NORTH KOREA

A PROJECT BY SASAN KASRAVI

What accounts for how little the
public knows or cares about North
Korea?
Since its founding in 1948 Te
Democratic Peoples Republic of
Korea has made itself a focus of
quite a bit of international attention
and controversy.
Te nuclear state is also generally
known to the public for the brain-
washing of its people and for its
massive and in many ways ridicu-
lous propaganda campaigns.
North Korean is, in many ways
stuck in time. Technologies like well
crafed nail clippers are ofen a stag-
gering shock to the North Korean
public, and compuers and CDs are
looked out without the faintest rec-
ognition.
Te magnolia nation is trapped
in the past in other, more dramatic
ways. Te current estimate is that
between 150,000 and 200,000 North
Koreans are detained in concentra-
tion camps today. A state propo-
gated famine killed an estimated 3.5
million people in just four years.
Te Economist Intelligence Unit
publishes a Democracy Index nearly
every year since 2006 and in every
single report North Korea has land-
ed at the very bottom of the list, and
in every study the DPRKs score un-
cer civil liberties has been an un-
paralleled 0.00 out of 10.
Its likely that present day North
Korea has the worst human right
conditions of any nation, ever in
history.
And yet, despite the attention,
despite the brainwashing, despite
the deaths, and despite the attroci-
ties, intervention in North Korea
doesnt seem to be a major political
concern for most people who would
otherwise be well meaning and well
informed.
Tis project attempts to explore
that dilemma, to explain it, and to
foresee a viable resolution.
1
CONTENTS
Background
What is North Korea?
Life in North Korea
Death in North Korea
Illustrations of Concentration Camps by Escapees
North Korea and the West
North Korea and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Why Doesnt the West Just Attack North Korea?
North Korea and the East
China and South Korea
Change Comes From Within
Why Arent More People Aware of or Concerned for North Korea?
Why Do People Know So Little?
Compassion Fatigue
Caricaturization
Denial
A Final Tought
2
4
12
18
22
5
6
7
9
14
15
19
20
23
24
26
27
28
North Korea and South Korea at night
3
BACKGROUND
To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is
free, when men are diferent from one another and do
not live alone to a time when truth exists and what
is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity,
from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother,
from the age of doublethink greetings!
- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
4
North Korea is, to my
surprise, a very difcult
nation to describe in even
its simplest aspects.
Te natural way we
make sense of new things
is to relate it to what we al-
ready know, but, in many
ways, North Korea is too
diferent from anything of
the concepts were famil-
iar with for quick descrip-
tions to do it justice.
North Korea has been
intentionally made so that
its not possible to describe
it in an original way; what
is possible to say about it
only comes in the form of
clichs.
Clichs like Big Brother,
the Prison State, and the
insane dictator arent just
too easy and overused,
theyre also true. Te late
journalist Christopher
Hitchens described this
phenomenon by saying,
Totalitarianism is itself a
clich.
Te Democratic Peo-
ples Republic of Korea
(its ofcial title) formally
declared itself a nation
in 1948, at the exact time
that George Orwell wrote
Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Its a nation which very
few people in the outside
world know much about,
and in which very few
people know much of the
outside world.
Korea was once a single
nation which was eventu-
ally occupied by Impe-
rial Japan. Once Japan was
defeated in the second
World War, stewardship of
Korea was split horizon-
tally with the Americans
essentially getting what
became South Korea and
Soviet Russia getting what
became North Korea.
Not long afer this sepa-
ration, a war broke out
between the two Koreas in
a challenge to change the
border between the na-
tions, which, afer three
years and two-and-a-half
million killed civilians,
was ultimately drawn al-
most exactly where it
started.
Since then, every-
thing about North Ko-
rea is modeled afer its
frst leader, Te Great
Leader, Kim Il-sung, who
ruled the nation until his
death in 1994.
Hitchens, one of very
few journalists to visit
North Korea and write
about it and the only jour-
nalist to have reported
from all three Axis of Evil
nations, described North
Korea in a 2005 lecture on
the Axis of Evil:
Teres a picture of
him on every wall,
there has to be a pic-
ture of him in every
house, he is never
of the television
screen, hes never of
the radio, all flms
are about him, and
all plays are about
him, all education is
about him, all public
events are about him,
all holidays are about
him.
