Tragedy and Beauty in Tuol Sleng

By Cara Bain, Communications Design Manager

Tuol Sleng ­– a place where I saw tragedy and beauty held together most beautifully. It was previously a school building before the Khmer Rouge regime took it over and turned it into a torture prison during the genocide from 1975-1979. Now a museum, its bare rooms contain the metal frames of beds where so many were tortured and executed horrifically not that long ago. Some of the rooms are packed with tiny wooden holding cells, which held those accused to be affiliated with the CIA (seemingly everyone and anyone). After walking through those rooms and learning about their history, you’d expect anyone visiting Tuol Sleng to leave only with a realization of the ugly, brutal nature of humanity.

In another room is an exhibition of photos. Rows upon rows of portraits of each prisoner, captured beautifully at their most vulnerable moment before their inevitable torture and execution. During my first visit to the museum over a year ago, I felt compelled to stare into each and every face in those photographs. I felt I owed it to them to try to know and remember them in that way. I was overwhelmed by the realization that each was a souled being, created intricately, loved uniquely, and gifted uniquely. It was the only way I could really grasp the meaning of the genocide, the meaning of millions of lives lost. More so, it reminded me of each of the individuals we serve here in Cambodia who are alive today. The people in those portraits, whose features I studied so carefully, were dismissed as unworthy of life. But they were so loved by their Creator, enough that He lost his own life for them in a way that was just as horrific. He has not forgotten them; neither will we.

It can be so easy in our day-to-day lives to skim past faces as beautiful as the ones in those photos. It can be so easy to lump people together under the heading of their race or culture. It can be so easy to be shocked by an issue on an emotional level, but reduce those effects to statistics, or put them all into the most shocking story we’ve heard. However, when confronted by an issue, if we react only with shock and respond only based on emotion, it can be tempting to disengage after those initial feelings wear off. Worse, we can respond in ways that are not thought out, and end up using band-aid solutions to address only what is shocking rather than the underlying causes that often run much deeper.

It is only by looking past the issue to the people behind it, committing to them for an extended period of time and being attentive to them, that we discover their real needs. Only then can we begin to see each Cambodian as God sees them. For he created each person with a beautiful complexity beyond comprehension, and through His redemption we will see each strand woven together into something of immeasurable beauty.
Let us look intently to each of those we serve now, with the eyes of Him who created them, who loves each one uniquely.