nice, and this is so weird.

667
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 2: I did not know that. That's yes, he's like so bizarre.

668
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:37,959
Speaker 1: Even after like when Nate Thayer, who's like the last

669
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:39,960
Speaker 1: journalist to talk to him when he's like in hiding

670
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 1: eighteen or so years after leaving power is like, yeah,

671
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: he was like a really very polite man. You know,

672
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: it's very odd.

673
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 4: On that score, you know, the like the modern day

674
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 4: version of that is prior to now most US presidents

675
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 4: like yeah, Trump, at least you're clear like, Okay, this

676
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 4: guy's a fucking like guy's exactly what you've seen. Yeah,

677
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:04,400
Speaker 4: but like, yeah, truly people, well, you know, there's no

678
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:06,799
Speaker 4: amount of jedicide George Bush could commit that. People would

679
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:08,759
Speaker 4: you know, be like I'd drink with him.

680
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: No, And he's absolutely a monster. Absolutely should be in

681
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: the Hague. I was in a room with him once

682
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 1: and like, get I get why people were loyal to him.

683
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: He's very charming in person or even if you know

684
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:24,880
Speaker 1: what he's done, it's just skills, like yeah, a fucking Obama,

685
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:27,839
Speaker 1: right exactly. People who have done a horrible things are

686
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:30,800
Speaker 1: often deeply likable, which is how they get in position

687
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:32,920
Speaker 1: to do horrible things. And Sar appears to be that

688
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 1: kind of guy.

689
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 3: Right.

690
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: So Yeah, that said, he's also described as a pretty

691
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:39,240
Speaker 1: boring dude.

692
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 2: Right.

693
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 1: He is not political at all, and he's not political

694
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:45,920
Speaker 1: until very late in this story. His schooling at the

695
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,440
Speaker 1: monastery would mark the only time he was educated in

696
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: his native language once he starts at the French style.

697
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:54,360
Speaker 1: At col Miche, Sar was taught in French by Catholic

698
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 1: fathers who were either French or Vietnamese. So these are

699
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,800
Speaker 1: Catholic priests who are French and Vietnamese. Remains a Buddhist,

700
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:03,799
Speaker 1: but he's being taught every day in Catholicism, right, And

701
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 1: if this produced any sense of whiplash and the young boy,

702
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:08,799
Speaker 1: we don't have any evidence of it, but it must

703
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:12,319
Speaker 1: have been weird. I have to imagine. When he wasn't

704
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 1: in class, Sar had be rare freedom to visit his

705
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 1: sister in the ballet harem section of the palace. And

706
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:19,560
Speaker 1: again not a lot of people are allowed here. This

707
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: gave him number one. He would run into the Queen

708
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:24,319
Speaker 1: mother pretty regularly and like you have to bow when

709
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:28,239
Speaker 1: you see her and stuff. And interestingly enough, even afterwards

710
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: as a hardcore communist revolutionary, he remembered her with like

711
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:35,399
Speaker 1: a sense of awe and reverence. Now this also put

712
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:38,160
Speaker 1: him in a very vulnerable position, the fact that he's

713
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 1: one of the few young men boys allowed in this harem.

714
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: As I stated earlier, this group of women who were

715
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:49,280
Speaker 1: like officially the king's consorts and potential consorts were bored

716
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: all the time, and they were forbidden to be touched

717
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:55,799
Speaker 1: by anyone else right. And as a result, when a

718
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:59,480
Speaker 1: kid like Sar comes in, this is the closest they

719
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 1: can get to going after a man right right, And

720
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:08,359
Speaker 1: this leads to some profoundly abusive experiences for young Saloth Sar.

721
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 1: As Philip Short writes, at fifteen, Sar was still regarded

722
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 1: as a child, young enough to be allowed into the

723
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:17,759
Speaker 1: women's quarters. Decades later, two of the palace women, living

724
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 1: out their old age on a French government stipends in Paris,

725
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:23,239
Speaker 1: remembered little Sar, who used to come to visit them

726
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:26,160
Speaker 1: wearing his school uniform, a loose white shirt with baggy

727
00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 1: trousers and wooden shoes. The young women would gather around,

728
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:31,799
Speaker 1: teasing him, they remembered. Then they would loosen his waistband

729
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: and fondle his genitals, masturbating him to a climax. He

730
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:37,360
Speaker 1: was never allowed to have intercourse with them, but in

731
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:39,799
Speaker 1: the frustrated hot house world of the Royal Pleasure House,

732
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:46,239
Speaker 1: it apparently afforded the women of a curious satisfaction. Jesus Christ, Yeah,

733
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:51,359
Speaker 1: and fuck this does not come out until fairly late,

734
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:54,840
Speaker 1: like the first the Chandler biography and the earliest biographies

735
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:56,920
Speaker 1: you're going to read about Polepot. Don't talk about this,

736
00:37:57,080 --> 00:37:59,000
Speaker 1: Nate Thayer. I don't know if I think it may

737
00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:00,799
Speaker 1: have been known when they are talk to him, but

738
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 1: there is in like a khmer Roue stronghold, So maybe

739
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: you're just not going to bring up like, hey, so

740
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:08,719
Speaker 1: let's talk about you getting molested, Like I'm not gonna

741
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: blame Nate for that, right, he was in a very

742
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 1: dangerous position, you know, and exercised a lot of courage

743
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: within that position, But we just don't he never talked

744
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 1: about this, so we can only kind of speculate like,

745
00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 1: oh wow, I mean this has to have had some impact,

746
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:29,239
Speaker 1: right right, right, right right, this didn't help, But you know,

747
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 1: anything beyond that is going to be peer speculation, right

748
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 1: because they just didn't. This is the only these are

749
00:38:34,520 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: the only people who talked about it, right.

