Why should Mekong youth meet and talk to each other more?

Opinion, Khmer Times, 23 May 2023 (Link)

There are three main reasons that Mekong youth should meet and talk with each other more.

Firstly, there is a need for us to invest in the future in terms of creation of common memory and maintenance of peace.

Our parents’ generation and grandparents’ generations, they have strong historical connection through past struggles for independence, peace and stability when the region  wreaked with havoc by the Vietnam War followed by Cambodia’s decades-long civil war.

Laos and Cambodia helped Vietnam’s reunification, without which Vietnam would probably have faced the same fate like the two Koreas that still cannot unify. Later on, Vietnam helped Cambodia back in liberating the latter from the genocidal regime of Pol Pot. And then, we have Thailand that helped provide platforms for peace negotiations of Cambodia, and took care of Cambodian refugees.

Through these struggles, senior generations have been treasuring long-term common memories together.

But, how about us, the new generation? What common memories do we have together?

We probably don’t have memories of struggles but we have inherited peace in common. But that peace cannot be taken for granted because it was the peace that was earned through blood and sacrifice by our senior generations.

But then how do we benefit from the so-called peace dividend? How do we create memory from the current peace together?

Unfortunately, sometimes when we got peace, we tend to care less about its value. We don’t even really know our neighbors. This can be dangerous for the region when the next generations take peace so lightly, and do not make efforts to create regional solidarity to protect peace.

That is why youth in the Mekong region need to meet and talk with each other more.

Secondly, it is important that the new generations need to overcome historical prejudices against neighboring countries.

We all have a lot of negative historical narratives against our neighbors.

What did Vietnamese teachers tell their students about China? What did Cambodian history teachers tell their students about Thailand and Vietnam? What did Thai teachers tell their students about Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos? What did Myanmar teachers tell their students about Thailand?

Everyone can imagine the answers. Indeed, it is important to learn from history to understand the past and to avoid bad history repeating itself. But history should not be the only factor that define our future destiny. We are the ones who should shape our future through better mutual understanding, deepened friendship, and enhanced good neighborliness.

We have to also remember that we cannot change your neighbors. You may have good times and bad times together, but you cannot change neighbors.

What we can do is to make more efforts to promote peaceful co-existence, to share prosperity, and to create border of peace, cooperation, friendship and market.

Through robust youth exchange programs in the Mekong region, new generations will get to know their real neighbors—not based on historical narratives—and make new friends with real people. They would understand that we all are normal human-being who have emotions and feelings of pain, sadness and happiness like our own people too.

Thirdly, there is a need to enhance the sense of shared destiny and shared future.

This is similar to the first point. We all have a shared destiny and future which is peace. Because if any country of the region has war, you cannot say that they have war alone. The war will spread and the impact will come to your border. They don’t stop within the border. Just like the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, how many refugees fled to Thailand? How many refugees fled to Vietnam? How many Vietnamese people that were killed by the Pol Pot regime? Humanitarian crisis doesn’t have border.

So, don’t ever wish that your neighbors have wars. It will not benefit anyone. We have to try the best we can to make sure that all of us have peace.

We have to join hands to create peace together because we have a shared destiny. The real meaning of the word “shared destiny” is defined by peace and war. If one country has war, the whole region will be destabilized. If the whole region has peace, everyone will enjoy the peace dividend. We all will have time to develop and enjoy fruitful results from prosperity.

There is also another meaning of shared destiny in terms of limited resources that we share together. For people in the Mekong region, we drink the same water, we eat the same fish. As a matter of fact, these kinds of resources are not unlimited. They are for everyone, not just us but also for our next generations.

So, beyond peace, our shared destiny also refers to the limited resources that we have together; the beauty and richness of our Mekong biodiversity, environment, and sustainable ecology of the Mekong River.

The new generations need to further enhance the sense of shared destiny and shared future among ourselves through better understanding the value of peace, and the heavy responsibility in protecting peace as well as the limited natural resources that we have.

Through this article, the author wishes to express deep appreciation to all the exchange programs for youth in the Mekong region, including the Lancang Mekong Peace Boat program.