This is a quote from a good friend of mine: “socialism is always good until you can’t practice your religion; its all fun and games until a bomb hits your home.”
I had not given capitalism or socialism much thought. We were never educated on the subject in school, I guess fear of revolution or something.
What do the Bolsheviks, Nazis, and Khmer Rouge have in common? If you had to think on it, you are not alone, the education system doesn’t talk much about this. If you said they all perpetrated genocides in the 20th century, you are right. If you are wondering why I’m bringing this up, well, this will make you reconsider socialism in a big way.
For this post I am using the Khmer term for grandmother out of respect. I was over at my friend’s house on a day in a time of the year that hadn’t decided to be winter or spring. My friend and I were just talking about things I had learned about in Bible study. My friend’s grandmother spoke up when I talked about Christ returning. She told me to come with her the minute I mentioned that even in a place such as Canada Bibles would be outlawed.
She took me to her room and started pulling out these beautiful dresses. They were in pastel purple, blue, peach, and green. She even produced a small faded photograph of herself when she was maybe twenty, and she was beautiful. I noticed flaps in these dresses that weren’t the typical slits, in fact they opened to reveal yellowed papers. When I asked her what they were she told me they were Scriptures, her normally jovial tone was replaced with heartbreak.
She went on to tell me that her family had had a good life, wealthy with lots of servants, but that in 1975 everything changed. She explained to me that she had the servants sew her favorite Scriptures in her favorite dresses so she could “keep Jesus.”
She also told me through her grandson’s translation that she had had this picture of Jesus holding the world in His hands, but the Khmer Rouge came storming in to their home, and made her watch as they cut the picture to small pieces.
I excused myself, and went to the washroom. I didn’t want to let Yea see me cry, but soon the hot angry tears flowed like a raging river. Fifteen years on since she told me those stories I still feel something I can’t quite put my finger on.
My friend is a very talented artist, and one day in April he phoned me up to tell me of something he was working on. It was the picture his grandmother was robbed of in 1975. I was really excited, and recently he presented her with this re-creation.
Gillie e
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