CAPS #4: The Killing Fields

CAPS #4: The Killing Fields



The Killing Fields movie poster

            On the day of April 17, 1975, the country of Cambodia came under the control of the Communist Khmer Rouge (Killing Fields Museum, 2013). For the next three years, eight months, and twenty days under the rule of the Khmer Rouge, more than two million Cambodians were killed in what became known as the infamous Killing Fields (Killing Fields Museum, 2013). The movie The Killing Fields, released in 1984, depicts the horrors of the genocide in Cambodia seen through the eyes of Dith Pran, a Cambodian journalist and New York Times interpreter, and Sydney Schanberg, reporter for the New York Times. The movie follows the story of  Photo of Mass Grave in Cambodia
the arrival and establishment of a new Cambodian government under the Khmer Rouge, and the life Cambodians faced under the regime. It shows Dith Pran’s fight for survival and the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge he faced and witnessed, while Sydney Schanberg returns to the United States (all the while attempting to secure Pran’s safety from abroad). In relation to Chapter 8 in Intercultural Communication, this movie clearly depicts the Cambodian people’s forced migration as internally displaced people, as they are forced to move due to war, famine, and forced government migration.

Newspaper Image of Khmer Rouge Soldiers forcing the migration of Cambodian People

            Martin and Nakayama in Intercultural Communication define those who are involuntary migrants as refugees, either short or long term, that are displaced usually due to war, famine, and/or oppression (Martin & Nakayama, 2010, pg. 321). In the case of most involuntary migration, refugees are under the category of internally displaced people (IDP). Internally displaced people are refugees within their own country, who are displaced from one region within their country to another. The cause of this movement is usually due to the effects of war and famine, but in some cases forced government movement of people can be the result of people becoming IDPs. The concept of involuntary migration and IDPs connects with intercultural communication in that it demonstrates multitude migrant-host relationships. It shows how people may be segregated (by forces of government) or assimilated (either by force of government to fit into an “ideal” culture or by personal choice to avoid standing out in times of difficulty). Within involuntary migration of IDPs, the refugees may experience damage to functional fitness and psychological health due to the stress and suffering involved in involuntary migration. Refugees are also likely to experience a lack of social support as they migrate and may experience a high level of anxiety and uncertainty (Anxiety and Uncertainty Management Model) when trying to move from one region to another (either due to war or famine, or forced government displacement).

            In The Killing Fields viewers witness the involuntary migration of Cambodians, in which they become internally displaced peoples. This forced migration is due to the lack of food within the country, a border war with neighboring Vietnam, and forced government displacement of people. The forced government displacement of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge is one that is specifically highlighted in the movie, due to the horrendous pain and suffering it caused to the Cambodian people. In what the Khmer Rough called the “Year Zero” policy, the Khmer Rouge (those in control of the Cambodian government) made Cambodian’s forced laborers, relocated them into “re-education” camps, and put them into government prisons (where prisoners were shown to be executed). All this was in an effort by the Khmer Rouge to eliminate the educated and intellectual Cambodian people, so that Cambodia may return to an agrarian/peasant based economy and society. In the movie we witness Dith Pran forced to enter a re-education class, in which the Khmer Rouge would educate Cambodians to idolize the Khmer Rouge as their “protector” or “big brother” and to embrace the changes the Khmer Rouge is making to Cambodian Society. All this happened when the Khmer Rouge forced Dith Pran to be a laborer in the fields, in an effort to revitalize the Cambodian economy and society to where it became strictly agrarian. In the movie see how Pran was forced out of the capital city of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, and brought as a forced migrant into the fields of Cambodia. Earlier in the movie, Dith Pran and Sydney Schanberg were rounded up by Khmer Rouge forces and brought to a prison. There the movie depicts the execution of Cambodian civilians, who have been round up as forced migrants to the prison where they are being brutally executed by the Khmer Rouge. Throughout the movie the theme of the atrocious roundup and migration of Cambodian civilians by the Khmer Rouge government is shown to have brought much pain and suffering to the Cambodian people, with the Khmer Rouge forces showing absolutely no understanding of the value of human beings. This was best depicted when Dith Pran was escaping from the forced labor sites, and while in his escape he fell into a mass grave site that is filled with    Scene where Dith Pran falls into mass grave
thousands upon thousands of human skeletons that belonged to Cambodians that were earlier executed by the Khmer Rouge. The Killing Fields also depicts how the Khmer Rouge segregated the Cambodian people and how some Cambodian people tried to assimilate to the mold of the ideal citizen in the view of the Khmer Rouge. This is shown in the movie by how the Khmer Rouge executed the educated Cambodians while keeping the less “educated” Cambodians alive to work the fields (segregation by social class). Dith Pran, who would be considered an educated Cambodian by the Khmer Rouge, is shown to assimilate to the upheld role of the peasant by the Khmer Rouge, in order to keep from getting executed and tortured by the Communist Khmer Rouge government.

            The movie The Killing Fields is one that depicts the horrors experienced by the Cambodian people under the rule of the Communist Khmer Rouge. It depicts the plight of the Cambodian citizens as forced migrants and internally displaced people as they were either trying to avoid warfare or famine, or they were forced to labor camps, prisons, or executions sites by the Khmer Rouge governments. The film depicted the Cambodian people’s fight for survival, as shown through Dith Pran’s life under the Khmer Rouge, and the strength Cambodian’s showed while going through unimaginable suffering.

Trailer for The Killing Fields

 

 

References

Genocide - The Killing Fields Museum - Learn from Cambodia. (n.d.). The Killing Fields Museum. Retrieved October 26, 2013, from http://www.killingfieldsmuseum.com/genocide1.html

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2010). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Joffe, R. (Director). (1984). The Killing Fields [Motion picture]. United Kingdom: Warner Bros. Studios.