Kim Il-sung is still,
twenty years afer his
death, the President of
North Korea. His son
and successor Kim Jong-
il was (and will forever
be) ofcially the General
Secretary of the Workers
Party, and Kim Jong-un,
the third-generation Kim
now ruling North Korea,
is the First Secretary of the
Workers Party.
Every aspect of politi-
cal life in North Korea is
related to the cult of the
leader and every aspect of
life is political.
Where a North Korean
lives, what he or she eats
and drinks, does for a liv-
ing, how much food they
are given to eat weekly,
how much of an education
theyre allowed to have,
where theyre allowed to
go, what transportation
theyre allowed to use to
get there, how late theyre
allowed to be outside,
who theyre allowed to
speak to - everything is
determined by a persons
songbun.
Songbun is in some
ways derived from or nev-
ertheless similar to the
Imperial Japanese concept
of honor, except more im-
portant to every aspect of
life and the only criteria
by which a persons song-
bun is measured is their
loyalty to Te Party.
Poor songbun is also
passed down three gen-
erations, so that a per-
sons songbun is just as
much measured by their
own actions as it is by the
actions of their parents
and grandparents - many
people are doomed from
birth to a horrifc life in
labor camps because of
something their grand-
parent whispered to the
wrong person.
WHAT IS NORTH KOREA?
Tis is not a black and white photograph
5
Anecdotes that have
been supplied by defectors
about their lives prior to
feeing are one of the only
means we have to know-
ing about life in North
Korea; Barbara Demicks
book Nothing to Envy:
Ordinary Lives in North
Korea, for example, excel-
lently tells the stories of
refugees and what their
lives were like in North
Korea long before condi-
tions were so unignorably
bad that they had to fee:
In the futuristic dys-
topia imagined in
1984, George Or-
well wrote of a world
where the only color
to be found was in
the propaganda post-
ers. Such is the case
in North Korea. Im-
ages of Kim Il-sung
are depicted in the
vivid poster colors
favored by the So-
cialist Realism style
of painting. Te great
leader sits on a bench
smiling benevolently
at a group of bright-
ly dressed children
crowding around
him. Rays of orange
yellow emanate from
his face: He is the
sun.
She describes the im-
pression this state propa-
ganda and leader worship
had on one defector:
Mi-ran had no rea-
son not to believe the
signs. Her father was
a humble mine work-
er. Her family was
poor, but so was ev-
ery family she knew.
Since all outside
publications, flms,
and broadcasts were
banned, Mi-ran as-
sumed that nowhere
else in the world was
better of, that that
most probably fared
far worse. Mi-ran felt
she was quite lucky
to have been born in
North Korea under
the loving care of the
fatherly leader.
In quantum mechanics
Te Totalitarian Principle
states that everything that
is not forbidden is com-
pulsory.
Its interesting not only
how well this directly re-
lates to politically totali-
tarian North Korea but
also the inverse is equally
true and equally telling:
everything that is not ab-
solutely necessary to fur-
thering the Kim objective
is absolutely forbidden
and punishable by torture
and death.
Tis doesnt just apply
to the outside world, or
ideas that could poten-
tially be dangerous to the
Kim regime, but more
perversely it applies to
any imaginable thing is ir-
relevant to it. Tose who
are not chosen to study a
certain feld, even math,
are expressly forbidden to
study it.
Tis principle doesnt
simply apply to academia
but to every aspect of what
a person might learn.
Demick quotes Mi-ran
admitting, At the time
I lef North Korea, I was
twenty-six years old and a
schoolteacher, but I didnt
know how babies were
conceived.
Because of North Ko-
reas insistence on isolat-
ing its people completely
from the outside world,
and because of their com-
plete inability to compete
with it, North Koreas tech-
nology has been frozen in
time. Demick writes that
the people of North Korea
have seen no technologi-
cal advancement since the
end of the Korean War in
1953.
Similarly, Russian de-
signer Artymy Lebedev
described what he saw
in the showcase city of
Pyongyang, the best that
North Korea can possibly
muster to impress foreign
tourists, by saying:
If we compare the
details and realities
of everyday life with
what we know from
history, its possible
to pinpoint the time
in which North Ko-
rea is living: its 1950.
