Posted on June 3, 2013
by Sophan
Youths have been worldwide recognized as the young seed of the bamboo.
Youths are the strongest force in society to shape, change and improve
society in which they are residing with. Cambodia at the present has
been outstandingly emerging youth bulk in which under age of 25 years
old is representing majority of Cambodia’s 14 millions population. Those
youths are actively working to sustain their family economy. Their
bulks are crowding at the garment factories, migrations to work outside
Cambodia, educational institutes and rice paddies.
Unfortunately,
Cambodian youths are likely not crowding at the political rally or
actively participate with the politic. This shortfall possibly stems
from two factors: the freedom of expression in Cambodia has been
curtained by the political monopoly of the ruling party and the embedded
tradition of youth’s parents on the scary repercussion if one actively
participated with the politic.
After
googling about Cambodian youths and their participation with the
politic, I found these three phenomenon extremely speak something
differently from that traditional thought.
1.
Watching video clip on “Next Generation Program or
កម្មវិធីអ្នកបន្តវេន”, many speakers spoke proudly on the collective
effort to tackle lingering issues challenging Cambodia such as life
improvement, justice, human rights, equity, democracy and political
participation etc. The program is sponsored by USAID, and the last 10th
episode was voted by SMS by the audience, the winners are represented by
those four selected candidates. Remarkably, Mr. Hing Soksan, a youth
from Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) won landslide of the 1105
votes in total.
From
this result, I wish to compare it with the release of poll survey
conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI) on
January-February 2013 in which the Ruling Party or Cambodian People
Party (CPP) and opposition party or Cambodia National Rescue Party
(CNRP) each has their own interpretation on the result of the poll. Note
that, in Cambodia we have never had independent poll on the popularity
of each rival political party in each national election. For other
countries, polls have played important role on the change of vote
popularity and it could predict the winner efficiently. Hence, the
sampling strategy is in the state of error, and the survey result has
likely been skewed by: one-sided or dominant mass media controlled by
the ruling party, respondents’past trauma, scary mindset of the people
in involving with the political affair, and the level of education etc.
Cambodian people have been traumatized by the killing field, foreign
occupation, civil war and intractable injustice of the court system in
this country. Each Cambodian is hardly disclosing their favor or
disfavor towards political parties or political figures.
The
IRI collected sampling randomly and dispatched its workers to interview
verbally with the target population. The question on “Is Cambodia
generally heading in the right direction or the wrong direction?” is
indicating as the intimidating questionnaire for the interviewee to
disclose their opinion to the public. They are scared of their freedom
would be used by the interviewer(s) or worker(s) as it possibly could
become reprisal for their life, family and daily activities. The result
shows that 81% responded as the country is heading the right direction
or 1578 respondents, and 21% or 413 respondents said the country is
heading in the wrong direction.
In
conclusion, the way of polling can be taken in different approaches.
The survey of more than 2000 respondents randomly selected and the SMS
on the political debate of youths from both the CPP and CNRP are also
considering a polling. With this matter, the sending SMS helped the
respondents to be worry free contradicting to the direct contact which
give them strong belief on bad consequences. The outcome produced
differently and yes this comparison is also in the stage of skewing as
well.
2.
The Cambodian youths of their virtual life throughout Cambodia have
expressed their political opinion very different from youths who are
having and using their accounts on facebook. Last time, I observed on
the youth bulk actively engaged in political debate in facebook in
responding to the group of students protested the presence of Prof. Dr.
Surya Subedi, the special envoy and rapporteur of the UNs in Cambodia
and my article was posted on ki-media outlet which I read the comments very interestingly.
Further
to the facebook movement, many youths have appeared to show their
actual face, actual voice and actual genuine love in their country.
Their voice for change has been constantly speaking out loud. Their
voice for political involvement for a better Cambodia has been shouted
loudly from the stream. Their voice for their better future, their
inquiries and the responsibility they must bear on their shoulder as the
young seed of the bamboo of this nation has been indicating publicly
and clearly.
These
three observations illustrate optimistic on Cambodian youths who are
the young blood, successors and the young lineage of their ancestors,
the builders of Angkor Watt the Great, will never succumb or surrender
to political threat, injustice, ill treatment, long life learning, hard
working, relentless exploring for change, and struggling for justice
etc.
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