FOR years humans have been attracted to places and events that are associated with death, disaster, suffering, violence and killing. From ancient Rome and gladiatorial combat to attendance at public executions in London and other major cities of the world, death has held a macabre appeal.

The site of the first battle in the American Civil War – Fort Sumter, Manassas – was sold as a potential tourist site the day after it took place and the viewing of the battlefield of Waterloo by non-combatants in horse-drawn carriages was recorded in 1816.

Although slaughter, suffering and tourism have been interrelated for many centuries, it was not until 1996 that the phenomenon of “dark tourism” was identified by two academics in Scotland – John Lennon, Dean of Glasgow School for Business and Society at Glasgow Caledonian University, and Malcolm Foley, formerly of Glasgow Caledonian University.

They were intrigued by the fact that, while acts of mass killing are a major deterrent for the development of certain destinations as tourist attractions, such acts can become the primary drivers of tourism in others. Lennon and Foley’s research took them to the world’s death and disaster sites, scenes of mass or individual death and incarceration, representations or simulations associated with death and re-enactments and human interpretation of death.

Thanks in great part to their work, dark tourism has generated much more than purely academic interest. The term has entered the mainstream and is a popular subject of media attention.

The enduring appeal has been reinforced in New York, Paris and beyond. The Ground Zero site in Manhattan was attracting significantly greater numbers of visitors within 12 months of 9/11 than prior to the terrorist attacks. In Paris, the site of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, attracted visitors following her death, as did her burial place, Althorpe.

In Africa, destinations in Angola, South Africa, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda have all demonstrated the appeal of dark histories to visitors. All these sites throw up issues of ethical presentation, visitor behaviour, site management, revenue generation and marketing and promotion which are fraught with difficulties and are frequently the subject of criticism and debate.

Education and the preservation of historical record are frequently used to justify and explain motivation for the development of dark tourism sites.

And It is certainly true that the maintenance of historical records of terrible events is an important service.

Lennon and Foley have investigated different forms of Dark Tourism all over the globe. Here we look at Lennon’s recent work in Cambodia, Italy and Kazakhstan.

The National: The Karlak GulagThe Karlak Gulag

KAZAKHSTAN

KAZAKHSTAN is the location of some of the most important Gulag commemoration sites of the Soviet period. Gulags had their origins in the Russian Revolution of 1918 and by 1921 there were 83 camps in 43 provinces designed to incarcerate and rehabilitate “enemies of the people”.

Under Stalin, the Gulags assumed greater prominence, particularly during the mass arrests of 1937-38. Expansion continued during and after the Second World War and Gulag industrial and agricultural output contributed substantially to the Soviet economy. Some 18 million people passed through the Gulag system with a further

six million deported or exiled. In 1987, President Gorbachev finally dismantled the system, rehabilitating citizens across the former USSR.

During the period of the USSR more than 1.3 million people were deported to Kazakhstan from various locations.

However, while Kazakhstan holds some of the most significant Gulag sites, there has been limited conservation work carried out for a number of reasons, including the state’s desire to avoid causing any offence to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

As one Kazakh government representative noted: “Definitely we don’t want to be at odds with the big brother, or big neighbour.”

Even where there are Gulag museums and sites their development has been limited and often politicised.

These include the Soviet forced labour camp Alzhir for “Wives of Traitors to the Motherland”. This was a special subdivision of the Karlag camp system, developed to incarcerate more than 18,000 women from 62 nationalities and ethnic groups, who were imprisoned.

Yet although there is a museum here, silence surrounds issues of sexual violence even though there were constant births due to the extent of the assault and rapes. These children were separated from their mothers at 18-24 months and were relocated to a network of 18 orphanages within the Karlag region.

At Osakarovka Orphanage young children of female prisoners of Alzhir were incarcerated under the jurisdiction of the secret police. Many children died from malnutrition and poor care. For survivors, the effect of a Gulag childhood was profound. Such individuals faced stigmatisation and political and economic marginalization.

Those who did not survive were buried in Mamochinko Cemetery. The original footprint of the graveyard at 1.25sq kms is indicative of

the scale of the place, but there has been development across the site and the original boundaries have been lost. One archivist said that when he went there in the late 1980s the graves were marked by rough crosses inscribed with the children’s names and birth and death dates. He recorded them all but said when he went back the crosses were gone.