Even a well-oiled and
fnely-tuned time
machine could hard-
ly throw you back
into the past with
such accuracy.
Te distance between
the major North Kore-
an city of Kaesong and
the South Korean capi-
tal Seoul is only about 25
miles, but the North Kore-
ans who manages to travel
that distance are ofen
genuinely astonished and
badly jarred by the sheer
technological marvel of
what they fnd there.
But its not the awe of
looking up at the heights
of what modern technol-
ogy thats the most telling.
North Koreas antiquat-
edness shows in the face
of the most unassuming
scraps of what no one in
Te West with give a sec-
ond thought.
Demick reports:
A North Korean sol-
dier would later re-
call a buddy who had
been given an Amer-
ican-made nail clip-
per and was showing
it of to his friends.
Te soldier clipped
a few nails, admired
the sharp, clean edg-
es, and marveled at
the mechanics of this
simple item. Ten he
realized with a sink-
ing heart: If North
Korea couldnt make
such a fne nail clip-
per, how could it
compete with Amer-
ican weapons?
LIFE IN NORTH KOREA
North Koreans in line for the bus
6
With the end of Soviet Russia
so the cheap fuel subsidies which
North Korea had long been gifed
by their Communist brothers to the
north.
North Koreas infrastructure is
designed the way you would expect
when all decisions are made by a
leader who executes anyone who
would think to question him.
Power generators were designed
to need signifcant power to start
operating, for example, and soon
afer the end of the subsidies power
generators started dying out and
becoming rusted monuments to a
North Korea that could be seen at
night.
Soon afer that the economy col-
lapsed entirely. For months North
Korean workers would arrive to
work at their factories only to stand
at attention for ten hours and clean
equipment that had long since
stopped operating.
North Koreans get their food
from weekly government rations,
which gradually dwindled further
and further. Meanwhile, the pro-
paganda that covered every sur-
face and every announcement with
party slogans like, LETS CATCH
MORE SPIES TO PROTECT THE
FATHERLAND, and, LETS LIVE
OUR OWN WAY, began to in-
clude the slogan, LETS EAT TWO
MEALS A DAY!
Te ensuing famine would be one
of the worst famines in modern his-
tory.
In his speech on the Axis of Evil
Hitchens lectures, We dont know
how many North Koreans died in
the famine of 90s and its impossible
to fnd out, but its several million,
and the average height of people in
North Korea has shrunk by several
inches.
Desperate North Koreans stopped
showing up to work to scavenge for
anything to eat, which is easier said
than done in a nation thats not only
arid but also highly industrialized.
People in factory towns like
Chongjin had to walk several hours
to get to any place where things nat-
urally grow, only to fnd that every-
thing had already been picked clean.
Meanwhile, North Koreas strict
songbun system reserved insured
that the most elite never went hun-
gry, and the inner part and the mili-
tary them had frst go at everything
that was lef, leaving only the occa-
sional scrap for most citizens.
In 2014 the United Nations Gen-
eral Assembly commissioned a re-
port on human rights in the Dem-
ocratic Peoples Republic of Korea.
Te report concluded that the
North Korean leadership and its
current leader were guilty of vari-
ous human rights abuses and crimes
against humanity:
DEATH IN NORTH KOREA
A North Korean man seen by a tourist in the showcase city of Pyongyang, picking grass to eat.
North Korean Children noticed through a far away window. Pictures like these are strictly forbidden and journalists must try to sneak them out with them
7
Systematic, widespread and
gross human rights viola-
tions have been and are be-
ing committed by the Dem-
ocratic Peoples Republic of
Korea, its institutions and
ofcials. In many instanc-
es, the violations of human
rights found by the com-
mission constitute crimes
against humanity.
Tese are not mere excesses
of the State; they are essen-
tial components of a politi-
cal system that has moved
far from the ideals on which
it claims to be founded.
Te gravity, scale and nature
of these violations reveal a
State that does not have any
parallel in the contemporary
world. Political scientists of
the twentieth century char-
acterized this type of politi-
cal organization as a totali-
tarian State: a State that does
not content itself with ensur-
ing the authoritarian rule of
a small group of people, but
seeks to dominate every as-
pect of its citizens lives and
terrorizes them from within.
