NAYAN CHANDA

A lot of people may not read the history of their own country, but they carry on memories transmitted by previous generations. They're trying to achieve something, [they] have their mission and anger -- all this is fed by past experience of history.

Sihanouk developed an education system very well, and that was in some ways its undoing, because there was education where they produced a lot of graduates, but there was no service industry to absorb these graduates. So you had a lot of graduates pulling rickshaws to carry passengers. That development led to a huge unrest among youth.

Democracy cannot be created out of thin air

In any conflict, the opposing side wants to kill each other, but survive, in order to savor the fruits of victory. But when you have people who are willing to die, they don't want to savor the victory themselves. That willingness to die creates a whole new dynamic. And that, the world has to come to terms with. We have to decide how to deal with that. That activity makes the threat of nuclear terrorism or bioterrorism much more severe, because people who are handling that are not afraid to die, because they think they are going to go to heaven. And that fearlessness about one's own self-preservation creates a totally different situation.

A lot of people may not read the history of their own country, but they carry on memories transmitted by previous generations. They're trying to achieve something, [they] have their mission and anger -- all this is fed by past experience of history.

In any conflict, the opposing side wants to kill each other, but survive, in order to savor the fruits of victory. But when you have people who are willing to die, they don't want to savor the victory themselves. That willingness to die creates a whole new dynamic. And that, the world has to come to terms with. We have to decide how to deal with that. That activity makes the threat of nuclear terrorism or bioterrorism much more severe, because people who are handling that are not afraid to die, because they think they are going to go to heaven. And that fearlessness about one's own self-preservation creates a totally different situation.

Democracy cannot be created out of thin air

Sihanouk developed an education system very well, and that was in some ways its undoing, because there was education where they produced a lot of graduates, but there was no service industry to absorb these graduates. So you had a lot of graduates pulling rickshaws to carry passengers. That development led to a huge unrest among youth.