Politics in Cambodia - Essay Example

Politics in Cambodia By 1970, the Chinese and he Viet se made up the largest ethnic minority groups by population in Cambodia, with the largest indigenous minority group being the Cham ethnic group, a primarily Islamic group. However, the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia ignored the existence of these minority groups, though the groups made up about 15% of the total Cambodian population. The Pol Pot regime argued that the minorities made up about 1% of the population with the 99% of the population being the Khmers.

In other words, the Pol Pot regime ignored and silenced the 21 minority groups in the country most of whom were the Vietnamese, the Chinese, and the Chams. Racial discrimination, in most cases, occurs in several ways. Mostly, racial discrimination takes the form of biological supremacy where those who discriminate believe they are superior and better than the rest. However, the superiority concept is not always a factor in racial discrimination. As was in the case of the genocide in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouges, the main native group, actively discriminated the rest of the groups not necessarily based on their biological identities.

On the contrary, racial discrimination in the country was based on economics, politics and their cultural composition of the groups. Stereotyping of issues around these concepts mainly led to racial discrimination of the minority groups. For instance, wealth was an important factor that determined how the Khmer Rouge treated each person. In that respect, the Cambodians were divided into two broad categories; the base people mainly made of the peasant farmers in rural areas and the new people who lived in cities.

Consequently, the new people suffered the most; they were forced to handle tough jobs in extreme conditions. Later, the text will illustrate how the stereotyping of the urban new Chinese minority as economically endowed persons led to exploitation and discrimination policies under the regime. Stereotyping of the Chinese as being among the wealthy class groups resulted in racial discrimination where they faced harsher terms compared to the native Khmer people.