Of course, all of this was widely
available information well before
February 2014.
A 2011 publication from Human
Rights Watch on Genocide in North
Korea states:
Genocide Watch has ample proof
that genocide has been committed
and mass killing is still underway in
North Korea.
Te Human Rights Watch report
goes on to cite its own research and
a report by Amnesty International,
saying that around 200,000 political
prisoners (the only kind of prison-
ers) are currently kept in concentra-
tion camps for life.
An estimated third of these are
children, some of whom were born
in these camps will spend their en-
tire lives there as slave laborers.
Te United Nations World Food
Program reports that North Korea is
facing the worst food shortage in the
world today.
Te famine of North Korea has
physically stunted the North Korean
population so severely that the aver-
age North Korean is now six inches
shorter than the average South Ko-
rean.
Demick catalogs testimonies
from refugees who say they that
someone or they themselves resort-
ed to eating grass, dirt, manure, and
in rare cases the fesh of those who
had already starved to death in or-
der to temporarily stave of hunger.
A Washington Post article titled
Cannibals of North Korea, reports
at least one incident where a despa-
rate, starving man resorted to kill-
ing and eating his two daughters.
Te recent UN report calls for
immediate, unhesitating action to
be taken to try Kim Jong-un and the
upper North Korean leadership in
an international court of law and to
provide food aid and protection of
basic human rights to North Korean
citizens.
So why hasnt this happened?
A North Korean soldier standing alongside an
American soldier and a South Korean soldier
8
ILLUSTRATIONS OF CONCENTRATION
9
CAMPS DRAWN BY ESCAPEES
10
11
NORTH KOREA
AND
THE WEST
His voice was terribly sad. I understood that he did not wish to
see what they would do to me. He did not wish to see his only
son go up in fames.
My forehead was covered with cold sweat. Still, I told him I
could not believe that human beings were being burned in our
times, the world would never tolerate such crimes
Te world? Te world is not interested in us. Today, everything
is possible, even the crematoria his voice broke.
- Elie Wiesel, Night
12
13
Ofcial statements made by governments
in reaction to Kim Jong-Ils death in 2011
Australia
Japan
Poland
South Korea
Taiwan
United Kingdom
United States
Kim Jong-il will be
remembered as the leader
of a totalitarian regime who
violated the basic rights of
the North Korean people for
nearly two decades.
- Canada
We hope that their new
leadership will recognise
that engagement with the
international community
ofers the best prospect of
improving the lives of ordi-
nary North Korean people.
We encourage North Korea
to work for peace and
security in the region.
- United Kingdom
Canada
Finland
France
Germany
Hungary
Sweden
CRITICISM OF NORTH KOREA CALL FOR PEACE/STABILITY
Amenia
Azerbaijan
Bangladesh
Belarus
Cambodia
China
Croatia
Cuba
Equitorial Guinea
Ethiopia
Ghana
Guinea
India
Indonesia
Iran
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Mongolia
Myanmar
Nepal
Nicaragua
Pakistan
Palestine
Philippines
Qatar
Russia
Syria
Venezuala
Vietnam
CONDOLENCES
Te message said that leader Kim
Jong Il devoted all his life to the
dignity and prosperity of the country
and the people and most powerfully
supported the cause of global justice
and truth.
- Palestine
Te American Secu-
rity Project has detailed a
timeline of North Koreas
nuclear weapons program,
and it shows that North
Korea was beginning to
develop nuclear weapons
as far back as the early
1960s.
In 1985 North Korea
signed the Treaty on the
Non-proliferation of Nu-
clear Weapons, promising
to not seek nuclear weap-
on development.
Coming into compli-
ance with the treat, how-
ever, required that North
Korea allow an inspection
of its nuclear power facili-
ties, which it dodged for
years.
In 1992, a team from the
International Atomic En-
ergy Agency was allowed
to inspect North Korean
nuclear power plants un-
til they started to ask too
many questions and no-
tice too many inconsisten-
cies and was disallowed
from continuing any in-
spections.
