http://www.tfp.org/TFPForum/TFPRecommends/Books/mao_the_unknown_story.htm
Similar horrible excesses in manipulating youth movements in Southeast Asia in the 1970s led to the horrors of the Killing Fields under Pohl Pot.
In short, youth movements in many corners of this planet have sadly often been something to fear—especially by the oligarchies. Therefore, these sort of movements have either been put down brutally as occurred in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China in 1989, or have been bought off—as has happened in wealthier lands like Britain, Germany, the USA, Scandinavia, and even in Gulf Oil Sheikhdoms in recent decades. (Of course, unless the governments in these lands don’t make it easier for youth to spend years acquiring higher education—rather than try to enter the job market—pressure from soon-to-form full-blown youth movements are not impossible to imagine in Western Europe or North America, either.)
When I think of bought-off youthful generations, I often recall my days in Japan and my two decades teaching and working with Japanese and South Korean students at the university level.
I, personally, was amazed by how much impotence both Japanese youth in general and Japanese college students specifically were manifesting in the 1990s (and later) as their country floundered for nearly 15 years of recession and deflation.
The youth of that era in Japan have even come to be called by all observers as “The Lost Generation”. These age-cohorts were part of the mass of unemployed and under-employed youth in Japan between 1989 and 2003. (In short, Japan was a nation which only finally got out of its economic depression 5 years ago—only to face another one this autumn in 2008. Will youth be able to accept any more of the status quo in life-business and economics?)
I lived in small-town Japan from 1992 to 1994. In small towns some young people have often ended up locking themselves up in their rooms for years.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6535284
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