WEBVTT - Part One: The Pol Pot Episodes: How A Nice, Quiet Kid Murdered His Country 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:09.280 Also media, Oh my goodness, gracious, jimminy Christmas. Welcome back 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:14.600 to Behind the Bastards, a podcast where Robert Evans is 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:18.800 using the phrase jimminy Christmas. For some goddamn reason, we're 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.600 allowed to curse on this. I don't get it your 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:25.680 Boston accent to you that. I don't know you're gonna do? 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:26.680 What? 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:33.280 What? What does the Sophie roberts, it's terrible. No, you 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:33.720 got it. 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:34.080 That's you. 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:37.440 Gotta put more Boston, rob. 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:40.000 For wash. 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:42.519 You gotta put like you gotta put more of like 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:46.120 a like a spit, like like rhyme on it, Sophie. 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.080 It's got to sound like it's got to sound like 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:53.520 you're you're screeching it over a bunch of wet rocks, 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:56.320 just like the Pilgrims did yes when they landed in Boston. 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:58.800 I just think that's something that only you can do. 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:01.279 I don't know what about Jimmy Cricket was like, I 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:02.840 want to do Robert's Boston. 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:06.480 Yeah, we were there. Neither do I? Neither do I? 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:13.160 Andrew t what do you think of Ben Affleck's back tattoo? 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:16.360 Oh, Ben Affleck's back tattoo. 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:21.880 I think it's actually pretty pleasant commitment to It's like 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.200 the most authentic thing he has going on. 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:28.199 Yeah yeah, Like he he is just a Boston guy. 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.160 See I think he is. I think he's he's our 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:33.680 most one of our most authentic male celebrities that we've 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:35.959 ever had. That doesn't mean, like I'm not saying he's 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.000 a good person. He's obviously not. But you can tell 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.120 in his face that he knows that and hates himself, 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.000 which is what I love about Ben Affleck. 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.360 He is keeping it real. He's keeping it indisputably real. 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:49.880 Yeah. Yeah, when that that picture of him like looking 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:53.600 at j Lo's butt and just being having the look 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:56.440 on his face like he's just watched fucking Dresiden go 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.480 up in flames, is like it's because he's thinking, like, 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.200 obviously I'm going to cheat on her. Like I'm Ben Affleck, 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:05.320 I have no choice in them. I simply can't be 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.240 a scumbat and not be a scumbat the beloved tattoo. 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.040 I personally enjoy the video of Ben Affleck putting Jennifer 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.200 Lopez in the car and then slamming the door and 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:16.600 then realizing the paparazzi caught him. 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:23.560 Being like Christmas. 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.280 I have no idea what's what mood I'm in, but 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:27.880 this is how we're starting the. 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.000 Fun I had a friend of mine made me rewatch 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:36.600 Gone Girl recently. He's likening himself. I'm just like, oh yeah. 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.720 Ben Affleck didn't even know they were filming, Like he 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.560 was pleasantly surprised to realize he wasn't in trouble for 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:45.480 murder at the end of this movie. 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.040 Fun fact about Gone Girl is he had to stop 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.280 production for multiple days because he was refusing to wear 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.040 I think it was like a Yankees hat that they 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:56.880 wanted him to wear, but he's like, I'm from Boston, 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.440 I can't wear perfect perfect He ended up that they 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:01.519 ended up like settling on him wearing. 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.080 A Mets hat, and it's like it's like, come the 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:08.000 fuck on, Come the fuck on. Incredible stuff. Clearly was 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:10.480 a Yankee fan, like literally here. 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.920 I think that also means he possibly didn't really he 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.080 didn't read that movie the same way the rest of 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:18.040 us read that movie. 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:24.560 No, No, Yeah podcast has literally nothing to do with Boston, 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.720 the Yankees, Ben Affleck back tattoos. 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:30.160 Well, you know this hit. We're talking about a guy 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:34.720 who you could call the Ben affleck of Cambodian revolutionaries 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:39.000 because this week we're finally doing pole Pot. That's right, everybody. 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.040 Oh yeah, and we're brought you up getting a pole 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:47.320 position here, baby, yeah, thank you. Well, when we're going 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.320 for the big guns andrew t, you can't do better. 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.760 And this is this is also unfortunately, like we did. 0:03:54.840 --> 0:04:00.160 King Nordom Sahannak, who was the King of Cambodia and 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.240 also a massive piece of shit, had a lot to 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.520 do with how the Khmer Rouge got in power and 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:08.240 why they killed so many fucking people. And he's also 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:11.360 a lot less known. Like I think generally people who 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.160 have any kind of reasonable education are aware of Paul Pot, 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:17.080 whereas like King sah not nearly as well known. So 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.040 I thought it was important to start with him years ago. 