I start to ask this question after I revisited the concept of nationalism and I have tried to find out how this self-understanding can be built or can be promoted among Cambodian young generation so that they can feel the sense of nationalism. From my readings, self-understanding is very important to promote nationalism because by knowing ourselves clearly about who we are and where we come from, we are able to identify our own identity. Through this self-understanding, we can understand how we belongs to a group, how we belong together, and how we can interact together to develop a happiness and prosperity in the group. In addition, we can understand and identify our own culture and society, then we are able to categorize ours as different from others. We can point out which ones are ours and which one belong to others. When our self-understanding reaches to a degree, the sense of loving our group, our people, and our nation will emerge and strengthen nationalism among folks.
But how we can promote our self-understanding is another problem. I think there are many ways to do it, but I am interested in reading books talking about history. This is a very starting point to create self-understanding when being a student who is fresh and wants to know ourselves. By reading these books, we continuously learn what happened in the past, what is happening in the present time (by observation), and what will happen in light of this historical development. Through this topic, I would like share three important books that help me to understand myself and to know the pain and the happiness this country has been through.
The first book is titled “Histoire de Cambodge” written by ADHEMARD LECLÈRE. From his book, I have learnt how the Kingdom of Cambodia emerged from the first time, especially from the time when most areas were covered by ocean of water. I have also learnt where Annam and Siem were located in that time. The second book is “When the war was over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rough Revolution” written by Elizabeth Becker. This book is very interesting for me, especially on how the Khmer Rough was formed and how they failed. One of the most important points I have learnt from this book, and I also share my personal view is that they failed because they did not trust each other. Finally they decided to kill each other because they had no trust. The residual legacy of this regime has left the sense of no trust-to-each-other to many people who have been through and this still remains in them. The third book was written by Nayan Chanda, “Brother Enemy.” This last book tough me how Vietnam and China intervened in the internal affairs of Cambodia, especially how these two countries involved and lead to the establishment of Pol Pot regime, especially a period before the collapse of the Khmer Republic. Brother Enemy told me why brothers of communism(Cambodia and Vietnam) bit each other on January 7, 1979. (These books are also available in English)
This is not an attempt of writing reviews on these books, but I am trying to point out important parts where I have learnt from and where I have never known from my previous generation. Cambodia is waiting for her young generation to know and understand her history of pain and suffering and Cambodia is crying for self-understanding from her people; otherwise, they will walk on the same track of no trust and no sense of loving each other. ..
Good blog. I totally agree with your point but the most important thing is from where we should start. How to get those young generation (not only young but everyone) read “history” books? Some may like reading but they like reading “novels” and do not like reading history book. There are several reasons to that: first, they feel it is no necessary because they already learnt enough from school, second, unlike novels, history books make them bored and third, when they read history books, they feel pain and suffering when they know Cambodia has been throught too many tragedies, so they give up and dun want to search more…
On the top of that, like “Pinispinus” I do appeal everyone to read your history in order to identify yourself better.
That is why I did not put a title “reading books of history to promote the nationalism” and instead I suggest that the first thing is to read them in order to build up the self-understanding, and then this will promote the sense of nationalism. So the starting point is to ask ourselves whether we are able to understand ourselves: who we are, where we come from, and which group we belong to…self-development in each individual is very important.