750
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 4: Right, right, And it's not like this is coming up

751
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 4: in you know, therapy notes that we can.

752
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:44,279
Speaker 1: Find right right, right, And while it is certainly not

753
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:46,799
Speaker 1: wrong to like be like, well this is pretty poisonous,

754
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: I bet it had an impact on the kind of

755
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 1: guy he was as an adult. I want people to

756
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: also keep in mind this passage from Chandler's book quote,

757
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: Cambodians attached to the Palace in the nineteen thirties and forties,

758
00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:59,720
Speaker 1: like Salasar and his relations, were insulated from the Chinese

759
00:38:59,719 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 1: and so I know Khmer commercial sector of non pen

760
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 1: from the worldwide economic depression, and from the need to

761
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:09,479
Speaker 1: grow their own food. Salatsar inhabited this elaborate, safe, safe,

762
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:14,319
Speaker 1: entirely Cambodian world for many years. So whatever impact this has,

763
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 1: he is also one of the only Khmer people in

764
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 1: the society who grows up feeling safe and secure. He's

765
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:23,840
Speaker 1: never worried about food. And these are the starving times.

766
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:26,280
Speaker 1: These are and this is a horrible depression for the country.

767
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:28,919
Speaker 1: Most people are short on food. That's not a thing

768
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 1: for him. He lives in abundance as a kid, right,

769
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:35,600
Speaker 1: yeah for her, yeah.

770
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, But it's also like like having that

771
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, fifteen is old enough to kind

772
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 4: of realize like.

773
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 1: This probably shouldn't be happening. Yeah.

774
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, This abundance is conditional upon some of the other

775
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 4: maybe horrible things that are having.

776
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:52,480
Speaker 1: Maybe the fact that these old ladies keep on yeah yeah.

777
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 1: For her part, his sister recalled his visits fondly, and

778
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 1: she primarily remembered her brother as a funny kid.

779
00:39:57,880 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 2: Quote.

780
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: Whenever he had something serious to say, he would make

781
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:03,800
Speaker 1: a joke of it. This was another common recollection shared

782
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:06,920
Speaker 1: by his classmates in primary school. Salot Tsar was funny,

783
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: he was easy to be around, and he was most

784
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 1: particularly gentle, a child who one friend described as not

785
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:15,560
Speaker 1: being willing to hurt a chicken, which I guess is

786
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 1: like not, you wouldn't hurt a fly at Cambodia. I

787
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:18,319
Speaker 1: don't know.

788
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:19,839
Speaker 2: You know, we're coming off a time.

789
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:23,719
Speaker 4: We're just anything that's considered violence, you could societally ramp

790
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 4: it up from what US soft Americans are used to.

791
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: And to be fair, as an adult, maybe he wouldn't

792
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 1: hurt a chicken, but he was willing to hurt a

793
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 1: lot of people, you know, exactly. He was not a

794
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 1: good student. Again, throughout his educational career, he showed a

795
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:39,799
Speaker 1: capability to learn and study, but no inclination to do it.

796
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 1: He did not graduate primary school until age eighteen, two

797
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 1: years after that would have been customary. Now I should

798
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,440
Speaker 1: note that this is the general stance taken by Chandler

799
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 1: and other biographers, including Short, that like he's not great

800
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: in school, he's kind of lazy. Polpot rebutted these claims

801
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,360
Speaker 1: in the last interview he ever gave, saying that Chandler

802
00:40:57,480 --> 00:40:58,800
Speaker 1: was not entirely accurate.

803
00:40:58,880 --> 00:40:59,320
Speaker 2: Quote.

804
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:01,360
Speaker 1: I was not a bad student. I was average. I

805
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:03,759
Speaker 1: studied just enough to keep my scholarship. The rest of

806
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 1: the time, I just read books. And you know what,

807
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 1: Sae bestie for most of I should call Polepot bestie.

808
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:17,520
Speaker 4: You're heading in that direction from most Again, it's just

809
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:20,280
Speaker 4: refreshing to hear about a murderer's dictator who reads books.

810
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, ah, you would have loved.

811
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:25,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you would have loved the Hunger Games Polepot

812
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,919
Speaker 1: for most of the big Dub Dub dose. And again

813
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:34,440
Speaker 1: we're talking about like his education, like he's like the

814
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:36,839
Speaker 1: school years that he's going to remember the most are

815
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 1: during World War Two, right, like he is kind of

816
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 1: entering adolescents in like the forties, and for most of

817
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:45,440
Speaker 1: that war, life for Cambodians like Sar in the rarefied

818
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: air of the Capitol went by relatively unchanged. The VC

819
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 1: government takes over in France, right, so it for Cambodians.

820
00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:57,200
Speaker 1: It's still French people running Canada, but it's a slightly

821
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: different group of French people, right, who are basically fascist collaborators.

822
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:06,759
Speaker 1: But you're not going to notice much different as a Cambodian.

823
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:14,600
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, the non fascist collaborators still not such great dudes.

824
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, The main difference would be that Sar would start

825
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: learning in school songs about the glory of Marshall Pataine

826
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 1: and the like. But I don't know that much of

827
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:27,919
Speaker 1: this stuck. Thailand invades and conquers several border provinces during

828
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 1: this time, which is a deep shame to the king

829
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:33,080
Speaker 1: who is dying in a deep shame to Cambodia. But

830
00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 1: Sar is not a political kid, and we have no

831
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 1: evidence that this particularly impacted him. Short does theorize, Philip

832
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 1: Short does theorize that some of the fascist propaganda brought

833
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:45,799
Speaker 1: into the schools during this period did impact Sar, particularly

834
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: the fact that the propaganda of the vch era romanticizes

835
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:53,439
Speaker 1: peasants like poor farmers as the true embodiment of the nation.