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.640 I think Polepot is really relevant now. I think, actually 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:26.159 right now might be the most relevant he has been 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:30.680 since the horrible crimes against humanity he was committing because, 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:33.480 at least from a perspective of a podcast that is 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.919 primarily speaking to listeners in the United States, and it 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:41.039 is because the way in which he and his comrades 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.400 orchestrated the deaths of roughly between a quarter and a 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:49.640 third of their country something like that. We're talking a 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:57.520 death toll of about somewhere in between like one and 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.560 a half to three million. I think probably two million 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.640 is probably is generally kind of like the hedging your 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.400 guess estimate out of a pre war population of maybe 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:07.680 six million Cambodians. 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:07.960 Right. 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:10.480 And the reason I'm saying that this is extra relevant 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.440 right now is that what essentially happened is in Cambodia 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:16.920 is you had this cadra of guys who started as 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.800 young men hanging out in reading groups, talking about politics 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:23.880 and making plans for how they would like to rebuild 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:27.479 their country and reorganize their country starting from this position 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.200 they called year zero, right like, We're going to totally 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:34.160 totally strip down everything that had existed before and start 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.279 new based on these ideas we had in our weird 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:41.279 little friend groups. Right. Well, that's essentially what's happening with 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:43.719 guys like Elon Musk and Peter Teel and the cadra 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.040 of fanatic young doge kids, right yeah, who are disassembling 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:49.800 the administrative state for fun and trying to rebuild it 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:51.920 based on a bunch of shit that they discussed on 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:53.800 four chan and eight chan over the years. 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:58.000 Right, there's the difference is the these motherfuckers have. 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.600 Never read a book. But otherwise yeah, pretty yes. 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.960 And the command and the Khmer Rouge guys both read books. 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:06.000 And also, one thing you can't take away from Polepot 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:08.000 and the other Khmer Rouge guys, they were hard as 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.400 fuck by the time they got in charge. They spent 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.279 twenty years fighting in the jungle. So right, we have 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.640 that going for us. But I do think there's a 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:19.159 lot relevant here in the story of how how a 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.640 group of people, and particularly the dude at the head, 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.680 come to believe a set of things about how the 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.479 world should be remade and then pursue those goals no 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.560 matter the cost. And that's kind of the story we're 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:34.720 going to be telling this week. So I hope you're excited. 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:35.080 I hope you. 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:47.120 Jesus, Chris, So let's fucking go and talk about the 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.599 man who, well, one of the men who really fucked 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.640 up Cambodia. It's it's yeah, I gotta say, their strong 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.960 competition for being the dude who was worse to Cambodia 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.440 in the twentieth century. You got Kissinger, you got Nixon, 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.240 you got King Sahannock, you got lawn Noll, who will 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:07.360 talk about later. But Polepot probably still does win the crown, 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.560 which which is hard being the worst guy for Cambodia 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.280 in the twentieth century, crowded ass field. 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.320 He's I mean, he's also just like he's got the 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.840 name recognition, and he didn't have a massive whitewashing campaign 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:22.000 waged on his behalf. 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.480 So no, no, he didn't have that. So the first 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.880 thing you need to know about Polepot is that Polepot's 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.680 not his name, right, Like this is a nom de revolution. 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:34.040 You know, you get this with all of these guys. 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:36.920 Joseph Stalin wasn't born Joseph Stalin. That he literally just 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:39.840 picked the name Joe Steele because it sounded cool, right, 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:42.320 And a lot of these guys do that because, for 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:44.800 one thing, it's just smart if you're planning to overthrow 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.840 your government to work under a fake name. And for 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.840 another thing, usually your fake name sounds cooler than your 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:52.920 real name. And one of the first thing that makes 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.120 Polepot unique is that Polepot is not a cool name 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:57.960 and it was never meant to be. It doesn't sound 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.320 it's not cooler. In Cambodian, it basically means like Joe Khmer, 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:03.760 like the Khmara or the ethnic people that are the 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.160 majority of Cambodia. Like he's basically Polepot is the Khmer 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.160 equivalent of calling yourself like Joe America almost right, Like 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:12.880 I'm the average man, right right, That's basically what he 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.880 was saying. Or like John Doe, sort of yeah, like 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:20.080 John Doe. His real name sounds like a fucking like 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.560 Marvel villain. He was born Saloth Sar, which is like 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:28.720 such a cool name like that. That is the name 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.680 of a guy who fist fights Batman like I'm sorry 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:35.560 and has done well. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. He 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:40.480 breaks Batman Batman's spine at one point, right, Saloth Sar, 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.080 it goes by Polpot. Now this name goes too hard. 