Clown Trips: Cambodia, 2003
Attempts at a Political Analysis
Why? Why did genocide happen to/in Cambodia?
This question 'why' arises strongly if you're thinking while you're in Cambodia. The people seem especially unwarlike. The history is horrible. These last two statements, put together, don't make sense. The explanations for the 'why' constantly point to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and very rarely mention the US or other countries.
I don't trust the question why. Why? (ahem...errr, whoops, walked into my own trap). Herbert Brun was more interested in the results of the question 'when' than in 'why.' 'Why' is answered by means of 'because'; 'when' is answered in terms of specifying conditions. Not 'why was there genocide,' but 'when does genocide happen'?
If it was Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge who killed all the people, then under what conditions could this have happened?
When does genocide happen? Under which conditions?
Wilhelm Reich, in his book The Mass Psychology of Fascism, proposes that an analysis of a problem needs to contain (in its language and logic) a way OUT of the problem. (And he tries to tackle his own mandate in that book. It's really something).
Visiting Cambodia, hearing how people talked about the terrible situation in the past, I was reminded of my previous year's visit to Israel/Palestine and, earlier, to Serbia/Croatia. In all three visits, I had been with a humanitarian clowning troupe of very good-hearted, intelligent people. Yet I noticed that we all accepted what I now call the 'evil leader/feuding groups' analysis/pattern.
About all three countries, there is one pattern to what is said by the mass media, and thus, by most people:
(the following is NOT what I say, but what I've heard said):
What's said #1
"In all three countries (Yugoslavia, Israel/Palestine, Cambodia) the trouble is internal, factions fighting with one another, with a long previous history that's terribly complicated." (kind of like a political version of the medical worlds phrase: 'pre-existing conditions').
What's said #2
"There is an evil man at the center of it, whose behavior can not be explained in any other way except to say he is an evil monster." (this is not said with Israel/Palestine, but certainly with Milosevich in Yugoslavia, and Pol Pot in Cambodia).
What's said #3 (or actually, what is NOT said)
"While we're aware that the US, NATO, and transnationals wield a huge amount of bullying power in the world, they have played a minor role in the murderous conflicts in these countries. In the case of Yugoslavia, we were actually helping out those barbarous people.
I look at those two things that are said, and connect them to the last thing, unsaid. I maintain that things said #1 and #2 are said as plausibilities, to prevent people from investigating the role of US, NATO, transnationals. Things #1 and #2 are "cover stories."
Does the evil man/feuding groups analysis enable us to NOT repeat the situation in Cambodia, Yugoslavia, and the continued situation in Palestine/Israel? What do we learn from such an analysis and its language? Never to allow evil men to be leaders? Hmm, I don't know if it's just me, but looking at the current constituency of world leadership, umm...err...
In Michael Parenti's book on Yugoslavia, he points out that up till 1990, Yugoslavia was a thriving socialist country where all the so-called feuding groups lived relatively peaceably with one another. So why did the groups start feuding after 1990? He asserts that US/European interests wanted to destroy and divide socialist Yugoslavia, and accomplished that by initially seeding the feuds, arming the bullies, and inflaming the situation. Then US media bombarded the world with the evil man/feuding groups language, as a cover story that all the believers, I mean readers, would accept.
'Cover story' is, I think, short for the words 'cover-up' story. A cover-up story is constructed to be so plausible that people believe they've understand what's going on and thus don't need to question further. There's a look of satisfied understanding, a kind of "OK, I get it, you don't need to go any further." Thus what's actually going on isn't looked for or at. Cover-up stories have to be plausible and believable. Herbert Brun wrote an article called Against Plausibility, pointing out the power of plausibility in preventing people from experiencing music composed under experimental conditions.
Joshua Meyrowitz, a media whistle blower/Amherst professor of media studies and friendly guy I met while stumping for Kucinich, writes, "Historically, US administrations have decided on military actions they wanted to take, and then invented the stories that the Congress and the public needed to believe to support the actions."
The stories that people need to believe to support the actions.
Isn't the evil man/feuding groups a story we need to believe? It's a plausible cover up that enables us to remain ignorant of the whenwhen, under what conditions, does a country become genocidal?
Wilhelm Reich, Herbert Brunhelp. And anyone else out there help. What could be an analysis of this problem that can lead us to solve it, not repeat it? I'm not particularly looking for references for more books to read, but for ideas and formulations that you may have. Write us at the Gesundheit Institute.