836
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:56,560
Speaker 1: And that's really going to be a big sticking point

837
00:42:56,600 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 1: for him as an adult. And so maybe there's a

838
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: line there, right, right, The propaganda of the Potanist era

839
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 1: also depicts the city as an inherently decadent and unnatural thing,

840
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: like a break from the righteous path of subsistent assistance

841
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:14,279
Speaker 1: farming under a dictator, and that probably leaves a mark

842
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,920
Speaker 1: right now. In the summer of nineteen forty two, the

843
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 1: capitol saw its first major protests against French control. A

844
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:25,560
Speaker 1: group of Cambodian monks began preaching anti French sermons. This

845
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 1: was an escalation of what was at this point a

846
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: slowly developing sense of Cambodian nationalism that had been supercharged

847
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 1: by the fact that France had collapsed under the Nazi

848
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 1: boot heel. Two of these monks are arrested by vishi

849
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:40,200
Speaker 1: French police, who do so in a way that defaces

850
00:43:40,239 --> 00:43:43,839
Speaker 1: a religious shrine, and this sparks more extensive protests right

851
00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:46,360
Speaker 1: and these protests terminate in a march on the French

852
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 1: administrator's office. Now, the main leader of the nationalist movement

853
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: in the country at this time is a guy named

854
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:58,360
Speaker 1: Sun nach Than who he had some kind of lefty inclinations.

855
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:02,080
Speaker 1: He was not anti socialist, but he's not a communist.

856
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:04,760
Speaker 1: He's not really a socialist. He is a big popular front,

857
00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 1: big tent. Let's free Cambodia and then we could figure out,

858
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:11,560
Speaker 1: like politically what we want to do. Right. That's his

859
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:14,239
Speaker 1: kind of deal, right, and so he's broadly popular with

860
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: kind of everyone who wants an independent Cambodia. He's a

861
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: very heroic figure during these times, this time, and he

862
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 1: starts organizing demonstrations against the French. They do what regimes do,

863
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 1: and they crack down. They imprison all his friends and

864
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 1: he's forced to go on the run, where he eventually

865
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 1: asks the Emperor of Japan for asylum and gets it. Now,

866
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 1: Sar would have been aware of all of this. He

867
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:39,920
Speaker 1: probably would have admired than but there's not much evidence

868
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:42,400
Speaker 1: that this takes up a lot of bandwidth in his brain.

869
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:45,480
Speaker 1: Like most of his classmates who go on to become communists,

870
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:48,520
Speaker 1: he was focused at the time on his own educational career.

871
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 1: As a student, Sar loved French poetry and sports. He

872
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 1: loved all kinds of sports. He was an avid soccer

873
00:44:55,440 --> 00:44:57,839
Speaker 1: player who was known for kicking the ball behind his

874
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:01,800
Speaker 1: head with stunning accuracy. He also played This shocked me.

875
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: He's on the school basketball team, and Sophie I looked

876
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 1: it up, and since Polepot died in nineteen ninety eight,

877
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:12,760
Speaker 1: sadly there is no way he ever saw Lebron play,

878
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:15,839
Speaker 1: which is a real tragedy because Lebron does. Lebron goes

879
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 1: straight into the NBA two thousand and three, I think

880
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:19,399
Speaker 1: so one of the.

881
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 2: Great hoping history.

882
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 4: Some some stats on Poulpot's numbers, but he.

883
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:26,839
Speaker 1: Must have known about Michael Jordan's, so at least there's

884
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: that composition. I don't know. I looked, Sophie, I looked.

885
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:36,240
Speaker 1: I don't know. These are the great mysteries of history.

886
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:37,240
Speaker 1: I'm only it's.

887
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 3: Really proud that you're you take the time to look

888
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 3: up stuff about you know, Lebron, Ramon James.

889
00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:45,279
Speaker 1: I did it for you. I did it for you. Yeah.

890
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 1: What if Polepot had gotten to play a pickup game

891
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 1: with Kareem Abdul Jabbar. You know that's the I'm working

892
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:53,239
Speaker 1: on a novel right way. Not that tall. Look, I'm

893
00:45:53,239 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 1: gonna be honest, Khmer basketball could not have been the

894
00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: most Like these are not tall people's protein. I was

895
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 1: gonna say, like Lebron six nine. Yeah, no, these Lebron

896
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 1: alone probably could have taken on the whole team. I

897
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 1: mean on him every time. Yeah, like, oh god. So

898
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,200
Speaker 1: while several of his friends went off to a prestigious

899
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 1: secondary school, salatsar barely eked by. He does horrible in

900
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:22,840
Speaker 1: his exams, and so he's not able to go to

901
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: like the Humanities school, which is really progressive. So he

902
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:29,239
Speaker 1: goes to like a much worse boarding school, which is

903
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 1: still vastly better than ninety nine percent of the population. Again,

904
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:35,000
Speaker 1: we're talking a chunk of one percent who gets any

905
00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:37,680
Speaker 1: kind of education like this, right, So the fact that

906
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 1: he's like at the bottom of the educlated class still

907
00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:43,920
Speaker 1: means that he is almost unfathomably privileged by the standards

908
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:47,240
Speaker 1: of average mayor. So he starts this school in nineteen

909
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 1: forty three. In nineteen forty five, Japan seized Tarot seized

910
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 1: Cambodia from VC France for a variety of complex reasons

911
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:57,359
Speaker 1: that all boiled down to they were losing the war

912
00:46:57,400 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: and they were trying every hail Mary they could, right,

913
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 1: They're like, look, these French guys, they don't have a

914
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 1: good hold on things. What don't we just arrest them

915
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:06,719
Speaker 1: all and make Cambodia Japan for a little while. Will

916
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 1: that help us beat the Americans? No, turns out, turns out,

917
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:15,600
Speaker 1: Cambodia not really that useful in fighting the United States

918
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:16,960
Speaker 1: in this period.

