From regular New Mandala reader, Maylee:

Cambodia’s first educational text book dealing with the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge has now been released throughout the country and online. Until now no Khmer Rouge history has been taught in schools. English and Khmer versions are available for download at Documentation Centre of Cambodia [link to English version]. In December 2006 the BBC reported on the release of a documentary in Cambodia called Waiting to See the Truth, a film about the Khmer Rouge. The documentary showed footage of giggling Khmer teenagers who did not believe their parents’ stories about genocide in Cambodia. It then follows the teenagers as they are taken on educational tours to visit killing fields and shown piles upon piles of skulls. While the disbelief of Cambodian teenagers is perhaps a more innocent form of ignorance than what some Cambodian scholars note as the wilful forgetting of the older generations (many were forced through fear for their lives to obey orders of the Democratic Kampuchea regime of Pol Pot), a large number of older Khmers who suffered through the atrocities still do not understand the reasons for the genocide themselves. This book therefore may not only be of use for teaching the younger generation but for finally helping the older generation come to terms with why they suffered so much.