Memory and Justice: www.memoryandjustice.org

Discussion of Tuol Sleng

Tuol Sleng has been instrumental in the creation of a master narrative of the past that legitimizes Cambodia’s current ruling party and projects the aura of a unified national identity. But the average, everyday Cambodian was entirely detached from the design of the museum. The involvement of Vietnam––as an invading force and historical adversary––in the creation of Tuol Sleng has instilled a sense of suspicion in many Cambodians, who often view the museum as inauthentic.

As Andreas Huyssen writes, the museum can seem to replicate the dehumanization of the Khmer Rouge, in the sense that the nameless photographs of the victims echo “the violent voiding of identity that was the torturers’ explicit goal and always preceded disappearance.” Paul Williams notes that by exhaustively detailing the Khmer Rouge’s favored torture tactics, Tuol Sleng focuses on remembering the perpetrators, not the victims.

Comment on this article

Related Site

Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocidal Crimes

References

This essay was adapted in part from this article: Moore, Lisa. “Recovering the Past, Remembering Trauma: The Politics of Commemoration at Sites of Atrocity.” Journal of Public and International Affairs, Princeton: Princeton University, Spring, 2009.

Huyssen, Andreas. Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.

Williams, Paul. “The Atrocity Exhibition: Touring Cambodian Genocide Memorials.” In On Display: New Essays in Cultural Studies, edited by A. Smith and Wevers, 197-214. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2004.