A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS
At this time, more than any other time, a “no can do” attitude and unproductive activity, including gossip, back-biting, character assassination, etc., that distracts from a common effort to struggle against a repressive autocracy should be discarded. A positive “yes, we can” attitude and activities aimed at uniting Khmers to fight for change need to be promoted.
For the last two weeks, my columns focused on the necessity for Khmer youths to cultivate quality thinking, because change is inevitable and pro-activity does influence the change they want to see. Their nation’s future depends on this.
Although I am encouraged by ensuing discussions on the subject, some readers raise concerns, justifiably, that today’s Khmer youths are caught in a regime that has confiscated school books, in an economy in which four million live in excruciating poverty, and attend public schools that received a mere 1.6 percent of GDP, compared to 5 percent of GDP in one of the world’s poorest countries, Mozambique.
Last week, an e-mail from a young Khmer in Phnom Penh informed me that schools are open only a few hours a day, and that many young Khmers don’t even know what computers are.
A former American State Department official who served in Phnom Penh, Donald Jameson, wrote of the need for “an urbanized, better educated and informed citizenry,” in his article, “Cambodia’s Bumpy Road.” But the current regime’s inexcusable neglect of the education system will only accelerate the increasingly unbridgeable economic and social disparities.
Remember that of Cambodia’s 14.7 million people, more than 50 percent are younger than 21 years old — 4.7 million are 14 and younger; 9.4 million are between 15 and 64. The median age is 22.9 years. The impact of a poorly educated citizenry is incalculable, and that impact will persist for generations.
Yet despair is not an option.
At this time, more than any other time, a “no can do” attitude and unproductive activity, including gossip, back-biting, character assassination, etc., that distracts from a common effort to struggle against a repressive autocracy should be discarded. A positive “yes, we can” attitude and activities aimed at uniting Khmers to fight for change need to be promoted.
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