First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [31]
“Yes, comrade.”
“All right, you can sit down and wait while we make arrangements for your housing.” The chief spits into the dirt in front of us again and walks away. As soon as he is out of sight, the nervous crowd separates to seek out shaded areas to rest. I lie down on a mat that Ma has spread out next to Chou and fall asleep. I wake up many hours later to the sound of people whispering nearby. When my eyes focus, I see that large crowd has gathered a few feet from us and Pa disappears into it. He comes back moments later and reports that a family, a doctor from Phnom Penh with his wife and their three children, have committed suicide by swallowing poison.
Though we are all supposed to be equal, there are nonetheless three levels of citizenship in the village. The first-class citizenry comprises the chief, who has authority over the whole village, his aides, and the Khmer Rouge soldiers. They are all base people and the Khmer Rouge cadres. They have the power to teach, police, judge, and execute. They make all decisions: work details, food rations per family, severity of punishment. They are the eyes and ears of the Angkar at the local level. They report all activities to the Angkar and have full power to enforce the Angkar’s law.
Then there are the base people. If the first-class citizens are the all-powerful brutal teachers, the base people are the bullies who work closely with them. Though they are not omnipotent like the first-class citizenry, they lead almost autonomous lives away from the prying eyes of the soldiers. They live in their own houses on the other side of the village, separate from us. The base people do not eat communally or work with the new people. However, they are often seen on our side of the village, patrolling the area and telling us what to do. Many are related to the first-class citizens and keep the chief informed of our day-to-day activities.
The new people are considered the lowest in the village structure. They have no freedom of speech, and must obey the other classes. The new people are those who lived in cities and have been forced out to the villages. They cannot farm like the rural people. They are suspected of having no allegiance to the Angkar and must be kept under an ever-watchful eye for signs of rebellion. They have led corrupt lives and must be trained to be productive workers. To instill a sense of loyalty to the Angkar and break what the Khmer Rouge views as an inadequate urban work ethic, the new people are given the hardest work and the longest hours.
Even among the new people there are different classes. Those who were formally students or involved in professions such as civil service, medicine, art, or teaching are considered morally corrupt. Then it’s the ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese, and other minority groups who are considered racially corrupt. When asked about jobs in their former lives, the new people lie and claim to be poor peasants, like Pa did, or small shopkeepers. In the Khmer Rouge agrarian society, only good workers are valuable, all others are expendable. Thus, the new people must work extremely hard to prove they are worth more alive than dead. Pa says because we are different—Chinese-Cambodian—we will have to work harder than the others.
After the chief issues us our meal bowls and spoons and assigns us our hut, we have only minutes to settle down before the 6 P.M. bell rings, signaling mealtime. Gripping my wooden bowl and spoon, I run with my family to the communal kitchen. The kitchen is nothing but a long table, with no chairs or benches, and under a thatched roof with no walls. In the middle of the open hall, there are a few brick ovens and one long table but no chairs or benches. On the long table sit two pots, one full of rice and the other salted grilled fish. There are six or seven base women stirring and scooping food from the pots. A long line of new people has already formed around the table. Like us, they have all changed from their city clothing into their