JUN 24 JUN 30, 2011 7DAYS THE PHNOM PENH POST

Lifting the
Daniel Sherrell

First look

hijab
Cham Muslim women pictured in Phnom Penhs Chroy Changvar commune, Russey Keo district. MARISA REICHERT

NEW book, slated to be released on July 1, promises to shed light on the experiences of Muslim Cham women under the Khmer Rouge regime. Author Farina So, now 31 with an MA in International Affairs from Ohio University, first began researching the experiences of Cambodias

Cham population in 2003, working with the Documentation Centre of Cambodia. Her book, The Hijab of Cambodia: Memory of Cham Muslim Women after the Khmer Rouge, draws on material from more than 100 interviews spanning four years and many provinces. In a conversation with 7Days last week, Farina said she was inspired to write the

book after hearing her own mothers stories of being forcibly evacuated from Phnom Penh in 1975. Separated from her family, Sos mother endured years of hard labour and little food, working with a female mobile brigade. She was forbidden from practising her religion and was often compelled to break Islamic dietary law, downing meagre rations of pork soup in order

to stay alive. By the time the regime fell, she had lost her house, both her siblings and her youth. Today, Cambodias Cham population numbers around 700,000, she said, although numerical estimates of Chams killed by the Khmer Rouge vary from 100,000 to 500,000. Many Chams experienced harsh and often discriminatory treatment at the hands of the Khmer

religion, caring for their husbands and saving their children. So recalled one woman who abandoned her dying husband in search of breast milk for her starving baby. The milk she found sufficed to save the child, but when she returned to her husbands bedside he had already passed away. Another devout Cham woman, who continued her

Muslims in Cambodia are increasingly identifying with their religious identity rather than their ethnic background
Rouge, she added, and were forced to relinquish their religious practices or face death. Cham women, whose duties as wife and mother are heavily dictated by Islam, suffered acutely. Sometimes it was not possible for the Cham women to be a good wife and a good mother at the same time under the Khmer Rouge regime, said So, explaining that many Cham women were forced to choose between observing their prayers in secret under the Khmer Rouge, recalled having a vivid nightmare in which a Khmer Rouge cadre dragged her to a papaya tree and placed a sword to her neck. The womans cousin appeared suddenly and told her to allow the cadre to kill her, explaining that anyone who died in the name of Allah would be sent to heaven. When she awoke and told her husband, he ordered her to forgo her prayers for the sake of their young children,

who would be left without a caregiver were she captured. Recalling some of her challenges in writing the book, So admitted that listening to traumatic experiences and encouraging people to talk about these experiences was difficult, because it brought about the pain again, adding that sometimes [interviewees] would cry or be silent. Still, she said, understanding the ways in which Cham women reacted to Khmer Rouge policies could reveal something about their role in todays world. Muslims in Cambodia are increasingly identifying with their religious identity rather than their ethnic background, said So. New threats to Islam posed by globalisation have made the Cham population feel that if they dont maintain their religion collectively, it will be lost again one day, she said. English and Khmer editions of Sos book will be on sale at Monument Books (#111 Norodom Boulevard), costing $20 for English and $15 in Khmer.

Farina So, writer of The Hijab of Cambodia: Memory of Cham Muslim Women after the Khmer Rouge. MENG KIMLONG