In nations that have a long history, modern history tends to operate like a box covered by a sheet. History tends to repeat itself and the box represents the reenactment of history while the sheet that covers it represents an ideology or religion that the reenactment is apparently done in the name of.
We have already seen examples of this in the Middle East. The militias near Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah, are actually reenactments of the medieval orders of knights that protected Christian pilgrims and tried to liberate the Holy Land from Moslems, although the sheet that covers them is Islam.
The barbarity of ISIS, although under the sheet of Islam, is actually a reenactment of ancient Assyria, which was known for it's barbarity. The territory of ISIS was approximately the same as that once held by Assyria and ISIS was proclaimed in Mosul, which was once the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. We saw in "Babylon Strikes Back" how the Iran-Iraq War was a reenactment of the ancient conflict between Babylon and Persia, but under the sheets of Iran's Islamic Revolution and Iraq's Arab socialist nationalism.
What we will see today is another example of this sheet theory, in the Far East. From 1975-1979, Cambodia was ruled by what is known as the Khmer Rouge. This was a group that wanted to turn Cambodia into a rural rice-growing society that practiced pure communism. Unlike in other Communist countries, there would be no intermediate steps to this state of pure communism.
The entire population of Cambodia was forced into camps in the countryside, where they were put to work growing rice. There was no religion, no individualism and, no private property. People had to dine in communal groups with their neighbors.
Anyone suspected of not fitting in with the new order were simply killed. Up to a quarter of the country's population were either killed or died as a result. So many people were executed that, to save bullets, execution was usually done by impact to the head from a tool like a hammer or axe. The dead were buried in what became known as the "Killing Fields".
But Communism was a sheet. What this really was is an attempt to reenact the glory of the Khmer Empire, and it's great city of Angkor, a thousand years before. The city of Angkor revolved around the temple known as Angkor Wat, which is today considered as the largest religious monument in the world. During the rule of the Khmer Rouge the country was renamed "Kampuchea ", which comes from the name that the Khmer Empire called itself.
The flag of Kampuchea had the outline of Angkor Wat in the center, as does the flag of Cambodia today. The following image is the flag of Kampuchea, from the Wikipedia article "Flag of Cambodia".
The Khmer Rouge leadership called itself "Angkar" and the goal of a rice-growing society was based on the great city of Angkor having also revolved around growing rice. Like the city of Angkor, the Khmer Rouge planned irrigation to facilitate year-round rice growing, in order to get around the dependence on seasonal rains.
The great city of Angkor had been abandoned, around the time that the present capital of Phnom Penh was founded, and it is not certain why. Angkor Wat had originally been built as a Hindu temple, but the country moved toward Buddhism and Phnom Penh was built where some Buddhist icons had been found. It could be that the Hindu city had to be abandoned so that Buddhism could take over, although Angkor Wat was later remodeled as a Buddhist temple.
But Angkor had been Hindu at it's height, so that the coming of Buddhism could be said to represent it's decline. This is reflected in the Khmer Rouge retaliating by abandoning the Buddhist city, Phnom Penh, that had supplanted Angkor. The Khmer Rouge was very hostile to Buddhism, probably thousands of monks were killed, although Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, had once been a monk himself. It is also reflected in the Khmer Rouge seeking purification, by killing, anyone who was educated or spoke French, or even wore eyeglasses.
The nation of Kampuchea had border clashes with all three countries that bordered it, most notably Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge was all about restoring the glory of the Khmer Empire and these clashes reflected their desire to regain lost territories. The following image, from the Wikipedia article "Khmer Empire", shows the vast territory of the empire at it's height, centered around the city of Angkor.
The following image, from the Wikipedia article "Khmer Nationalism", shows modern Cambodia with the areas that the Khmer feel that they have a claim to.
It was border clashes with Vietnam that ultimately brought about the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge, and the end of Kampuchea. The Khmer Rouge wanted the southern part of Vietnam back, that had once belonged to the Khmer Empire.
Certainly there were outside influences on the Khmer Rouge, starting with the French Revolution. Cambodia had been a French colony and many top figures of the Khmer Rouge had spent time in France. Pol Pot had gotten married on Bastille Day and had declared time as starting over when the Khmer Rouge came to power, designating it as "Year Zero". In the style of the French revolutionaries, Pol Pot planned a ten day workweek. Pol Pot spent quite a bit of time in China and this was during the era of the Cultural Revolution and the "Great Leap Forward".
But where could the idea have come from to slaughter thousands upon thousands of their own people, just because they didn't fit in to their version of how society should be? A mostly forgotten part of recent history is the slaughter of Communists in neighboring Indonesia, in the mid-1960s. Many thousands of people were killed, anyone even suspected of having Communist sympathies. The Khmer Rouge could have been retaliating, a decade later, and similarly massacring anyone opposed, or just not fitting into, their version of Communism.
Yet Communism, to the Khmer Rouge, was just a sheet. This could just as easily have been done in the name of any other ideology. The nations of Southeast Asia were all Communist. But their common ideology didn't stop them from going to war with each other. These nations with long histories were reenacting those histories and just needed an ideology or religion to do the reenactment in the name of, and that is what the sheet is.
Angkor Wat, the great temple that is represented on the Cambodian flag, is an ideal example of what we saw in "The Binding Power Of Stone Monuments And Walls". Here is a link to it.
www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-binding-power-of-stone-monuments.html?m=0
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