The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
–Psalm 9:9 (New International Version)
I’ve been trying to keep up with the Khmer Rouge trials as much as possible, but I think before I dive into that venture, I need to explore how many people died during the dictatorship. If you’re not sure what the Khmer Rouge is, check out my post from March 30 (Ten years later). Figures estimate that 1.7 million people died in those death camps, which was about a quarter of the population at the time. I don’t know about you, but I can barely envision 1700, let alone 1000 times that. So I googled “1.7 million” to see what would pop up.
You’d be surprised.
1.7 million is:
– the number of people who protested Facebook’s layout changes as of March 23 of this year.
– the number of people in Botswana who have cell phone subscriptions.
– the number of vehicles that GM will equip with OnStar’s “Stolen Vehicle Slowdown” software in 2009.
– the number of American adults who list money as a reason why they keep a blog.
– the number of Canadians who were identity fraud victims in 2008.
– the number of people who live in the greater Copenhagen area.
– the number of annual ER visits in the US resulting from substance abuse or misuse.
– the number of projected dementia cases in the UK by 2051.
– the number of people who were MySpace friends with Tila Tequila in March 2007.
– the number of people who watched “Jerry Springer: The Opera” in January 2005.
– the number of Wii units that were sold in the US from December 14-20, 2008.
No wonder we’re so desensitized to that figure. The population of the United States is estimated at 306 million. 1.7 million babies were born in the US between 2004 and 2005. That’s nothing to us. We throw around figures of millions and billions with such carelessness. Heck, President Obama’s stimulus package weighs in at $3.5 trillion. You can’t get much bigger than that.
Get ready. There are going to be a lot of numbers thrown at you right here.
We’re 306 million strong here in the US. We’ve also got about 3.79 million square miles of territory, which averages into about 81 people per square mile. Cambodia? The current population is about 14 million. There are about 70,000 square miles of territory. That’s about 200 people per square mile. If the United States were as densely populated as Cambodia, that would mean a population of 758 million. Taking that into consideration, if 25% of that population were killed off, the death toll would be around 190 million people. That’s like wiping Brazil off the face of the planet.
That’s the meaning of 1.7 million.
