S 21

Prison, last stop before the killing field at chaoeng ek

And that was today...spent on the killing field and in the prison preceding it...not an ordinary day then; brain swirling slightly from it all, that template of the last century; the revolutionary terror, genocide. And still bones surface and rags remain, a vicious and dislocated place this; a wound and a stain upon us.

And I think of the brass plates across Germany and Austria, another terror, another genocide...and two things accosted me, firstly w.h. Auden and his poem musee design beaux arts...the executioners horse scratches it's bottom upon a tree...the other the mundanity of evil...how a concrete school block transformed into a prison is the symbol here; how society dismantles itself, minorities rule...and nature reclaims the sites of our wayward histories until...

Well. It's that kind of blip I'm afraid...

Today I learned that even after his overthrow pol pot and the khmer rouge were recognised by most of the west as the legitimate government of Cambodia, even after genocide: it's not an area I know much about but...fear of communism? Vietnamese hoodoo? The future of Uruguay? The predators of capitalism afraid of any other possible path? No matter here. Millions died and, once again, without some necessary gain, the West stood by: war only for profit I guess.

And the blip? An empty bench. It seemed appropriate... barred windows and behind the photo's of some of those who died here. Absence.

Other than that I think I like phnom penn, it has a weird vibe, is architecturally pretty cool, the bits I've seen...it appears to have something...it is, however, bloody expensive although soup rice and two beers (that kind of day) for three dollars. A place to be wary of i think but, at present, none the worse for that...and so another couple of days I think...