The deadliest vision test in history

During the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia (1975–1979), Pol Pot’s government went to purge “bourgeois” elements in an attempt to create an agrarian communist state. Intellectuals were one of the targeted groups.

One way people could become suspicious was by wearing glasses, because wearing glasses means you’re an intellectual, obviously /s.

The Cambodian Genocide went on to claim 1.2–2.2 million people.

“Teacher, you actually forgot to check our homework!” 🤓

Pol pot: “Listen up you nerd…”

So what ended happening to the guy in the picture behind Pot?

When I think about this historical fact, absurd as it may seem, and I search for an explanation beyond the analogical reasoning of glasses = intellectual = bourgeois, I see only one other hypothesis that would need to be tested, without making the situation any more justifiable:

Were eyeglasses readily available in Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge?

If a pair of eyeglasses was rare and expensive at that time, it would lead to a line of reasoning just as simple as the previous one: glasses = expensive = bourgeois.

With, of course, the Khmer Rouge’s consistent policy of not admitting (or very rarely admitting, you never know) any exceptions to this “equation.”

Finally, since Khmer Rouge propaganda presented this fact as the one everyone knows, perhaps there’s no need to look for another explanation.

However, I’ve imagined a rather ironic but plausible hypothesis: the possibility that the propaganda deemed the conflation “glasses = intellectual = bourgeois” more comprehensible to the people than “glasses = expensive = bourgeois.”

This would have been a grave insult to the intelligence of the masses and should have warranted self-denunciation and self-criticism.

Anyway, I’m fantasizing.