STAGE 5:
C A M B O D I A N G E N O C I D E
POLARIZATION
Devin Park and Seo Young SHIN
Khmer regime persecutes educated citizens.
Targets of the genocide
Khmer force murdered a tremendous number of people,
especially who seemed educated, such as wearing glasses or
speaking foreign language. The Khmer Rouge regime also
frequently arrested and often executed anyone suspected of
connections with the former Cambodian government or
foreign governments, as well as professionals, intellectuals,
the Buddhist monks, and ethnic minorities.
WHAT IS POLARIZATION?
Polarization: to form, or cause to form into groups
with directly opposite views
Polarization is extreme version of classification.
People are divided into two groups and they had to be
one side or the other.
Extremists drive the two groups involved in the
genocide apart. The ‘us versus them’ attitude is
emphasized and a new view is formed, ‘if you are not
with us, you are against us’ – hate groups may
broadcast polarizing propaganda, laws may forbid
intermarriage or social interaction between groups,
etc. Moderates are denounced as traitors and are
persecuted. Some are even killed.  than 1.7 million people were murdered by the regime.
The Khmer regime built concentration camps, and they even
forced children to work and labor.
The Cambodian Genocide refers to the attempt of
Khmer Rouge party leader Pol Pot to nationalize
and centralize the peasant farming society of
Cambodia virtually overnight, in accordance with
the Chinese Communist agricultural model.
WHAT HAPPENED DURING POLARIZATION?
During this process of genocide, Khmer forced
citizens to move to the farm, and cultivate since
Khmer wanted to build an "ideal communist world."
Khmer built a number of concentration camps for the
people who did not produce enough crops that
Khmer required.  Those suspected of having
revolutionary ideas or rebellious subject, those
involved in foreign countries, and those suspected of
being spies were tortured and executed.
The Khmer regime persecuted and executed
Vietnamese, Chinese, Cham Muslims, and other
religious minority groups during the genocide. More