A tour operator said: “Many people ask about the cemeteries … and real places [of burial] are not disclosed still to this day. It’s like they’re hiding this part of history too.”

A senior academic added: “During the Soviet time there was great damage to the national history of the 15 republics. We were not allowed to tell the truth. We had to believe what the Soviet regime said. In this way, they tried to suppress our national consciousness. Underlying it all was a Russification policy. It means our national values were destroyed.”

It is a nation where the concept of freedom and the idea of exploring history openly and critically have yet to take hold.

One NGO respondent said: “It is all a slavery country, a slavery empire. It was real slavery, then tribal slavery, then feudalism, then Soviet slavery. Only 20 years of freedom. Nobody understood what is freedom … from a psychological side it is not our way to concentrate on negatives of the past even if you are part of the history or even if it is interesting.”

Many of the important sites have been repurposed.

Yet, as one academic respondent argued: “The idea to keep those places for our future generations as an open air museum … it is very necessary. If tomorrow they will be displaced/demolished there will be no sign left behind. You need to show the places, the remaining barracks, they should be preserved.”

This reluctance to engage with recent history is also evident at a school level. A former archivist said: “When I visit schools and talk about that time teachers keep asking me: ‘Is it allowed to speak on this topic? Do you understand this?’

“It means the fear sits somewhere inside us … there is not a single word about Stalin’s politics. They don’t talk about fascism and totalitarianism and the connection between them.”

It is argued that it is important to ensure the narrative of these sites is politically neutral and transparent as the selection, interpretation and conservation of elements of the past are essential in order to understand what has happened.

Critics say the issue is humanitarian and as much about the living as the disappeared of the Gulag.

Kazakh Gulag heritage sites can provide an authentic narrative and maintain historical integrity. Yet to date, historical memorialisation in this nation remains embedded in interests that are ideological and rarely neutral.

The National: Cambodia: A US fighter jet has just drop his payload on a suspect Khmer Rouge advance position while a government soldier walks into the dry rice-field with a gun on his shoulderCambodia: A US fighter jet has just drop his payload on a suspect Khmer Rouge advance position while a government soldier walks into the dry rice-field with a gun on his shoulder

CAMBODIA

CAMBODIA of the 20th century is, for many, synonymous with the barbarous rule of the Khmer Rouge from 1975-79. On April 17, 1975, Khmer Rouge soldiers entered Phnom Penh to begin a period of rule that was barbaric and bloody even by the dreadful standards of the century that has just passed.

The preconditions that allowed the Khmer Rouge to come to power were a direct product of the Cold War politics of the period and the ferocious bombing assaults by the US on Cambodia as part of its campaign against the North Vietnamese.

The eventual evaporation of US support for the Lon Nol regime and the retreat of the North Vietnamese troops to continue their own civil war to the east left the canvas blank for the Khmer Rouge to compose their brutal vision of Cambodian society.

A large proportion of the old elite – skilled labourers, educated professionals and urban dwellers – were targeted for extermination and the adopted doctrine of self-reliance left many to starve or die in a country bereft of medicine, food and pesticide.

The world reacted with shock, disbelief and incredulity as the Khmer Rouge emptied cities, obliterated evidence of a consumer society, destroyed books and libraries, ended most diplomatic relations, abolished money, markets, foreign exchange and private property and established state control over all foreign and domestic trade.

Buddhist pagodas, statues and icons were closed or destroyed and monks were forced into secular or army roles. The Roman Catholic cathedral in Phnom Penh was levelled and its priests were viewed as social parasites.

Teenagers and children were separated from their families and were sent away for rigorous ideological training. In the new agricultural communes, families were segregated by gender resulting in the dilution of family and parental influence.

After the Khmer Rouge defeat in 1979 Cambodia was devastated. Approximately one third of the population were dead. Of the 550 registered doctors only 48 had survived, of the 11,000 recorded university students only 450 remained and of the 106,000 secondary school students only 5300 survived. The nation’s infrastructure was wrecked and just under 70% of temples had been destroyed.

Mass graves populate the country and the Choeung Ek site in Phnom Penh records 19,440 mass graves and 167 former security offices/prisons throughout Cambodia. The mass graves contain the bodies of those deliberately executed but not the young, the old or the sick who died in the forced evacuations, nor those who died from malnutrition, forced labour, paucity of medicines or other causes.