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:49.320 Nobody will believe that Salad Sar was born in a 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.280 village called Prekshaw, a couple of miles west of the 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:55.680 capital of his province and about ninety miles north of Nompen, 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:59.520 which is the capital of Cambodia. For decades, there was 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:02.679 consider debate as to the precise year of his birth, 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.120 and we don't have perfect knowledge of when he was born. 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.480 There are a couple of reasons for this. Just beyond 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.040 the general fact that record keeping and impoverished rural Cambodia 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.679 wasn't great in the twenties. People were not like keep 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:19.600 it did. No one was digitizing anything right, and Cambodia's 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.079 educational system hinged a lot on your birth date because 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:28.880 the central administration was lacking a culture that sorry this 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:35.280 the central administration. Basically, if you had if you wanted 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:37.280 your kid to kind of get into the best kind 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:39.000 of school that they could get into, if you came 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.840 from a prosperous family, and Saloth does, it was common 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:47.160 to alter your kid's birthday to maximize which school they 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:49.800 would get into. And that was as easy as literally 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.200 just changing markings on a piece of paper, because there 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.120 wasn't anything like centrally kept right. So there was a 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.000 strong culture of changing your kid's birthday at least by 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.360 a but sometimes by a couple of years, in order 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:03.839 to get them where you wanted them to go. Bigrapher 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:07.720 Philip Short says that salath Czar's real birthday was probably 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.760 March of nineteen twenty five. Others will say May of 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:14.520 nineteen twenty seven. Polpot himself told journalist Nate Thair that 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.320 he'd been born in January of nineteen twenty five. But 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:19.520 he just recalled that because he saw like basically a 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:21.320 post it note, not it was a literal posted, but 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:23.800 like a note that was like posted on top of 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:27.000 like a cabinet in their kitchen. And this would be 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.199 him memory remembering it as like a five year old. 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.000 So we don't know when he was born, but somewhere 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:32.840 in that period. 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.600 My grandparents literally also had this. I wonder if now 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:38.480 I'm realizing they did this for the same reason. But 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:42.000 they were very, very squarely about what their actual birthdays were. 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.719 Yeah, I knew someone had interviewed someone once who had 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.880 grown up as a like hunter gatherer in the highlands 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.520 of Vietnam. They were a Montagnard and like, didn't they 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:55.400 were like sixteen or seventeen the first time they heard 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:57.440 music that wasn't being played in front of them. They 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.400 didn't know what electric lights were for a while and yeah, 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:01.720 and then yeah, we're like, yeah, I have no idea 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:05.160 what it was born. I'm probably twenty six. I think 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:06.200 at the time. 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:08.839 It's like if I really sat down, I could maybe 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.920 make an educated guest. Yeah. Yeah, my grandparents were like 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.079 it was a it was a war records got lost. 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:14.520 We don't know. 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:16.679 Well, we had a lot of other priorities. 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.680 Yeah, birthday, Yeah, birthdays were at high even for. 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.400 Yeah Salas Star's family was upper middle class, right. He 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.960 came from about as much privilege as a non noble 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.440 member of camp of Cambodia of Khmer society could in 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:35.319 this period of time. His father, Pin Salaf owned a 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.880 lot of land. Now how much a lot, Like, I 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.080 think something like two to three hectares would be like 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:44.000 a normal amount for a peasant farmer to own. Biographer 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.440 David Chandler says that Penn owned about nine hectares, but 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:49.600 Philip Short, whose book is more recent and I think 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.360 works off of better information, says that it was more 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.880 like fifty hectares, so about ten times the average. And 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.120 their house was probably the largest of the twenty or 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:01.120 so houses in the village. So they're not rich as like, 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:03.360 they're not one of the people who run the country, 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.640 but they're they're they're the wealthiest guy in town. Rights, 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:11.280 that's his dad, you know, Pennsaloth was prosperous enough to 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.000 hire his neighbors to help out during harvest time, So 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:15.640 like that's the kind of money he had where like 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.840 I am paying my neighbors to do my harvest for me, right, 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:19.959 as opposed to like. 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:21.199 They just can't do that. Right. 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.600 He also owned multiple oxen, which was like that's like 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.640 having like a sports car or something in other day. Right, 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.000 if you've got your own oxen and more than one, 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:35.000 you're like, that's a sign of wealth. His wife, Salathsar's mother, 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.240 came from a prominent family and was well known as 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.920 a humanitarian and a pious Buddhist. The two had nine children. 