What's up with the smart-

shaming?
We ostracize those who think outside the box and say, 'Ikaw na ang
magaling!'

Shakira Sison
@shakirasison
Published 8:14 AM, October 15, 2015
Updated 6:08 PM, October 15, 2015

"Sige na, matalino ka na." ("Fine, you're the smart one.")

Heard this before? It's a common response to an original thought in the middle
of a typical conversation. All of a sudden, what was supposed to be a casual
exchange of ideas is halted, where one person puts up a figurative hand that
signals, "No more thinking."

Instead of engaging a person who has something interesting to say, their

ideas are perceived as a threat, as if the person were hurling insults instead of
stating facts. The offended party feels that the person with a unique thought is
making them feel stupid, so if the conversation goes on, they will even say:

"Bobo na ako, sige na." ("So I'm the idiot, okay?")

Why is a meaningful conversation suddenly considered offensive? Why are

some people slighted when they don't understand or are unfamiliar with the
topic at hand?
Why is it that when we encounter atypical opinions or articles that question the
status quo, its comments frequently contain comments that the author is
elitist, over-educated, or too analytical?

Why do we mock critical thought?

Why do we say, "Ang dami mong alam! (You're a know-it-all!)" when we hear
someone share a deep thought or provocative question? Why not engage the
person and learn? Why do we avoid discussions that require us to think, do
our own research, or question beliefs we've long held?

Why do we say, "Nosebleed!" when we hear someone speaking English?

Even if English is considered a status symbol, it is still taught in all three levels
of education. Why we are proud of our difficulty in understanding or speaking
it? Why not just ask the other person to speak Filipino if they can? Why not
learn the language if we want to be better at it?

The rise of anti-intellectualism

Anti-intellectualism is defined as the hostility and mistrust of intellectual

pursuits. Those who present an atypical way of thinking
are othered (perceived as different), deemed a danger to normality, and are
considered outsiders with little empathy for the rest of the population. This is
the origin of the idea that those who have alternative opinions or are part of a
counterculture are elitist, arrogant, matapobre (anti-poor) and aloof.

There is a growing trend of shaming those who take the time to learn more
and share their knowledge with others. As if intelligence is now a liability and
scratching beneath the surface is a negative, invalidating ideas that go against
the grain seems to be more common than being intrigued enough to look
further. We ostracize those who think outside the box and say, "Ikaw na ang
magaling!" ("Aren't you the great one?")

Instead of mocking someone for using a word we don't know or for asking a
question we never thought of, why not look up concepts that are foreign to us,
instead of dismissing them as unnecessary and saying, "Wow, deep!" Why
not ask about a new concept that leaves us stumped instead of mocking its
origin or sarcastically saying, "Eh di wow!"

No limit to information
Regardless of one's financial background, there is no better time than the
present to learn about any topic or skill. With free and open access to
unlimited information online, there is hardly any excuse to remain complacent
about knowledge. But instead this time is spent on putting down the person
who is actually curious enough to learn.

I understand the lack of hope that furthering one's knowledge will actually lead
anywhere. It is easy to accept that only the powerful have access to the
wisdom of the world and that it's better to not want more than what is
attainable.

But that would be acting as if only the elite have the right to speak, think,
discuss, question, or use a foreign tongue. This kind of thinking relegates
those who perceive their social status as lower to a state of apathy and
complacency. It conditions them to believe that the use of the English
language, critical thought, and intellectual discussions are only for those who
are rich. How scary is that?

Dangerous sentiment

It's a dangerous sentiment to leave the thinking and philosophizing to those

who have economic power. It's detrimental to society to be complacent in our
contentment and to think that resisting, protesting, or even questioning long-
held beliefs and rules is not every person's duty.

