ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two aspects that have appeared important in work and reflection with Cambodian refugees after the Pol Pot era: silence and dehumanization. Psychoanalysts are somehow urged to speak, although they are used and trained to listen quietly to individuals in the silence of their offices. In contrast with the well-known and positive aspects of clinical psychiatry, psychoanalysts have discovered the importance of silence in many aspects: the silence of the survivors, silence as a trace during psychoanalysis, silent transmission to the descendants, silence in society. The "duty of memory" has extended from the Shoah to many other aftermaths in a potent effort to prevent the disgraceful tendency to oblivion. National states and the way they regulate violence used to play an important part in the tension between individuals and collective ideals. The fact that international justice is available gives hope for all those who need to speak, complain, and have justice done.
