[Buddha-l] Was Mr. Pol Pot a Buddhist?

[Dan Lusthaus]

See
http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/Cambodia_09_06_xx_Buddhism_Under_Pol_Pot.doc

which begins:

Buddhism Under Pol Pot



Ian Harris, Documentation Center of Cambodia



June 2009



This pioneering study of the fate of Buddhist monks and their pagodas during 
the communist period in Cambodia is based on the analysis of interview 
transcripts and a large body of contemporary manuscript material, much of 
which is held at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, Phnom Penh [DC Cam]. 
It represents the first sustained attempt to cross-examine the widely- held 
assumption that Angkar, the revolutionary organization (angkar padevat) at 
the heart of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, had a centralized plan to 
liquidate the entire monastic order (sangha) during the Democratic Kampuchea 
period.



While not seeking in any way to minimize the horrific monastic death toll 
and collateral damage to Buddhist spiritual, intellectual and material 
culture the book indicates that while compelling evidence exists to suggest 
that senior Khmer Rouge leaders were determined to track down and "smash" 
senior members of the pre-1975 ecclesiastical hierarchy, structural reasons 
related to the economy of Theravada sangha also made it difficult for 
institutional Buddhism to survive conditions in which the lay population 
were strongly discouraged from providing its necessary material support.



The very rapid diminution in sangha membership and vigour from the beginning 
of the communist insurgency in 1970 to its almost complete annihilation by 
the end of 1977 was the consequence of a number of factors - militant 
anti-clericalism among some high-ranking cadre, the effects of high levels 
of coercion in the population as a whole, mind-numbing levels of economic 
mismanagement, the impact of war, famine and disease, plus the traditionally 
fragile relationship between Buddhist ecclesiastics and their lay 
supporters. For these reasons the author expresses some uncertainty over 
whether there was a centralized plan for the complete suppression of 
religion, and asks whether the perfectly understandable desire to find 
someone to blame for the horrific state of affairs that pertained at the end 
of the decisively failed Democratic Kampuchea experiment is likely to be 
successful given our present understanding of the evidence...



---

Makes Artur's question mark quasi-obscene. Clearly illustrates what I 
observed previously:



"...to invent a false parity in the service of removing taint from the 
Muslim actions ... It is completely typical of this sentiment that the 
belief/hope that evidence of such misbehavior WILL be found long precedes 
finding any, so that any scrap or morsel that can be construed as supporting 
evidence will have to do until the real thing comes along -- expecting it 
will. But why presume that in the first place?"



Scrapping the bottom of the barrel now.



Dan