919
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,399
Speaker 2: It will be later, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

920
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: The Vietnamese are going to make some real hay out

921
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 1: of having a Cambodia in their back pocket.

922
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:28,719
Speaker 4: But right piece, wrong time, you know. Yeah, that's like

923
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:30,000
Speaker 4: it's like any risk game.

924
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:35,280
Speaker 1: It's like any risk game, right, yeah. So they arrest

925
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:38,720
Speaker 1: all of the French people basically in France, and Japan

926
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 1: is in trouble, in touch for a while. Japan is

927
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 1: pretty brutal in a lot of areas they govern. They

928
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:45,879
Speaker 1: really aren't in Cambodia to the Khmer because like why

929
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:49,000
Speaker 1: would they be, right like, and they don't have the time,

930
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:54,040
Speaker 1: you know, it's nineteen forty five. But the main impact

931
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 1: this has on people like Salassar and his peers is

932
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: that they see all of these French administry, all of

933
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 1: these French teachers and priests get arrested and locked up.

934
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:08,759
Speaker 1: And these people had been untouchable previously. They were very

935
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:11,439
Speaker 1: similar to the king in that like you just can't

936
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 1: even comprehend the idea of laying a hand on them.

937
00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 1: And they see these people forced from power and locked

938
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:21,960
Speaker 1: up by people who aren't white, and that has a

939
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:27,200
Speaker 1: huge impact, right, And the thing it teaches them is that,

940
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:31,600
Speaker 1: like the power of the French is not inevitable or immovable,

941
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 1: it can be pushed aside. And if the Japanese could

942
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:38,880
Speaker 1: do it, maybe we could. Right. One of Sar's friends

943
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:40,960
Speaker 1: later recalled, we saw that a yellow and this is

944
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:43,320
Speaker 1: his words, we saw that a yellow race. The Japanese

945
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 1: had gotten the better of the white colonialists the French.

946
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:49,320
Speaker 1: That awakened something in us. It made us start thinking.

947
00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:53,960
Speaker 1: And as far as propaganda goes, we're going to talk

948
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 1: about all the reading that these kids do, and you know,

949
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: reading Mao, reading Stalin, that all has an impact. I

950
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:02,160
Speaker 1: don't know of anything has a bigger propaganda impact than

951
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: seeing these Japanese soldiers locking up French imperialists.

952
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 2: And that is the power of representation.

953
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:16,160
Speaker 1: There we go, right, Yeah, obviously the Empire of Japan

954
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 1: is no less imperialist than the French empire, right, But

955
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 1: that's immaterial in discussing how it influenced people like Salasar

956
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:27,919
Speaker 1: and these the future Khmer's Rouge. Now, for the immediate moment, though,

957
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:30,400
Speaker 1: the biggest change brought on by Japan's brief conquest is

958
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:32,719
Speaker 1: that everybody kind of got a case of senioritis because

959
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 1: all their teachers get arrested, right should you hear? When

960
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:38,840
Speaker 1: you read about them talking about this period, it reminds

961
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:40,839
Speaker 1: me most of that like week after you take your

962
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:43,280
Speaker 1: AP exam while they're still school but like no one's

963
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 1: doing anything in class. That's kind of what these kids

964
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 1: all go through. Like their French teachers get replaced by

965
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:52,840
Speaker 1: some Vietnamese teachers, but the substitutes don't really know it

966
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 1: a handle shit as well, so like they're kind of

967
00:49:55,000 --> 00:50:00,040
Speaker 1: fucking off for a little while. Some Nochtan returns to

968
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:03,520
Speaker 1: agitate for independence and even manages to briefly run Cambodia

969
00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 1: as an independent country after Japan, you know, collapses, right,

970
00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:11,440
Speaker 1: And so he's running Cambodia is independent under this broadly

971
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 1: popular nationalist for about two months, which is just enough

972
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:18,919
Speaker 1: that everyone really likes this guy and feels really good

973
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 1: about it, but not so long that like maybe some

974
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:25,000
Speaker 1: of the problems that he might have managed, right, Yeah,

975
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 1: there's nothing not that I'm not saying. He actually seems

976
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 1: like he was pretty competent, but like it it's going

977
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:31,719
Speaker 1: to it's going to stick in people's minds as a

978
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:32,759
Speaker 1: golden period.

979
00:50:32,440 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 4: Because you don't you don't have to the consequences of

980
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:38,000
Speaker 4: your tough decisions. Yeah, you don't spend enough time in

981
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 4: office for them to come back.

982
00:50:39,239 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So this this lasts about two months

983
00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:44,160
Speaker 1: and then the French show back up with their tanks

984
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 1: and are like, actually, we still feel like Cambodia is

985
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 1: natural French territory. Yeah, they arrest Pan, they call him

986
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:56,839
Speaker 1: a trader and to what again, you guys weren't even

987
00:50:56,920 --> 00:51:02,360
Speaker 1: there anymore. Like, but by this point he was universally beloved,

988
00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:06,040
Speaker 1: particularly by young educated Khmer like Siloth Sar and his friends.