Instead we say, "Oo na, edukada ka na!" (Fine! You're the educated one!)," as
if speaking wisely were the same as showing off, that those who do have
unconventional ideas only seek to rub it in other people's faces, and that
education is the enemy, instead of the savior.
In history, anti-intellectualism has been used as a tool by extreme
dictatorships to establish themselves and to paint educated people as a threat
because they question social norms and question established opinion. In the
1970s, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge executed civilians with more than an
elementary education, particularly those who wore glasses because it
suggested literacy.

Locally, the rounding up of thinkers and those who presented alternative ideas
was done en masse during martial law – a common practice in authoritarian
political movements where intellectuals are deemed unpatriotic and
subversive and must be removed.

The sentiment that to be wise, curious, and analytical is somehow elitist and
harmful causes entire populations to become easy to lead. When intelligence
is considered shameful, it favors a blind follower's mindset where being part of
a pack that doesn't question motives is preferred.

Intellectual freedom is scary

Freedom - especially intellectual freedom - is scary. Those who are frustrated

in democracies like ours may find that it is easier to be told what to think and
feel and do, instead of deliberating within ourselves who our leaders should
be and what we want for our nation.

It is easy to think that any kind of intelligent discourse is elitist and

unnecessary so we won't have to question things we might blindly adhere to,
lest we determine that the truths we hold on to are false.

If not for the thinkers - those who are in a state of constant curiosity, the
seeking of knowledge, information, and answers - we would not be here. All of
our heroes, from Ninoy to Rizal, were men who loved books and sought
knowledge. They were both ostracized and killed for their thoughts. In both
instances these great thinkers were murdered by those who are only too
happy when majority of the population views intelligence as a fault.

Foster curiosity, don't discourage it

When independent thought is extinguished, we are much easier to lead as a

pack and we are quick to follow a leader we trust knows better, but may not
have our best interests in mind.
Aside from fostering our own curiosity, we need to expect more from our
children. We need to teach them to always be inquisitive, and to not be
satisfied until they come up with answers of their own. Don't allow them to
believe that things are so "just because." Don't stop their search for answers
by saying, "Basta, ang kulit mo ha." (That's it, you're annoying.), but instead
find the answers with them. Be excited to learn as well.

Children follow what they see, and if they notice you are threatened by
knowledge or discouraged to learn, they will feel the same way and not seek it
for themselves.

Let's quit the smart-shaming and instead encourage intelligent conversation. If

it makes us insecure to be unfamiliar with topics and concepts, remember that
it's as easy looking them up online and asking questions to enlighten
ourselves, instead of believing that knowledge is this scary thing meant for
other people. It truly is there for everyone's taking.

Thomas Edison once said, "Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the

first necessity of progress." If we are always content with what we are given
and refuse to ask questions - and if we condemn those who actually do - then
we accept our step backward while everyone else leaves us behind. Our
failure then becomes no one's fault but our own. – Rappler.com

Shakira Sison
RAPPLER CONTRIBUTOR

Shakira Andrea Sison is a two-time Palanca-winning essayist. She currently works in finance and
spends her non-working hours writing stories in subway trains. She is a veterinarian by education
and was managing a retail corporation in Manila before relocating to New York in 2002
Filed under:Khmer RougeMartial LawThomas Edisonanti-
intellectualismconversationscounterculturesmart-shamingShakira Sison

ASIA PACIFIC

Fighting the Khmer

Rouge, 40 years later
A powerful documentary about a family unravelling memories of the bloody
Khmer Rouge regime commemorates 4 decades since one of the grimmest
moments in world history

Johanna Son
Published 11:30 AM, July 12, 2015
Updated 2:11 PM, July 12, 2015

BANGKOK, Thailand – The madness of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge has been

the subject of many a documentary, but this year’s 40th anniversary of the
genocidal group’s entry into Phnom Penh was reason enough to watch a
screening of one film here – and be touched by its stark honesty, its deft
control of emotion, and well, elegance.