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:43.600 I think five of them survived into like the nineties, 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.040 so like pretty good record for you know, as a 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:51.160 mom and dad. Saloth was number eight, so he comes 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.680 near the end. And he and his two siblings, like 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:59.000 around his age, were very close short rights, they played 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.040 and swam in the river to other and in the evenings, 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:02.720 by the light of a rush lamp, listened to the 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.320 old people of the village recounting stories and legends from 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.200 the days before the French established the protectorate in the 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.920 eighteen sixties. And if you'll remember back to our Napoleon 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.080 the third episodes, like right while France was getting ready 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.720 to lose a bunch of territory in a major war 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:21.719 to what became Germany. The Navy was largely kind of 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:26.720 put carrying out, to some extent on its own recognizance, 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:29.480 the conquest of a sizable chunk of Indo China, right 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:31.640 of what came to be known as French Indo China. 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:31.960 Right. 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.920 And this is why France is running Vietnam, and it's 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.600 also why France is running Cambodia. Right. So they have 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:42.800 this dominion in Cambodia, and that for about a century 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.920 Cambodia is governed by the French. In the capital, which 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.400 is the primary place you would see the white French colonizers. 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:52.520 They were a tiny minority whose control was so great 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:55.880 that they were people who were young Cambodians in this period, 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:59.640 like Gung Khmer described French like white French residents of 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.679 the cap is almost deities, right, because they were untouchable. 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.640 You did not have social contact with them, and they 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:09.560 had access to like resources that were almost unimaginable to 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:10.280 regular people. 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:10.560 Right. 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:14.760 And again, despite this being the capital of Cambodia, it 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:17.720 has the lowest Khmer population of any part of the country. 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.120 The entire like business class, the people who are handled 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:25.240 running companies and who are doing trading and thus have 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:27.920 the most money outside of the white French class are 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:32.120 primarily Vietnamese and Chinese khmre right. And these are in 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.239 a lot of cases still people who were born in Cambodia, 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.400 but they are ethnically Chinese and ethnically Vitmes. And this 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.360 is this is because Cambodia for most of its history 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:45.240 has been for large chunks of its history has been 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:49.440 the property of either like China or Vietnam or Thailand, 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:51.960 like bits and pieces of it. Right, there's been constant 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.080 it's in the middle of everything, right, It's like Poland, 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.640 It's like the Southeast Asian Poland and that like, yeah, 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.360 you guys are usually like under but he's thumb right. 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.400 Well, and yeah, that's also just like like as much 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:09.000 as like the French colonialism, you know bad obviously, it's 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.040 like a should just be doing that. 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:13.320 And China's probably the biggest culprit. 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.040 Well. And that's the one of the initial surprises that 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.160 the Communists have that kind of slows down them getting 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.600 off the board, is they initially expect, well, everyone must 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:25.240 hate the French, and the regular Khmer people don't hate 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.840 the French as much as they hate the Vietnamese, and 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:29.520 in fact, it's going to be true even with the 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.440 Khmer Rouge gets in power, Like, even with all the 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:36.800 horrible shit the US does, for the Khmer Rouge and Polepot, 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:40.280 Vietnam is always the enemy, right, and it's because they've 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.200 got a thousand years of shit, but it's always the 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:47.040 last war. Yeah, it's just like that's the one that sticks. Yeah, 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:49.480 It's like, no matter how racist Americans get about a 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:53.960 foreign country, Texans will always hate Oklahomans more, right, and 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:58.720 vice versa. So the fact that the people with money 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:01.440 in the capitol and running these businesses, the kind of 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.280 saying capitalist class isn't super useful in this sense, but 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:06.240 that's kind of our closest thing. The fact that their 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:10.280 Vietnamese and Chinese contributes to a long standing cultural grievance 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.360 among the majority Khmer population who see themselves they have 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.960 an inferiority complex. And this is something that is written 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:20.120 about extensively by Khmer people, right that there is within 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.280 the culture and within like even a lot of like 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.880 the Buddhist kind of writings at the time, there's this 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.080 discussion of like the Khmer we're fundamentally good people, were 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:34.360 humble but we're also kind of like naive and easy 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.360 to be taken advantage of by these kind of savvier 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:39.680 foreign peoples around us. Right, This is the way they 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.320 talk about themselves to a sizeable extent, right. 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:46.320 Sure, although how much there's a question, I guess I'm 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.200 asking more than like poking at this, but it's like 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.400 that is also exactly the type of thing that like 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:56.840 a broad multinational religion could start to spread well, right, 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.160 Right in terms of supporting imperialism. 