989
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:10,720
Speaker 1: Now Sar again has no real political beliefs at this point,

990
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 1: beyond a growing endorsement of populis nationalism. He continues to

991
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:16,560
Speaker 1: be a mid student. He fails to get into an

992
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:19,480
Speaker 1: educational program that would have gotten him a prestigious degree

993
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:22,520
Speaker 1: and instead settles to go to a technical school. And

994
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:26,440
Speaker 1: he picks the easiest degree plan at the technical school, carpentry,

995
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:29,600
Speaker 1: because the Khmer professor was known for giving everyone good grades,

996
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 1: no matter how well they did, so he's like a

997
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:34,359
Speaker 1: carpenter for a little while in school, and he's doing

998
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,600
Speaker 1: this because there's like a there's like a study abroad

999
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 1: program that gets given to the best students, and there's

1000
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:44,360
Speaker 1: a number of slots, and like he figured, basically the

1001
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:46,279
Speaker 1: easiest thing for me to be the best at his

1002
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 1: carpentry because it's like the blowoff class, and that'll be

1003
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:52,280
Speaker 1: my best shot at getting into this program.

1004
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 3: You know.

1005
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:56,120
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, grab a wildcard slot anyway you can.

1006
00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, what a very very that's a very modern

1007
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:01,800
Speaker 1: attitude towards it. Honestly, I have a lot of friends

1008
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:05,920
Speaker 1: in school who made similar calls. Nineteen forty seven is

1009
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 1: the first year we have evidence for Sar getting directly

1010
00:52:08,120 --> 00:52:11,399
Speaker 1: involved in politics. That year, the newly found Democratic Party,

1011
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:15,400
Speaker 1: which advocated for replacing French and absolute monarchical rule with

1012
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:18,440
Speaker 1: a democracy, or at least like a hybrid democracy when

1013
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:21,080
Speaker 1: there's a king but he's limited constitutionally and we have

1014
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: like this parliament type deal. They win fifty four seats

1015
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:28,120
Speaker 1: in the national elections. King Vansak, an older student who

1016
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:29,960
Speaker 1: is something of a mentor to Sar and his friends,

1017
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 1: claims that Sar, along with several of his friends, including Jangsari,

1018
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:36,279
Speaker 1: who's going to also help run the Khmaer rouge volunteer

1019
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 1: for the Democratic Party during the elections. Right, And when

1020
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 1: I say Democratic Party here, it's literally like the party

1021
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:45,040
Speaker 1: that thinks we should have a democracy. Yeah, right, And

1022
00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:47,160
Speaker 1: this is and this is kind of this is a

1023
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:50,719
Speaker 1: melting pot. A lot of future communists and socialists are

1024
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:52,200
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party, as well as a lot of

1025
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:54,480
Speaker 1: guys who are like going to wind up more and

1026
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:57,359
Speaker 1: the like, well, I want to be aligned with the Americans, right,

1027
00:52:57,440 --> 00:52:58,759
Speaker 1: This is just kind of where a lot of them

1028
00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:02,000
Speaker 1: are at this stage. In nineteen forty nine, Salat Sar

1029
00:53:02,040 --> 00:53:04,440
Speaker 1: gets picked for that Study Abroad program and he becomes

1030
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:06,800
Speaker 1: one of the first one hundred Khmer male and female

1031
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:09,720
Speaker 1: students to win a scholarship to go study in Paris.

1032
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:12,919
Speaker 1: They leave on a steamship that they actually go through

1033
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:17,200
Speaker 1: Saigon and they arrive in Paris on the same day

1034
00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:21,319
Speaker 1: Mauzi Dung announces the founding of the People's Republic of China.

1035
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:23,400
Speaker 1: So a lot is happening, and this is going to

1036
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:28,160
Speaker 1: increasingly make discussions of like communism a lot more relevant

1037
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 1: to these kids who it really hadn't been all that

1038
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:33,799
Speaker 1: much up to this point. Now, nearly all of the

1039
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 1: students that he goes to Paris with wind up being

1040
00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 1: prominent political figures. A lot of them are are leaders

1041
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:42,880
Speaker 1: within the Khmer Rouge. A lot of them get killed

1042
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 1: by the Khmer Rouge because they're leaders of the Khmer Rouge,

1043
00:53:46,239 --> 00:53:50,400
Speaker 1: and the Khmer Rouge loves murdering the Khmer Rouge. Right Like,

1044
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:53,759
Speaker 1: this is primarily because almost no one else in the

1045
00:53:53,800 --> 00:53:56,719
Speaker 1: country had access to educational opportunities or the free time

1046
00:53:56,800 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 1: necessary to learn about radical politics. So obviously the people

1047
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:03,359
Speaker 1: who are dominant in the radical political sect are the

1048
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:06,279
Speaker 1: only ones with the time to read. Right, it's not

1049
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:11,600
Speaker 1: that shocking. Speaking of things that aren't shocking, these products,

1050
00:54:12,280 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 1: I'm going to be surprised. We're back. And actually it

1051
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:23,640
Speaker 1: turns out several of our sponsors might electrocute you. But

1052
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:27,439
Speaker 1: you know, some people called getting electrocuted. I call it

1053
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:31,160
Speaker 1: getting free electricity, you know, and that shit's expensive these days.

1054
00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:33,480
Speaker 1: If you looked at your power bill, can you afford

1055
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:35,440
Speaker 1: to turn down getting electrocuted?

1056
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:35,799
Speaker 3: You know?

