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The Khmer Rouge drew up a constitution for their new "democratic" Cambodia. Article twenty of the constitution said that any Cambodian had the right to worship according to any religion, and Cambodians had the right not to worship according to any religion. But any religion that was "wrong" and "detrimental" to Cambodia was absolutely forbidden. That is what chairman Mao, whose teachings the Khmer Rouges followed to their most barbaric extremes, might have called a "contradiction". Most Cambodians are buddhists, and Buddhism inspires the gentle, the passive, and venerates harmony with other human beings and their land, and not mastery over them. The Khmer Rouges set out to wipe out this tradition almost overnight. (it) |