A few months later,
in 1993, North Korea
threatened to withdraw
from the Non-Prolifera-
tion Treaty, which made
then-President Clinton
concede to an agreement
which required North Ko-
rea to demonstrate in a
few years time that it had
no nuclear capabilities.
Somewhat obviously,
this agreement wasnt fol-
lowed through on North
Koreas part.
Ten-leader Kim Jong-
il used baited food and
electrical aid from West-
ern nations with promises
of discontinuing its nu-
clear program in return,
never keeping up its end.
As a result, many coun-
tries began to cutof their
aid to North Korea, exac-
erbating the famine.
During the height of the
famine which was in the
process of killing about
four million people North
Koreans, Te U.S. ofered
to provide for all of North
Koreas power needs if it
ends its nuclear program
in return, which would
have efectively ended the
famine over night.
North Korea refused the
deal.
By 2002 then-President
Bush had declared North
Korea as being a part of
what he called Te Axis
of Evil and by 2003 North
Korea had backed out
of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty and were openly
testing nukes.
Western relations with
North Korea lie in at an
efective standstill, in
which North Korea re-
peatedly baits favors by
making promises it has
no intention of keeping,
and Western nations, Te
United States in particu-
lar, has little choice but to
concede and hope for the
best.
Ultimately, waiting for
North Korea to surrender
its nukes is a fruitless en-
deavor.
14
NORTH KOREA
AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
Ranges of various North Korean missiles capable of nukes are shown below.
Te innermost circle easily surrounds Seol and Tokyo
Visibly tarved soldiers march in a display of North Koreas military power
Not content with Nuclear weap-
ons, North Korea is also thought
to possess chemical weapons as
well biological weapons. Tis, com-
bined with internal human rights
violations as well the abductions of
Japanese and Korean citizens makes
North Korea guilty of violating at
least the Genocide Convention,
Nuclear Weapons Convention, and
Biological Weapons Convention,
any single one of which allows (if
not mandates) the UN or any nation
within it to intervene using military
force.
However, Te situation with
North Korea is such that its really
only those nations that know they
dont pose a military threat to North
Korea (either because of their weak
military or staunch anti-war posi-
tions) actually a criticize it for these
reasons (see my Kim Jong-il Death
Map for reference). Western nations
with threatening militaries which
will get involved if they have to tend
to take a much more reserved ap-
proach.
Tis is most predominantly due
to the hostage situation the North
Korea has set up using Japan (which
it regularly shoots missiles over
in a reminder of how easily they
could nuke it), South Korea (there
are enough conventional weapons
alone aimed at all times at the 10
million civilians in the capital of
Seoul to obliterate the city in a mat-
ter of hours), and its own people
(who would be the real victims of a
military strike).
Sure, if North Korea does fol-
low through on any of its military
threats, Western powers would be
North Korean Propaganda commonly depicts American Soldiers elaborately torturing Koreans for fun
WHY DOESNT THE WEST
15
easily able to crush its military
in a matter of a day, but given the
atrocities its allowing North Korea
to get away, this stalemate is pretty
desirable.
Hitchens summarizes:
You could send a squadron
of planes over North Korea
and you could denuclearize
it in an afernoon. But we
cant bet that they wouldnt
destroy themselves in an at-
tempt to destroy us. Its mor-
ally not possible to take that
chance. And if you refuse
to pay any more tribute to
them, if you say, Right, we
wont give you any more
food, you know whos gonna
go hungry and its not gonna
be Kim Jong Il. And again,
its very morally difcult if
we say, We hate you so much
well starve your population.
Still, none of this is to say that Te
West is doing everything it can. Its
merely doing everything it has to.
Tis distinction, conveniently, does
not show itself readily.
As the chief enemy of Nuclear
North Korea, Te United States in-
volvement is strictly self-preservato-
ry.
No politician runs with a Liber-
ate North Korea platform. Te web-
site of Congressman George Miller,
my Congressman, which claims
he, supports fundamental human
rights doesnt so much as mention
North Korea, uncontestedly the na-
tion with the worst human rights
violations currently on the planet.
Hes by no means the exception.