1057
00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:41,960
Speaker 1: Maybe speaking I know, I shouldn't use electrocuted because that

1058
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:45,799
Speaker 1: only means you've been killed shocked, I guess an electrician

1059
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:49,360
Speaker 1: friend explained that to me once. Anyway, whatever fucking power

1060
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:56,839
Speaker 1: power cops. So where are we here? Yeah, So Sar

1061
00:54:56,920 --> 00:54:59,959
Speaker 1: gets into this program to study abroad despite his unimpressive grade,

1062
00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:02,319
Speaker 1: not just because there's not a lot of kids in

1063
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:05,080
Speaker 1: this program, but because even among the ones who do

1064
00:55:05,200 --> 00:55:07,040
Speaker 1: better than him, most of them don't want to like

1065
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:10,440
Speaker 1: leave Cambodia for years, right, because they got like families

1066
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:10,719
Speaker 1: and shit.

1067
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 2: You know.

1068
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:15,760
Speaker 1: His fellow students are guys like Jang Seri, who later

1069
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:19,120
Speaker 1: becomes the co founder of the Khmayer Rouge. Chandler summarizes

1070
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:22,040
Speaker 1: his early life this way. Sari was born and raised

1071
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:25,560
Speaker 1: upon among the Cambodian minority of Coach in China. His father,

1072
00:55:25,680 --> 00:55:28,960
Speaker 1: Kim Reem, was a prosperous landowner. When Riim died, Sari,

1073
00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:31,120
Speaker 1: still a young boy, was sent to live with relatives

1074
00:55:31,160 --> 00:55:33,759
Speaker 1: in the Cambodian province of pre Vang. He was given

1075
00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 1: the name Yng Seri, which sounded more Khmare than his

1076
00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:39,760
Speaker 1: real name Kim Trang. And that's not an uncommon story,

1077
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:42,360
Speaker 1: is like, especially among these guys. Paul Pot's gonna do

1078
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:44,359
Speaker 1: the same thing where it's like, Eh, my original name

1079
00:55:44,760 --> 00:55:46,520
Speaker 1: not quite as good as I want it to be.

1080
00:55:46,880 --> 00:55:50,200
Speaker 1: Let me, let me, kimare this fucker up a little bit, right.

1081
00:55:50,080 --> 00:55:54,120
Speaker 4: It's all very WWF. I like it, just like, yeah,

1082
00:55:54,239 --> 00:55:57,600
Speaker 4: that's get a populous name going. Look, I think one

1083
00:55:57,680 --> 00:55:59,960
Speaker 4: thing we've all learned from the last decade of American

1084
00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 4: politics is that the Rosetta stone for understanding all of

1085
00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 4: human behavior, culture, and history is professional wrestling.

1086
00:56:06,719 --> 00:56:10,719
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, if you get pro wrestling, you understand

1087
00:56:10,760 --> 00:56:12,520
Speaker 1: the whole swap of human achievement.

1088
00:56:12,760 --> 00:56:15,560
Speaker 4: You thought it was, you thought it was gladiatorial combat,

1089
00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:17,840
Speaker 4: but that wasn't nearly campinof.

1090
00:56:17,320 --> 00:56:22,040
Speaker 1: No, no, no, not nearly campinoff. So, as you can see,

1091
00:56:22,680 --> 00:56:24,719
Speaker 1: the reason I bring up Sary's background is it's not

1092
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:28,080
Speaker 1: all that different from Salat Sar, right, and most of

1093
00:56:28,120 --> 00:56:30,239
Speaker 1: these Paris kids are going to become like the core

1094
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 1: of this like educated revolutionary class, have similar stories. Right,

1095
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:38,279
Speaker 1: they are intellectuals. They're going to target and annihilate the

1096
00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:40,880
Speaker 1: intellectual class in Cambodi once they get in power. But

1097
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:44,640
Speaker 1: they're intellectuals, right, that's the class they come from. It's

1098
00:56:44,680 --> 00:56:48,560
Speaker 1: not not that different from how Stephen Miller's background goes. Actually, right,

1099
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:53,080
Speaker 1: So salots Star and most of Salastar starts off his

1100
00:56:53,120 --> 00:56:55,919
Speaker 1: time in Paris living in a dormitory complex. He would

1101
00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:58,160
Speaker 1: later claim that in the first year he was a

1102
00:56:58,200 --> 00:57:01,560
Speaker 1: fairly good student, and this is true enough, but his

1103
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:04,840
Speaker 1: studies quickly slipped. Part of this is because his middling

1104
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:06,520
Speaker 1: grades meant that he had to go to a technical

1105
00:57:06,520 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 1: school rather than get a degree in like the humanities,

1106
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:11,120
Speaker 1: which was a lot sexier for these people who are

1107
00:57:11,160 --> 00:57:14,280
Speaker 1: going to wind up being future revolutionaries. And the degree

1108
00:57:14,320 --> 00:57:16,520
Speaker 1: plan he's working on for his years in Paris is

1109
00:57:16,560 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 1: as a radio technician. Chandler suggests that this is because

1110
00:57:20,960 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 1: he kind of befriends the King's nephew, Prince Song Pon,

1111
00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:27,520
Speaker 1: who lives in Paris at the time, and Prince Somong

1112
00:57:27,560 --> 00:57:31,600
Speaker 1: Pon is also studying to be a radio technician. We

1113
00:57:31,680 --> 00:57:33,680
Speaker 1: know the Prince helps him find an apartment with a

1114
00:57:33,680 --> 00:57:36,280
Speaker 1: couple of friends, which is, you know, the place he

1115
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:39,680
Speaker 1: moves out of that dormitory to live in Polpot will

1116
00:57:39,720 --> 00:57:41,760
Speaker 1: deny this for the rest of his life. He denied.

