Introduction
The people of Cambodia were subjected to widespread forced migration and labor, disease, starvation, torture, murder, and genocide over four years during the control of the country by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Brian Fawcett captures the happenings of that era in the book “Cambodia,” which he describes as “an essay, a short story, a novella, a harangue, a poem, a rant–whatever is dictated by the necessities of my subject matter.” In this essay, I seek to compare the events of that time with the current actions of the elite groups in North America today. Fawcett says, “That puts me in the jungle, as an insurgent and a guerrilla” (Fawcett 61). The statement imitates his jeremiad against capitalism and the technology of mass communications as the destroyer of memory, imagination, and civilization. Fawcett shows a repetition of the practices of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s to the current actions by the elite groups in North America.
Discussion
An extremely well-educated guy, Fawcett has declared war on what he repeatedly refers to as the “Global Village”—the limitless realm of Western free market economy that employs widespread communication networks to destroy human thinking and personality and replace it with “establishment industrialism” (Fawcett 46). Fawcett registers his preoccupation with the Cambodian people’s sufferings at the Khmer Rouge’s hands. Quite surprisingly, Fawcett views the Cambodian genocide as an excellent embodiment of the absolute evil of modern society. He considers Cambodia to have endured the effects of. “Global Village” by stating, “I’m going to argue that Cambodia is the subtext of the Global Village and that the Global Village has had its purest apotheosis yet in Cambodia” (Fawcett 54). The proclamation clearly describes a man who is fixated on the devastation of the Cambodian people due to the Khmer Rouge.
Additionally, Fawcett believes that modern-day capitalists intentionally exploit humanity to their benefit. “The Disneyfied Platonists of the Global Village,” he maintains, “are determined to lead us back to Eden” (Fawcett 172). He continues, “They are planning to do it by humiliating consciousness and destroying memory. That’s what the Khmer Rouge- admittedly by much more crude and violent methods- also attempted to do.” (Fawcett, 173). Fawcett uses his descriptions to expose America’s political and social reach while condemning the country’s predisposition to dominate and control other cultures to fit a particular way of life through satire. He indicates that even though American wars in Vietnam and Nicaragua and the frigid conflict with/against Eastern Europe have bombed militarily, those societies will ultimately be overthrown through the use of Chuck E. Cheese pizza and Lee’s Press-On Nails. He refers to the traders who engage in commodification as the “Disneyfied Platonists of the Global Village” (Fawcett 142). Those swiftly absorb every element of world culture that deviates from the Western norm using astute deal-making and media savvy.
Premised on an odd typographical trick, Fawcett’s book makes perfect sense. Even though there are 13 short pieces collected here, the book’s heart is a long, untitled paper that appears along the bottom third of each page, almost like a single book-length commentary. To “make the subtext of this novel plain and exacting,” the author says, is his discretion (Fawcett 147). Therefore, the essence of “Cambodia” lies in its “subtext,” a wise, positively informed, and provocative analysis of the connections between imperialist atrocities. He provides examples of the atrocities in the Belgian Congo, the subsequent acts of destruction committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the current crimes against humanity typified by “the Global Village.”
If the collected stories are occasionally angled, the “subtext” is open and stated: In the words of Fawcett, “Khmer Rouge barbarism… began to obliterate the identities of Cambodians in the name of efficiency, simplicity, and purity, empty of all but cold ideology and the lethal bureaucracy that accompanied it” (Fawcett 58). In addition, he added, “I would like you, my readers, to consider that the Global Tillage is doing the same thing to us, less directly and violently” (Fawcett 63). Fawcett takes us back to history and likens the imperialist actions in the 1970s to the modern evils propagated through globalization but in a hidden and violent style.
Furthermore, Fawcett is inclined to display his entire global by bringing an ethical perspective. He establishes this view on the common or local problems, such as the strong and effective exploitation of many nations, which end in a catastrophe. In the lengthy essay about Cambodia, Fawcett reveals his primary concern. It consumes roughly 33% of each page while serving as a continuous commentary beneath several expositions, making it a book-length work because other sections begin and stop above it. Fawcett saw Cambodia’s catastrophe as the “apotheosis of the Global Village” and a violent undercurrent of Western Civilization (Fawcett 87). He challenges the readers to take ownership of the carnage in the nations where we now reside, where elite cultural terrorists have taken control. It is important to remember that the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot’s followers murdered nearly two million people between 1976 and 1979 to revert the country to an agrarian society. The rulers considered that those with Western ancestry would not have existed without earlier systems of cultural destruction brought about by American, Chinese, and Soviet imperialism.
Fawcett urges the reader to interpret the extermination of the Cambodian people and the separation of knowledgeable people in the West as equal marvels or, more appropriately, as signs of the same miracle. His persuasive arguments did not entirely convince me, and Fawcett’s pleading to be recognized as an abuse survivor did not inspire me. Nevertheless, Fawcett’s outspoken anger on the subject of our pathetic civilization is incredibly convincing. He asserts, “Memory is not yet a crime for North Americans living in the 1980s, and imagination, especially if it has some business panache, is often applauded” (Fawcett 10). Both are evolving into political actions in a culture that aims to make people’s memories and imaginations irrelevant. He concludes his opus with a startling appeal for an attack on the Global Village and some attempts at self-liberation through acts of memory and imagination.
Conclusion
In summary, Fawcett shows that the practices of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s are somehow being repeated or mirrored by elite groups in North America today. He uses various analogies, including McLuhan’s metaphor of the “Global Village,” to make clear how the term is recently being misused. He implores his education and knowledge to fight the concept of the “Global Village” that he considers modern-day capitalism intended to exploit humanity to benefit a few elitists. Fawcett adopts the style of the short pieces in writing where he employs subtexts to connect the atrocities committed by imperialism in the past regimes in Belgian Congo and Cambodia to the crimes against humanity typified by the “Global Village.” He describes the situation as unethical and a violent undercurrent of Western Civilization.
Work Cited
Fawcett, Brian. Cambodia: A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow. Collier Books, 1989