Youth is wasted on the young

I've been doing a lot of research on the problems of America's aging society, so it's funny for me to hear the development officials here stressing out because Cambodia's population is too young. A third of all Cambodians are under the age of fifteen. My first instinct, after agonizing about extended retirements, is to say "And this is a problem?" but demographic bulges can be difficult anywhere they come. No one here knows quite what they are going to do all these new people when they enter the workforce. The garment industry is the only significant industrial employer, and it only employs about 300,000 a year (though it probably supports 5-10 times that number). It cannot absorb this enormous demographic bulge by itself, but it's very unclear where else they can go--besides to other countries.

One odd side effect of the demographic bulge is that apparently, there is relatively little interest in the Khmer Rouge tribunal; as one source put it, "The OJ Simpson got more attention than this thing is attracting." Older people are intensely interested, not to say overjoyed. But most of the population is too young to remember the genocide, and apparently there is a tendency to deny that it can have been as bad as their parents say. That's a natural impulse, to be sure; did my mother really hike to school through snow drifts over her head? But in this case, it is eroding the public clamor for long-overdue justice.

Comments

But most of the population is too young to remember the genocide, and apparently there is a tendency to deny that it can have been as bad as their parents say.

You are meeting with the experts, so I'm sure you know better than I. I sensed the people of Cambodia have suffered for decades and are finally feeling hope for the future and are ready to embrace it.
The other thing I found in Cambodia more than many of the SE Asian countries (and China) was a willingness to discuss corruption and disappointment in the government. It actually made me feel quite hopeful for them.

ps. I also noted that hatred for Pol Pot was red hot (his people were still terrorizing the countryside until just a few years ago), but the list of those against whom they hold grievances is long..Thailand, Vietnam, etc.

Posted by MayBee | November 16, 2007 11:12 AM

Those children need an education, a banking system, and freedom from officialdom.

Posted by Marcin Tustin | November 16, 2007 11:42 AM

With that population bulge, and China's imposed one-child policy, this may allow for Cambodia to attract jobs that the Chinese can't fill, or allow for Cambodians to work overseas (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.). China may run out of workers, Japan is, and South Korea will.

Posted by Half Canadian | November 16, 2007 2:33 PM

I heard in the mid-1990's that the government started stressing more Golden Age history in school curriculums and less about recent history, especially the KR era. From what I've heard, there is a tendency among much of the youth to be somewhat dismissive of what their parents say. After all, who wants to admit the biggest nightmare of the past 50 years happened in their country?

"With that population bulge, and China's imposed one-child policy, this may allow for Cambodia to attract jobs that the Chinese can't fill, or allow for Cambodians to work overseas (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.). China may run out of workers, Japan is, and South Korea will.

Posted by Half Canadian | November 16, 2007 2:33 PM"

I certainly hope you're right. However, none of those countries are really happy to receive immigrants. China has a lot of regulations to make it hard and Japan is known for some of the most racist immigration laws among rich liberal democracies. The mayor of Japan has been known for his anti-Korean speeches, talking about how there's always a danger they'll start rioting. Pretty much only ethnic Japanese from South America like Fujimori can immigrate to Japan legally. South Korea is even more restrictive, if less racist. The government feels that their first priority would be to ethnic Korean immigrants, but fear that if they liberalized immigration laws that North Koreans would make a huge run for the border and if they can't take in huge amounts of Koreans, why should they take in large amounts of any other ethnic group? Hopefully these laws will liberalize sufficiently, but I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by Reality Man | November 17, 2007 8:42 AM

China and vietnam may not be happy to take all the young cambodian men, but I think they are happy to take all the young women to help balance out their genders.

And this is an individual level decision. Each young Chinese man who finds himself a pretty girl from another, poorer country will do the work/paperwork/bribery required to get her into the country. A "national decision" isn't needed.

Likewise, there are a LOT of North Korean women in Northern China these days.

Posted by doctorpat | November 18, 2007 11:46 PM

How can it not have been as bad as their parents say, with approximately 1.5 million people killed by the Khmer Rouge? I realize that numbers like that are hard to wrap your head around, but when your parents are talking about large portions of your family being wiped out it seems pretty obvious how bad it all was.

I remember doing a big paper on the Khmer Rouge for a high school history class and reading a memoir by a girl who managed to survive and escape to Thailand, but not before losing almost all of her family and suffering through many torturous experiences. When I watched The Killing Fields after reading her book, I was kind of offended by how little of the terror and atrocities the movie portrayed.

Posted by Christina | November 19, 2007 4:38 PM