1117
00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:44,240
Speaker 1: He would lie a lot about his connections to the

1118
00:57:44,280 --> 00:57:47,560
Speaker 1: royal family, which are deep. As we've established, he gets

1119
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:50,720
Speaker 1: a lot out of his family's connections to the royal family,

1120
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:52,560
Speaker 1: but in the future he's going to be like no

1121
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:54,160
Speaker 1: when I was in Paris, I lived with a cousin.

1122
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:57,880
Speaker 1: You know, it's like friends with the prince.

1123
00:57:58,240 --> 00:58:00,160
Speaker 4: Come on, let's not let it go, and said that

1124
00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:02,800
Speaker 4: he was obviously studying to be the twentieth century version

1125
00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:04,080
Speaker 4: of a podcast.

1126
00:58:04,200 --> 00:58:07,880
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, that's right, Pot one coming for my job.

1127
00:58:08,320 --> 00:58:10,680
Speaker 1: That's right. Oh, Sophie, I gotta I gotta say. I

1128
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 1: give him a shot. Look, nothing against you. I just

1129
00:58:13,200 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 1: want to see how Polepot produces a podcast. How fucking

1130
00:58:16,520 --> 00:58:19,440
Speaker 1: dare you? You know what dare you don't tell me

1131
00:58:19,560 --> 00:58:20,680
Speaker 1: you don't want to see it.

1132
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:22,560
Speaker 2: I would die for you.

1133
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:27,360
Speaker 1: You're gonna give me, Sophie Pot. It gets in the operation.

1134
00:58:27,520 --> 00:58:28,440
Speaker 1: We're all dying.

1135
00:58:30,800 --> 00:58:34,480
Speaker 4: The important thing is Sophie could organize a genocide. Poulpot

1136
00:58:34,520 --> 00:58:35,960
Speaker 4: could never produce a podcast.

1137
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:37,320
Speaker 1: That's that's right, that's right.

1138
00:58:38,160 --> 00:58:39,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gonna sting for a little while.

1139
00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:43,360
Speaker 1: And I didn't say. I didn't say i'd like it.

1140
00:58:43,440 --> 00:58:45,120
Speaker 1: I said it up.

1141
00:58:45,120 --> 00:58:47,560
Speaker 3: With a lebron stat And then you kick me to

1142
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:49,440
Speaker 3: the curve for fucking polepought.

1143
00:58:49,920 --> 00:58:52,600
Speaker 1: Look he could he could have been a podcaster, you know,

1144
00:58:52,680 --> 00:58:54,800
Speaker 1: could have been a podcaster. He was known as having

1145
00:58:54,800 --> 00:58:56,800
Speaker 1: a nice voice, you know, he could have had my

1146
00:58:56,880 --> 00:58:58,680
Speaker 1: job maybe behind.

1147
00:58:58,360 --> 00:59:02,480
Speaker 2: The means and guess the po podcast and my boys.

1148
00:59:02,240 --> 00:59:06,520
Speaker 1: I have a Pole podcast. I wouldn't choose you. I

1149
00:59:06,640 --> 00:59:09,880
Speaker 1: might I might prefer to listen to the Pole podcast, honestly,

1150
00:59:09,920 --> 00:59:13,320
Speaker 1: Like that sounds that sounds fascinating. So Sar joins the

1151
00:59:13,360 --> 00:59:15,600
Speaker 1: Khmer Student Union, which at that time was in the

1152
00:59:15,640 --> 00:59:18,680
Speaker 1: process of morphing into a semi covert communist youth league.

1153
00:59:18,920 --> 00:59:21,720
Speaker 1: He attended his first protest the next year for a

1154
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:24,880
Speaker 1: radical member of the Democratic Party who was assassinated by

1155
00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 1: right wingers using a hand grenade. Still, at this point

1156
00:59:29,160 --> 00:59:31,400
Speaker 1: in his political involvement, it seems to have been a

1157
00:59:31,440 --> 00:59:34,080
Speaker 1: byproduct of a social life. Right, He's at this protest

1158
00:59:34,120 --> 00:59:36,680
Speaker 1: because like his friends are doing stuff like this, and

1159
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:39,760
Speaker 1: this is where you like go to hang out with people, right,

1160
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:42,600
Speaker 1: and he is he is kind of a hedonist at

1161
00:59:42,600 --> 00:59:45,480
Speaker 1: this phase of his life. Philip Short writes, Sar's friends

1162
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:48,040
Speaker 1: regarded him as a bon vivant whose purpose in life

1163
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 1: was to have a good time. So that's a I

1164
00:59:52,920 --> 00:59:55,160
Speaker 1: think where we're going to end for part one. We're

1165
00:59:55,160 --> 00:59:57,480
Speaker 1: at about an hour. Uh, We've got a lot more

1166
00:59:57,520 --> 01:00:00,360
Speaker 1: polepot here, so we'll see how long it takes to

1167
01:00:00,360 --> 01:00:02,240
Speaker 1: get through all of this. I really did try to

1168
01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 1: cut this fucker down because I wanted to deliver this

1169
01:00:05,240 --> 01:00:10,000
Speaker 1: all in one week. But there's this guy's life. See fascinating. Yeah,

1170
01:00:10,040 --> 01:00:11,960
Speaker 1: but there we are part one. How are you feeling

1171
01:00:11,960 --> 01:00:13,040
Speaker 1: about Polepot so far?