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:01.840 Yeah, yeah, And there's there's some I mean that this 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:05.080 is I'm not I'm certainly not qualified to give you detail, 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:07.600 but I think it's there's there's plenty of evidence that 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.320 a lot of the way they discuss themselves is in 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.399 sort of this context of we are we really need 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:17.520 to get our shit together and stop being ruled by 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:20.199 these people, right, Like that's kind of the attitude, And 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.679 it depends with the Chinese Khmer. There's this mix of 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:26.639 like respect with kind of some jealousy and some anger. 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.760 Vietnam is seen almost into Vietnamese people are seen almost 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.359 entirely as imperialists, right, as like this arrogant force that 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:37.960 has continually dominated us over our history. And again Khmer 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:42.160 people often have friends who are Vietnamese Cambodians and Chinese Cambodians. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:44.240 But this is this idea of like this is what 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.680 this race is done to our race, right, Like that's 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:51.399 really common. A very like popular story that would be 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.240 told to children at the time when Salasar was a kid, 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.960 described three Cambodian prisoners being buried up to their necks 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:00.439 around a fire so their heads could be used as 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:05.320 a tripod to hold their Vietnamese master's teapot. And it's 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:07.080 like a joke that like this is what they think 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.160 we're good for, is like you know, like that that's 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:15.320 the bit. Now, when it came to like the looking 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.800 back at periods of time in which things were different, 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.199 the real one period of like glory that educated Cambodians 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:23.800 in particular would think back to was the time of 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:27.159 the An Korean Empire, which had ruled northwest Cambodia from 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.280 the nine hundreds eighty to about fourteen hundred eighty and 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.200 included parts of modern day Lao, Thailand and Vietnam as well. Right, 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:38.240 this is the Ang Korean Empire, and Sala Tsar and 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:40.600 his peers would have seen themselves as being raised in 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.560 the ruins of a once great culture. The attitude these 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.080 people have is almost we're growing up in a post 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:50.520 apocalyptic empire, right, And this was not far from the truth. 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.120 By the twelve hundreds, which is right around if you've 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.439 heard of angkor Watt, it's still to this day the 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.920 largest surviving religious complex on the world. And it's this massive, 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:04.320 incredibly complex, beautiful like temple complex that was part of 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.639 the heartland of this empire. And while it was at 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.720 its height around the twelve hundreds, the in Korean Empire 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.480 contained a higher population than lived in all of Cambodia 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:17.280 in the thirties. So if you're looking at like the 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:21.680 degree to which things got worse, there are in the thirties, 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.600 this area is capable of supporting fewer people than it's 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.360 supported in the twelve hundreds, right, right, right, So they 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:30.840 are really living in a post apocalypse in a lot 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.800 of ways. Now, some of the first stories Sar would 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.240 have heard would have been tales of his grandfather Fem, 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:38.520 who came up during one of the many periods of 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:42.639 domination by Vietnamese and Thai invaders. Cambodia came close to 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:45.680 being destroyed as an independent culture and Sar would have 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:48.359 been raised on tales of Vietnamese soldiers gouging the eyes 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.359 out of captives and salting their wounds before burying them alive. 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:53.840 And this is a thing that happened. We are talking 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.600 about really hideous wars that happened between these people in 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.960 these periods, and I mean in every period of time. 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:02.159 Right, these are. 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.879 Ugly conflicts, and he grows up with stories about like 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:07.959 this is what war is like. It's not just fighting 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:11.240 and killing do gain territory. It is like torturing and 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.600 destroying your enemy, and like that is the norm. Right. 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.320 The French, by comparison, would have seemed benign to him 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.320 as a child, in large part because the French were 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:23.840 the backers of the royal family. That was like, because 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:26.280 there's still a king in Cambodia and he's a useful 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:30.119 figurehead for the French. And Salatsar's family is really close 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.600 to the royal family, and so they kind of owe 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:37.040 their privileges and their good position two in part to 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.879 the French occupiers, right, just like the king does. Salot's 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.000 early childhood then was mild. His father was noted for 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:46.960 being less strict and for beating out leading, he didn't 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.440 beat his kids as much as most fathers did. Right. 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.680 This is a culture where strict parenting is the norm, 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:54.919 and where children it's believed that you need to be 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.080 you need to use violence very strictly to maintain the 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.720 behavior of your children. Right. And this was not just 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:04.040 common with parents, it was extremely common with teachers. 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:04.879 Uh. 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.280