reflections on cambodia
Jon Carr | Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 7:48AM 
Have you every heard of the studies about the people from Africa that are extremely poor but are happier than most Americans? Their poverty frees them up from the western driven commercialism and consumption and as a result they have closer ties to family and rate much higher than many Westerners on happiness surveys. Well Cambodia is essentially one step up from Africa on a poverty level and we got to see this theory in action. If any people have a reason to be dispirited, it would be Cambodians.
Cambodia has had an incredibly rough forty years dating back to the Vietnam War when the US began bombing the country for its aiding of the Vietnamese along the Ho Chi Minh trail. This created instability in the country and left thousands of dangerous undetonated bombs along the countryside. The instability helped aid the overthrow of the government by the Khmer Rouge and their ruthless leader Pol Pot. Over the next four years the Khmer Rouge executed a mass genocide against the educated class wiping out teachers, doctors, lawyers and anyone else with an intellectual background. Over a four year span the death toll reached three million. In 1979, Vietnam stepped in and forced the Khmer Rouge out of power and to the western border near Thailand where many of the leaders of the genocide went unpunished until the day they died. I can’t imagine rebuilding a nation without any educated people and Cambodia is just now starting to gain momentum in the modern world.