America has a shameful history,
in fact, of not intervening in any
genocides it doesnt have to. Afer
the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, the
same administration that conceded
to North Koreas bid for time to de-
velop nukes was found by the Na-
tional Security Archive (the other
NSA: a non-governmental research
organization founded to check
against government secrecy) to have
contributed to the Rwandan Geno-
cide in the following ways:
1. Te U.S. lobbied the
U.N. for a total withdrawal
of U.N. (UNAMIR) forces in
Rwanda in April 1994;
2. Secretary of State War-
ren Christopher did not au-
thorize ofcials to use the
term "genocide" until May
21, and even then, U.S. of-
fcials waited another three
weeks before using the term
in public;
3. Bureaucratic infghting
slowed the U.S. response to
the genocide in general;
4. Te U.S. refused to jam
extremist radio broadcasts
inciting the killing, citing
costs and concern with in-
ternational law;
5. U.S. ofcials knew ex-
actly who was leading the
genocide, and actually spoke
with those leaders to urge an
end to the violence but did
not follow up with concrete
action.
Even the moment which the
American military most deserves to
be proud of, the liberation of Nazi
concentration camps, was in many
ways a matter of happenstance.
Te United States Holocaust Me-
morial Museum reminds us that the
Roosevelt administration would not
admit Jews seeking refuge from the
Nazi persecution, though it was well
aware of what that meant, and in
some cases even deported asylum
seekers back to Europe.
American Newspapers were al-
ready reporting news of Te Holo-
caust before the attack on Pearl Har-
bor, which went unresponded to or
denied by the Government.
When irrefutable, photographic
proof of the death camps reached
the administration in 1943, it was
classifed as a government secret.
Te United States government is
perhaps no more self-serving than
any other Western government, but
with Russia and China holding veto
power over any UN intervention,
the United States government and
the majority of its people are seem-
ingly content to sit back and let Te
East sort out the situation on its
own.
JUST ATTACK NORTH KOREA?
16
17
NORTH KOREA
AND
THE EAST
Te Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not in-
terested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.
Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure
power. What pure power means you will understand presently.
We are diferent from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we
know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resem-
bled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. Te German Nazis
and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their
methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own
motives. Tey pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they
had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that
just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings
would be free and equal.
We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power
with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is
an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safe-
guard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to estab-
lish the dictatorship. Te object of persecution is persecution.
Te object of torture is torture. Te object of power is power.
Now do you begin to understand me?
- George Orwell, 1984
18
Among the United States gov-
ernment and people well-informed
enough about North Korea to know
why we cant just barge in, the most
resoundingly common sentiment is
that the North Korea puzzle will be
best solved by (or at any rate should
be abandoned to) the East.
Western intervention in North
Korea almost certainly means war.
Te peaceful solution lies in the
hands of China, North Koreas clos-
est ally.
Among the forum moderators,
jaywalker1982 argues:
China is key here. Tey have
to stop protecting NK and
allow more in depth inves-
tigation, and stop forcibly
repatriating so many defec-
tors In the West all we can
do is put that pressure on
China.
China did, in fact, distance itself
from North Korea somewhat afer
whats now come to be called the
2013 North Korea Crisis.
North Korea directly and repeat-
edly threatened to nuke South Ko-
rea, Japan, and the United States
while it was at the same time shown
to be testing nuclear weapons.
CrazyEddie041, however, holds
that a solution is likely to be found
through China:
Chinas main priority re-
garding North Korea is
keeping the regime stable:
they like having a friendly
country between them and
South Korea (and the Amer-
ican troops stationed there),
and they dont like the idea
of having to absorb mil-
lions of refugees should the
regime collapse. By keeping
North Korea propped up,
they can focus on other po-
litical goals without having
to watch their border.
Tough it seem like it, its worth
noting that jaywalker1982 and Cra-
zyEddie041 arent in complete dis-
agreement here.
Te two agree that China has sig-
nifcant political power over North
Korea as its only remaining lifeline
and most willing-and-able military
ally and neither is naive enough to
think that China would act on any-
thing other than its personal beneft.
Te diference in the two views is
in Chinas priorities.
While jaywalker1982 is right in
that Te West can have no infu-
ence on North Korea does through
diplomacy, he believes that Chinas
inclination to not be threatened by
military escalation along its bor-
ders will persuade North Korea to
appease Te West; CrazyEddie041
believes, contrary to that optimism,
that China would rather prepare for
war than work for peace and there-
fore wishes maintain North Korea
as a bufer between the South Korea
and its borders.