REMEMBERING. Photos by French photographer Roland Neveu in April 1975 mark the Khmer
Rouge anniversary at a Bangkok exihibit. Photos courtesy of Johanna Son

"Hope" and "closure" are not always words that come to mind when
discussing a film about the Khmer Rouge, whose bloody, fanatical rule from
1975 to 1979 resulted in the deaths of more than two million people from
starvation, disease, torture and executions.
But these two do come together, despite the pain of memories, in Cambodia
After Farewell, a well-acclaimed, 100-minute documentary by French
Cambodian director Iv Charbonneau-Ching and Jeremy Knittel (Ana Films,
Strasbourg) that was screened here recently to mark 4 decades since the
Khmer Rouge took control of the Southeast Asian country to put in place the
purest form of communism and the ideal agrarian society.

The documentary follows the journey back to Cambodia – and into the past –
of the family of Iv Charbonneau-Ching, with his mother and aunt, as they
reconstruct, piece by piece, what happened to the family members they lost to
the Khmer Rouge.

Iv lost two uncles who, like many students and intellectuals, had believed in
the lofty-sounding ideals of the group. These uncles had left the safety of
France – where they and their siblings, including Iv’s mother and aunt, had
been sent to as Cambodia was in turmoil – to return to a "new" country that
soon turned against them as well.

“As a kid... I had questions I didn't even dare to ask (my mother and relatives
about what happened in Cambodia),” he said in reply to this writer’s question
after the screening at the Alliance Francaise.

The Bangkok-based director spoke haltingly as his voice broke a bit, then half-
chuckled at himself: “I tried to talk with them, gradually. I had some fragments
(of what happened). And I wondered, do I have the right to ask these
questions?”

Many of these questions he – and his family – confronted, finally, in 2012.

They flew to Phnom Penh, a bustling city today that is a far cry from the bleak,
deserted one it was just before the victorious Khmer Rouge took it on April 17,
1975.
PAINFUL MEMORIES. An exhibit inside the Tuol Sleng prison

Over a 3-week journey, which Iv’s team filmed, he, his mother and aunt’s trip
back in time yielded a mix of pain, happiness over finding a cousin and newly
discovered relatives, and acceptance.

In terms of storytelling, the storyline of a family’s story of loss was a strong

one; even a sure crowd drawer.

Filmwise, it was a risk. Films around war, tragedy, human rights violations,
and death are rich with drama, at times becoming a quicksand for many first-
person stories to sink in. An overdose of drama, when the storytellers are part
of the story, can kill the way a story is told.

But Cambodia, After Farewell fares quite well as a documentary that is both

very private and very public.

It is very "micro," vicarious in making the audience look forward to – as well as

fear – the results of Iv’s mother and aunt’s efforts to trace the circumstances,
before and after the disappearances of their brothers, through places they had
been in and through people who were with them or had met them, including
Tuol Sleng survivor Bou Meng.

Iv’s uncles were also sent to the school-turned-prison called S-21. (Recalling
the insanity they all lived with, Meng said while he was painting portraits of
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, he learned that his wife had been brought to the
"Killing Fields," or the mass execution grounds.)

Yet Cambodia, After Farewell is also a very "macro" story, one that binds too
many Cambodians together in having had an abnormal proximity to loss.

Indeed, many families like Iv’s live with the scars of the Khmer Rouge years
and continue to wage their own wars, 4 decades later.

Their own ways of finding closure continues against the backdrop of the
Khmer Rouge trials, which continue on its 9th year.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) has secured

the convictions of crimes against humanity against 3 senior Khmer Rouge
leaders – Kaing Guek Eav, the commandant of the Tuol Sleng extermination
centee; former head of state Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, known as Brother
Number Two or right-hand man of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

Former foreign minister Ieng Sary and the military chief Ta Mok died in prison
before their cases could be heard.

“To me, it was like the original crime,” Iv said of the Khmer Rouge victory,
speaking in French-accented English.

