Back السنة صفر (مفهوم سياسي) Arabic Sıfır ili Azerbaijani Año Cero (noción política) Spanish سال صفر (مفهوم سیاسی) Persian Нулевой год (политика) Russian Nulta godina (Kambodža) Serbo-Croatian Năm 0 (chính trị) Vietnamese 零年 (红色高棉) Chinese
Year Zero (Khmer: ឆ្នាំសូន្យ, Chhnăm Sony [cʰnam soːn]) is an idea put into practice by Pol Pot in Democratic Kampuchea that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded and that a new revolutionary culture must replace it starting from scratch. In this sense, all of the history of a nation or a people before Year Zero would be largely deemed irrelevant, because it would ideally be purged and replaced from the ground up.
The new rulers of Cambodia call 1975 "Year Zero", the dawn of an age in which there will be no families, no sentiment, no expressions of love or grief, no medicines, no hospitals, no schools, no books, no learning, no holidays, no music, no song, no post, no money – only work and death.
The first day of "Year Zero" was declared by the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975 upon their takeover of Cambodia in order to signify a rebirth of Cambodian history.[2][better source needed] Adopting the term as an analogy to the "Year One" of the French Revolutionary Calendar,[3][better source needed] Year Zero was effectually an attempt by the Khmer Rouge to erase history and reset Cambodian society, removing any vestiges of the past.
- ^ "Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia".
- ^ Hays, Jeffrey. "KHMER ROUGE YEAR ZERO: THE EMPTYING OF PHNOM PENH | Facts and Details". factsanddetails.com. Retrieved 2021-04-25.
- ^ Gfroerer, John (3 December 2017). "John Gfroerer: Moving to Year Zero". Concord Monitor. Archived from the original on 2017-12-03.