While it would make sense for
a nation to want to protect itself
rather than put itself directly at risk,
I fnd myself somehow more per-
suaded to think, maybe because of
Chinas own past and present hu-
man rights abuses and military en-
thusiasm, that it would reach for the
arrow and not the olive branch.
South Korea, while it for obvious
reasons doesnt have much weight in
negotiating with North Korea, plays
a vital role in the possible Korean
reunifcation.Tat role is potentially
compromised, however.
A Stanford study called, Te
Cost of Korean Reunifcation cites
more than a dozen reports by gov-
ernments, academics and invest-
ment banks and averages them out
to predict that the burden of South
Korea taking on 25 million starv-
ing, uneducated citizens would cost
them between $2 trillion to $5 tril-
lion, spread out over about 30 years.
Te blow to South Koreas cur-
rently booming economy would be
devastating.
And though its written in South
Koreas constitution that the ofcial
state position is in favor of Korean
reunifcation, this is likely to seri-
ously compromise South Korea ac-
tually putting those words into ac-
tion when it counts.
CHINA AND SOUTH KOREA
19
Te last remaining option is to
let North Korea run its course and
change from within.
North Korea forum moderator
told to me, I would love to see the
NK and SK reunited, but that change
can only come from within NK if we
dont want to see the War repeated.
Tis isnt an uncommon sentiment
among North Korea activists and
political experts, and its frankly not
as lazy a notion as it might seem at
frst glace.
Kim Il-sung was God-on-Earth
to the North Korean people and
Kim Jong-il was, from his child-
hood, revered nearly as much as his
father and known to be as deifc, but
Kim Jong-un was a relatively un-
known person when he came into
power - even to North Koreans.
It makes sense that people would
be more naturally inclined to fght
against him than they were his fa-
ther and his father before him.
Additionally, no one gets nuked
when North Korean politics just
change from within.
Just hours ago, as of this writing,
North Korean leadership publically
referred to a building collapse in
North Korea as an unintended ac-
cident. Surely, some would think,
this is sign of progress that will lead
to a real solution.
Tis simple appeal of this op-
tion, this last remaining reason that
people have to as-
sume they dont
need to care about
whats going in
North Korea and
that itll take care
of itself, is exactly
the reason its the
most destructive
approach to the
topic.
Tere are three
possible ways for
North Korea to
change internal-
ly: through will-
ing resignation
of power from
the Kim regime, through a military
coup, or through a civilian revolu-
tion.
Regarding the former-most, the
most important thing to under-
stand about the Kim-regime is that
it doesnt have famine, concentra-
tion camps, and economic nihility,
it is all those things. Tose things
only exist by its design.
In Nothing to Envy, Demick re-
counts Mrs. Songs story of how
afer the famine hit a black mar-
ket of food gradually started being
formed, which the military couldnt
shut down because its own soldiers
were in such desperate need of it.
People began to capitalistically
trade goods and labor for food that
had been snuck into the country
and within a few months Mrs. Song
would go to the makeshif market
but rice, bread, grapes, oranges,
even pineapples - foods that had
been unheard of in North Korea
since its inception.
Under the guise of protecting
peoples newly acquired savings
from harmful infation, the North
Korean regime eventually issued a
new currency and discontinued all
previous currencies.
When people took their lifes sav-
ings to be exchanged for the new
currency, they found out that there
was a limit of how much money
each family could exchange: about
30 US dollars. Countless people lost
all of their long-earned savings over
night and within a week the death
and famine were back to haunt
them.
Nineteen Eighty-Four warns that
totalitarian dictatorships arent in
power for any reason other than
for the sake of power itself, and the
only way of knowing they have that
power is to make people do things
they dont want to do, and to torture
them cruelly - it will never let go.
A military coup is also highly un-
likely.
Te North Korean political hier-
archy is established in such a way
that no one who would even think
to so much as question Kim Jong-
un isnt near enough to Pyongyang
(or alive long enough) to have any
impact whatsoever.