During the period of Khmer Rouge rule it is widely acknowledged that between 1.5 million and 2 million people died as a result of their policies. As a percentage of population (estimated at 7.3 million in 1975) this was arguably one of the worst genocides ever perpetrated.

In a range of locations dark tourism sites offer evidential narrative, providing historical context and photographic and filmic evidence of humankind’s ability to do evil.

The S-21 prison is one of two key tourist sites in Phnom Penh associated with the Khmer Rouge. Here thousands of prisoners were interrogated, tortured, starved and executed. Of the 14,000-17,000 estimated to have been incarcerated here between 1975 and 1979, only seven survived.

All prisoners were photographed, confessions were extracted via torture and the condemned were forced to create fabricated confessions which were documented and stored.

The images now on display are unidentified except via prison numbers and there is no indication of who the condemned used to be, what their “crimes” were or how they came to S-21, thus contributing little to tourists’ knowledge. There is no audio or physical guide-based interpretation to imbue some understanding of the enormity of what is represented.

For many of those visitors coming to Phnom Penh this site has become part of what has been identified as the “tourist gaze”, a commodified experience as part of a wider leisure agenda.

The experience is photographed and filmed and “selfies” are uploaded online and globally circulated on a range of social and digital media channels.

Critics say this type of visitor behaviour creates a “universalisation of trauma” and has a tendency to displace the identities and experiences of the victims.

They argue that the serial reproduction, re-photographing, uploading and viewing of such images makes people habituated to the reoccurrence of atrocity and potentially negates their willingness to respond with meaningful intervention or moral outrage.

On Facebook and Instagram, photos of massacre sites share space with pictures of family, birthdays and domestic pets, but in order to understand the complex realities it is essential to look outside the frame.

For the visitor to S-21 that remains a challenge as the origins and importance of the selective photographic imagery viewed is not apparent and the museum itself is not without issues.

It could be said that the site is symptomatic of the fact that very few of those who instigated the genocide of Democratic Kampuchea have ever been held accountable due to the reluctance of the Cambodian government to seek justice – and the recent trials of four Khmer leaders only came about with the support and emphasis of certain members of the international community.

The National: A framed photograph of Benito MussoliniA framed photograph of Benito Mussolini

ITALY

MANY of the dark sites in Italy relating to the fascist dictator Mussolini are interpreted in an overwhel-mingly positive way, and in Predappio – the home of Mussolini – the sale of Nazi memorabilia and products associated with the far right is quite legal.

Rather than provide historical record or education about the regime and its crime, these sites subvert reality and reinforce an inaccurate and dangerously misleading perspective on this period of Italian history. There was no major purge of fascists in Italy following the Second World War and many who were responsible for heinous acts were pardoned.

As a result of the Cold War, communist and socialist influence was repressed and ex-fascists continued to hold high-ranking positions in the police, judiciary, government and the armed forces.

The burial site of Mussolini in the town of Predappio is just one of the places where history is glossed over to a disturbing degree. It has become a place of pilgrimage for fascists, neo-fascists and casual tourists.

Visitors may sign their names and, in many cases, write celebratory and supportive prose in the register in front of the tomb. There are floral tributes, personal homages, prayers and candles. There is a large marble head of Mussolini and celebratory portraits of the dictator in military uniform as well as artefacts such as uniforms and personal effects. Around 100,000 people visit the tomb each year.

Souvenir shops sell banners, uniforms, photographs, paintings, books, statues, calendars, DVDs, badges and manganelli (clubs used by the fascists) associated with fascist, far-right and Nazi ideologies. One particular outlet advertises a collection of paintings for sale by the late granddaughter of the dictator, Marina Mussolini, amid a supermarket-style offer on fascist symbols, literature and memorabilia. If this remains hard to believe, the presence of Nazi and SS artefacts in these retail outlets further stretches incredulity.

Perhaps of most concern are the celebratory parades that take place on the former dictator’s birthday, death day and the anniversary of the fascist march on Rome, and which are highlighted by giveaway calendars in retail stores and related sites.

Critics say the way the fascist heritage of Italy is being interpreted provides legitimacy to political systems and reinforces ideas of identity and nationalism that are not without support among many members of Italy’s current voters. The built heritage in Predappio and the other sites have become conflicted, their original context has been modified and their meaning is lost and subverted.

However, Italy is not alone in failing to confront its dark past– similar ambiguity and selectivity can be located in Austria, post-Soviet Russia, Japan, France and indeed Britain.