“Don’t even think about thinking about saying anything bad about Our Glorious Leader!!”
This is a long, but fascinating first-person account on what you would see if you went to one of the strangest countries on Earth. Even as we seemingly are losing our freedoms on a daily basis and worrying about our economy’s uncertain future, at least we can be thankful we haven’t fallen this far. Yet.
Here is the locked ward of the political asylum, the place where politics has actually become an official state religion, and power is worshiped, directly and literally, in the form of a colossal bronze idol to which the people come and bow with every sign of reverence. Nothing in the modern world compares with North Korea, though it gives us some clue about how life must have been under the pharaohs, in Imperial Japan before Hiroshima, or in the obliterated years—conveniently erased from memory by blushing fellow travelers—when Josef Stalin was revered as a human god.
Pyongyang is the most carefully planned and also the most mysterious city on the planet.
[…]
It is astonishing how much is secret. Could we visit Pyongyang’s bowling alley, an establishment whose very existence was so unlikely that it was bound to be interesting? No. Could we visit the railway station? No. Could we travel more than one stop on the much trumpeted subway, wrongly claimed to be grander than the one in Moscow? No.
[…]
Long nurtured hopes of reunification with the South have evaporated since the rejoining of East and West Germany turned out to be so difficult and expensive, and the economic chasm between the two Germanies was nothing compared to the gulf between the two Koreas. One is a surging 21st-century industrial power; the other is forcibly detained in the early 1950s, in the Concrete Age of Soviet Planning, long abandoned even in the country that gave it birth. If the border were opened overnight and the truth revealed, as many as 23 million refugees would probably head south as fast as they could—with incalculable consequences.
And then there is the general problem with despots, created by our pious insistence on frogmarching them, in chains, in front of righteous tribunals. What tyrant, seeing the imprisonment of Milosevic, the hanging of Saddam, and the harassment of Pinochet and Honecker, would be stupid enough to abandon his sovereign immunity and volunteer for the cells? And there is another danger: who, aware of the shooting of Nicolae and Elena Ceasescu, would relax his repressive machine for a second or show any sign of weakness. As it is, Kim Jong Il, now 65 and in poor health, has no incentive to dismantle his kingdom of lies and repression, though it is hard to see how it could survive his death for long.
The last paragraph of the article was a the best, me thinks.
Sounds like an interesting place to visit though – doubt i’ll get the chance before the whole country gets kerploded after great leader #2 dies…
Look at how well fed that border patrol agent is.
That is not the norm in that country.
Foodstuffs are confiscated for the military.
That was fascinating. I hope the guy writes a book about it.
“As it is, Kim Jong Il, now 65 and in poor health, has no incentive to dismantle his kingdom of lies and repression, though it is hard to see how it could survive his death for long.”
Well, just look at Cuba and how everyone was hoping that with Fidel’s faltering health the regime would fall but thanks to Kuzco and Fidel’s brother Raul (whom the cuban exilees fear more than Fidel) looks like the regime is going to stay for a long long time.
Bush jr should hire some North Korean spin doctors, in those school the Diary of Anne Frank is a mandatory read and they twist the meaning of it in a perverse way: It teaches the kids that is better to die on your feet fighting than to die as a beggar hiding in an attic.
Remember high school economics where they taught the basics of trade? The principle that allowing trade between parties that each specialize in a product or service makes everyone better off?
The North Korean “religion” is Juche, or self reliance. It says that North Korea, a tiny nation with few natural resources, has everything it needs within its borders for life. It rejects the idea of trade, which it views as weakness. It is the polar opposite of what was taught in economics 101.
That fact that NK tries to go against the natural order of man is why it will fail. Just like communism failed to incorporate the very real and very human factors of greed and fear. That is why it takes a police state and terror to keep from collapsing.
The best weapon the NK government has is ignorance. Ignorance about life outside of NK allows them to plant fear of the unknown. To create enemies. To plant lies.
The best weapon against NK is information. Considering the billions of dollars spend defending against NK. What if a million iPod Nanos, loaded with news, videos, music, and words from outside Korea were scattered through out the country? It would be impossible for NK to keep out the truth. The North Koreans, in their hearts, will know that they are being lied to. It will rot NK’s control of their people from the inside.
It would be better than broadcasting, because broadcasting can be blocked. It would be better than dropping DVD’s, CD’s, or other media that requires players that citizens do not have.
An iPod nano can be hidden from the Authorities. It is small and self contained content and player. A citizen can secretly watch it, learn from it, and then plant the seed of desire for the freedoms it shows.
Follow it up with million of thumb drives loaded with new content, podcasts, newscasts, and other forbidden information. There is no way the Army would be able to catch them all.
Just an idea. When the costs is considered, it might actually be damn cheap, and frighteningly effective.
That might work… until the batteries needed charging.
I know… but it will intrigue them enough to find a way to top them up. I have no doubt that where there is a will, there is a way.
Same old tired cliches by the hypertrophoid capitalists known as “conservatives”. Since they turn out to be dead wrong about everything else, I’m going to assume NK is a pretty good place to live.
Americans need to learn the lesson of North Korea. You should never be TOO loyal to your dear leader (Reagan, Bush, whatever), you should NEVER try to destroy your middle class, and you should NEVER think that security takes precedence over liberty.
The communist neoconservatives want to destroy our nation and put up a Stalinist regime, since they are all followers of Trotsky and Marx. I urge all republicans to investigate the communist backgrounds of the necons before voting in 2008.