1172
01:00:13,120 --> 01:00:15,840
Speaker 4: Andrew t I mean so far sounds fucking dope. What

1173
01:00:15,880 --> 01:00:18,400
Speaker 4: could possibly go wrong? What could possibly change? What could

1174
01:00:18,400 --> 01:00:19,280
Speaker 4: possibly go wrong?

1175
01:00:19,920 --> 01:00:24,120
Speaker 1: This is like that first Star Wars prequel where it's like, hey, kids,

1176
01:00:24,160 --> 01:00:26,280
Speaker 1: he's kind of an annoying kid, but you know whatever,

1177
01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:27,919
Speaker 1: how could things go badly? Yeah?

1178
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:29,960
Speaker 2: He likes the party, but he's a kid, come on.

1179
01:00:30,760 --> 01:00:33,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's got a weird crush on a lady

1180
01:00:33,120 --> 01:00:36,120
Speaker 1: who's visibly like fifteen years older than him. That's a

1181
01:00:36,160 --> 01:00:37,240
Speaker 1: little off, but.

1182
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:41,640
Speaker 4: Whatever, Like, you know, he doesn't realize it's abuse, and

1183
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:42,600
Speaker 4: that's the important thing.

1184
01:00:43,640 --> 01:00:46,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, I mean, it is weird. They

1185
01:00:46,680 --> 01:00:50,200
Speaker 1: then paired Hayden Christensen with Natalie Portman. Toby, we were

1186
01:00:50,480 --> 01:00:53,880
Speaker 1: clearly the same age, after establishing that, like, she was

1187
01:00:53,920 --> 01:00:56,600
Speaker 1: a mature adult ruling a country when he was a

1188
01:00:56,640 --> 01:00:57,240
Speaker 1: small boy.

1189
01:00:57,600 --> 01:01:01,200
Speaker 2: It's just why why would you write that?

1190
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:02,080
Speaker 1: In Look?

1191
01:01:02,200 --> 01:01:04,080
Speaker 4: You know, it's the power of shooting your shot. I

1192
01:01:04,080 --> 01:01:06,280
Speaker 4: guess that's what the force is, is just shooting.

1193
01:01:05,920 --> 01:01:08,440
Speaker 1: Your shot, shooting your shot. The Star Wars version of

1194
01:01:08,520 --> 01:01:10,880
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards probably does talk a lot about and

1195
01:01:10,880 --> 01:01:13,400
Speaker 1: then Darth Vader is this weird relationship with this woman's

1196
01:01:13,400 --> 01:01:16,120
Speaker 1: like twenty years older than him. So who knows how

1197
01:01:16,160 --> 01:01:18,560
Speaker 1: this abuse affected you know, the things that he did

1198
01:01:18,600 --> 01:01:23,800
Speaker 1: when he was in Bauer, right, he never wrote about this. Well,

1199
01:01:23,800 --> 01:01:26,040
Speaker 1: we am as this interview with Watto, and that guy's

1200
01:01:26,120 --> 01:01:34,520
Speaker 1: not really super reliableenda his own agenda. Now, I'm pretty

1201
01:01:34,560 --> 01:01:37,600
Speaker 1: sure he murdered Watto if I'm remembering my expanded universe sh.

1202
01:01:37,840 --> 01:01:40,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think primary universe.

1203
01:01:40,240 --> 01:01:43,440
Speaker 1: Primary universe, Yeah yeah, yeah, Sorry, where's that legends? I

1204
01:01:43,440 --> 01:01:45,040
Speaker 1: don't know, fucking Disney.

1205
01:01:44,640 --> 01:01:45,440
Speaker 2: Goddamn you know what?

1206
01:01:45,840 --> 01:01:50,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like it anyway, everybody please join me from

1207
01:01:50,920 --> 01:01:54,880
Speaker 1: my Behind the Bastard's Star Wars focused podcast, which is

1208
01:01:54,880 --> 01:01:59,240
Speaker 1: actually entirely about Kathleen Kennedy. I don't have any issue

1209
01:01:59,240 --> 01:02:02,800
Speaker 1: with Kathleen kid any It's all about George Lucas.

1210
01:02:03,160 --> 01:02:06,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, it's all about a bunch of anonymous money guys.

1211
01:02:06,520 --> 01:02:11,800
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, all right, Well, like George Lucas. I hope

1212
01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:13,880
Speaker 1: you all have a good day eating in a food

1213
01:02:13,920 --> 01:02:17,200
Speaker 1: court and being photographed like a Yetti andrew T Jetty

1214
01:02:17,240 --> 01:02:18,080
Speaker 1: pluggables to plug.

1215
01:02:18,440 --> 01:02:20,960
Speaker 4: I mean my podcast is yeoways as racist. I don't

1216
01:02:20,960 --> 01:02:22,840
Speaker 4: know that's keeping it real.

1217
01:02:23,120 --> 01:02:27,080
Speaker 1: Keep it real all right, everybody, YouTube, Keep it real

1218
01:02:27,480 --> 01:02:29,720
Speaker 1: until next day or whatever.

1219
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:30,880
Speaker 2: Go to help.

1220
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:31,400
Speaker 1: I love you.

1221
01:02:34,840 --> 01:02:37,560
Speaker 3: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1222
01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:40,520
Speaker 3: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

1223
01:02:40,600 --> 01:02:44,560
Speaker 3: Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1224
01:02:44,640 --> 01:02:47,800
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the

1225
01:02:47,800 --> 01:02:51,880
Speaker 3: Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday

1226
01:02:52,000 --> 01:02:55,640
Speaker 3: and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash

1227
01:02:55,840 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 3: at behind the Bastards