At the same time, he says, Cambodia’s violent decades were not only about
the Khmer Rouge and its coming to power was the result of a chain of other
events, including abuses by forces on the other side of the political fence.

“We have to commemorate it, but we shouldn’t forget the years before – the
civil war, the (US-backed) Lon Nol regime that was absolutely extremely
barbarian actually, the genocide against the Vietnamese minority, the
brutalization of the Khmer people. They awakened the hatred between the
urban people and the rural people.”

He continued, “When the Khmer Rouge arrived, the country was already
totally destroyed – and we shouldn’t forget that. But undoubtedly, the Khmer
Rouge committed crimes against humanity – unfortunately they were so very
incompetent to rule the country.”

Today, the ECCC is going after senior Khmer Rouge leaders but “I hope we
don’t forget the other ones, even the ones who preceded the Khmer Rouge,
and those who came after,” he added.

Asked if the trial helps him and his family cope with the past, Iv said: “It’s
impossible to judge [just] those few people, and they are not the only ones.”
Looking back at the process of making the documentary, Iv says that while he
had several trips to Cambodia to prepare for it, he was unsure about what
exactly would happen during the actual visit with his relatives.

“We knew something would happen from this work of memory, but we didn’t
know what.”

“In some ways, it’s like a road movie. We meet people and these people give
fragments of the memory,” he explained.

The more they went into other villages in search of accounts about their
relatives, the more his aunt and mother rebuilt their family’s story.

“At the beginning, they arrived like strangers in Cambodia; they don’t
remember any of the streets but little by little, they reappropriate their country
and become more and more active in the memory work, and I fade away,” he
pointed out.

“If you decide to do memory work, you have to ask why you make it. If it’s only
to look at dead people and torture yourself, I’m not sure you should do it,” Iv
added.

“But in case, this work led us to build new ties with our country, with a new
family.”

“During the 20 days, I didn’t have time to think. But after, when we were
editing the movie, I did get to understand why I did it, why I wanted to do it,” Iv
mused.

After the documentary peels off layer after layer of his family’s story and lays
bare all their fears, their painfully answered as well as still-unanswered
questions, Iv finally speaks toward the film’s end to say that it was “my way to
fight back at what the Khmer Rouge tried to do to my family."

His family was broken, but it has also made been whole again.
– Rappler.com

Johanna Son, a journalist based in Bangkok, Thailand for 16 years, follows

regional affairs. She is also director of IPS Asia-Pacific media organization.
Subscribe to The Daily wRap

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RAPPLER TALK

Shakira Sison: The

courage to write
Palanca Award winning writer Shakira Sison talks to Rappler about the
challenges and pain of writing.

Rappler.com
Published 11:59 AM, September 07, 2013
Updated 11:59 AM, September 07, 2013
MANILA, Philippines - Palanca Award winning writer Shakira Sison talks to
Rappler about the challenges and pain of writing. Sison won first place in
essay for her story about her father, The Krakauer Table. In an interview with Rappler,
Sison says, "I guess they [the judges] felt it was a sincere voice. If you read the essay it's very
heartwarming, but it's not an entirely positive view of my father. I guess the judges sensed that kind
of truth."

Watch the interview below.

Shakira Andrea Sison currently works in the financial industry. She is a

veterinarian by education and was working towards an MBA while managing a
70-store retail corporation in Manila, Philippines before relocating to New York
in 2002.

She is in the US Library of Congress’ List of 100 Filipina Poets for her work as
a fellow at the University of The Philippines National Writers Workshop. In
2000, she was included in the University of the Philippines Creative Writing
Center’sWriters of the New Century.

Her work appeared in the San Franciso-published book Babaylan: An

Anthology of Filipina and Filipina-American Writers, and several broadsheets,
magazines and online publications in the Philippines. Sison is also the creator,
web developer, and editor of the workplace resource Cubiclue.

Sison is a prolific writer on LGBT issues and the Filipino diaspora. She also