Khmer
Characteristics
(Due to length, part of the
article was published on the Khmer Times, 11 January 2019)
“Khmer Characteristics” is a
book written by Bunchan Mol, an anti-royalist, anti-French colonist, republican
politician and member of Khmer Issarak. Published in 1973, the book described
internal power struggle in Cambodian politics and bad behaviors of some
politicians and public servants in the period from 1940s to 1970s. Earlier
formed as a resistant guerilla force for the people, some members of Khmer Issarak
increased their power to the level of fiefdom and had tendency to pursue
barbaric bloody power struggle, which he described as “Khmer Characteristics.”
Although the book met the
writer’s purposes, it is rather misleading in the way he entitled the book in a
generalized manner as “Khmer Characteristics” because he only described about a
handful of Cambodian politicians and public servants.
The context of the book was
in the period from 1940s to 1970s, when Cambodia had never known sustained
peace. Colonialism, guerrilla wars, internal fight for power was all that Cambodian
knew of and the society never had the chance to educate its mass over the
period of five centuries of endless chaos.
While he raised all the bad
aspects, he did not suggest what should be the Khmer characteristics, which I
intend to discuss here.
A reflective comparison came
to my mind referring to how Japanese citizens can adhere to high morality by
standing behind the long queue for food supply without looting and price hike
after the devastative tsunami in 2011. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen always attributes
the great development of Japanese society to the achievement of basic education
in which Japan got all their people fully literate in 40 years after the Meiji
restoration in 1868.
In those times, Cambodia had
just fallen under the French colonization and educating the mass had never been
the purpose of colonization.
Now that Cambodia is
enjoying sustained peace, at least for the last twenty years, the majority of
Cambodian people have had the chance to embrace education. Cambodia
Socio-Economic Survey 2015 report shows that the adult literacy rate has
increased up to 80.5 percent. State budget for education reached US$850 million
last year, a record quarter of the overall government budget. State also aims
to equip every district with a high school, every commune a junior high school
and every village a primary school.
While the access to primary
education level was 93.5 percent for 2016-2017 school year, only 55.7 percent
and 25.1 percent have enrolled in lower and upper secondary level. The figures
also show that 20.7 percent have no education, 36 percent have some education
and only 22 percent with primary level completion. Only 16.7 percent have
completed secondary education level.
Even Cambodia is still at
its early stage of institutional building, with this figure, Cambodia has
reasons to hope that “Khmer Characteristics” will never be the same like the
war-time period and those described in the book.
So then, what should be
called “Khmer Characteristics” the qualities that Cambodians should aspire to?
What are the qualities that all Khmer can draw common line of identities and
kinship? What are the Khmer qualities that future generations should proudly
learn to shape themselves?
