Felix Meritis - Europees centrum voor kunst, cultuur en wetenschap

woensdag 27 mei 2009 / Cultuur & Wetenschap

Willful Blindness

Gunnar and the Khmer Rouge

Gunnar Bergströmvisited Cambodia in August 1978. It was then called Democratic Kampuchea and had become one of the most terror filled and destructive regimes of the 20th century. As chairman of the Swedish-Kampuchean friendship association, Gunnar and three other Swedes were there as ‘eye witnesses'. They were invited especially to show the world that PolPot's vision of the perfect society was true, and to belie all reports seeping out of refugee camps and 'imperialist' media, as well as to tell that his version of communism was what the world was looking for.

Entering an otherwise closed country they dined with PolPot and subsequently the Khmer Rouge took them through a maze of propaganda and denial, while most of the population was enslaved in labour camps.

When the group returned to Sweden they continued to promote the agenda. In the national TV news as well as in printed media they continued to deny refugees' stories of prosecution, torture and genocide and told the West that this was a country of hard working, fair people living in rural bliss.

Gunnar returns now to Cambodia, after thirty years, to find a country dealing with the aftermath of genocide. During the course of his journey he is facing the human implications of what happened, and thereby examine what his own role was in the terror that engulfed the country and exterminated up to one fourth of its population.

Programme:

• Premiere of the Swedish film Gunnar and the Khmer Rouge (Sweden 2009, 30') by Julia Stanislawska and Michael Krotkiewski, co-produced by the Living History Forum, Sweden.
• Debate on how it took so many people so long to see and understand the genocide in Cambodia
• Also featuring the book Pol Pot's Smile, by Peter Fröberg Idling

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