As far a civilian revolution goes,
that would require that people know
that theyre so oppressed and to
have the slightest concept of what
it is they want instead, which is just
not the case in North Korea.
Besides, everyone is a spy against
everyone else and people are put in
concentration camps for so much as
muttering the wrong thing in their
sleep.
Even if the citizens of North Ko-
rea could all band together against
their government, they dont pos-
sess anything close to the means to
overcome them through force, and
civil disobedience only works when
the government needs its people to
exist.
As it stands, most of the North
Korean population isnt providing
much if anything to the economy
and even if they were, North Koreas
economy has an inexhaustible get-
out-of-jail-free-card by bargaining
with Te West over false promises
to disarm their nuclear weapons or
just ask China for help.
Tey could start kill of every ci-
vilian with reckless abandon and,
with things the way they are now,
no one would stop them.
Teyre already doing it.
CHANGE COMES FROM WITHIN
20
Part of a series of photos snuck out of North Korea by a visitor titled Pictures North Korea Doesnt Want You to See. Siblings pose in
front of their mandatory household portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, in front which funny poses are expressly forbidden.
21
WHY ARENT MORE
PEOPLE AWARE OF
OR CONCERNED FOR
NORTH KOREA?
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a
piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be
washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if
a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends
or of thine own were: any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never
send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
- John Donne, Meditation XVII
22
Te frst and most obvious reason
that people dont care very much
about North Korea is that they dont
know anythings wrong.
Maybe a vague sense that its not
a pleasant place, or that its a com-
munist-and-therefore-bad state, but
people who can name names and
are aware of specifc conditions in
the country are by far the minor-
ity, even among otherwise well-in-
formed people.
One survey respondent summed
up everything they knew about
North Korea by saying, I know
that the leaders spend their money
on themselves and that the leaders
pay for big water parks that only the
elite are allowed at. Commonly, re-
sponses were very general. Another
respondent said, Its a creepy op-
pressive place led by communist.
In addition to surveying my
Facebook friends, I wrote to several
moderators of online North Korea-
related forums. One moderator with
the username elbac14 elaborated:
Very few people care about
North Korea because no-
body is taught about it in
school. I didnt know any-
thing about North Korea
or the Korean War until a
picked up a book (Nothing
to Envy) during a summer
between university.
Most people said that North Ko-
rea wasnt in the news enough or
taught about in schools enough for
them to know as much theyd like to,
but thats its either polite gesturing
or excuse making. As a respondent
to my survey put it: Tis informa-
tion isnt exactly hidden or brushed
aside.
Several attempts have been made
to bring awareness about North
Korea to the public. Written works
have only reached those who have
either been curious enough already
to seek it out or who read political
commentary avidly enough to have
stumbled onto it, neither of which is
a very large population.
More visuals attempts have in-
cluded many galleries of pictures
taken by journalists and tourists
during visits of North Korea as well
a few documentaries with video
footage of life inside North Korea.
Te problem though is that North
Korea is extremely careful about
what parts of North Korea visitors
get to see.
Te city of Pyongyang, in which
most visitors are kept, is not just
the best of everything North Ko-
rea can muster with its money. To
live anywhere near Pyongyang a
person must constantly prove and
prove again their strict devotion to
the party. North Koreans outside of
Pyongyang arent allowed to even
travel to it without strictly enforced
permits.
In Pyongyang, visitors can never
choose where to go or when to go
there. Each visitor is assigned two
caretakers, each to monitor and in-
sure that the visitor does not and
cannot see or hear anything he
or she isnt allowed to and also to
watch the other guide to insure that
their work isnt compromised. Still,
what can be said is ofen telling and
shocking nonetheless. Hitchens ex-
plains:
Even though though the re-
gime makes every efort to
only show the good bits of
the country, it cant stop you
from seeing from the bus
as you go cross-country old
people picking up individual
grains of rice from the felds
people trying to eat grass.
Its not possible to conceal a
thing of this kind.
Searching YouTube for North
Korea and arranging the results by
views reveals that the most attention
any such video has gotten is VICEs
documentary Inside North Korea
(in 10th place as most viewed North
Korea video) has gotten 3,449,734
views in years. Te top search re-
sult, a musical parody of Gangnam
Style, has gotten 43,999,754 views
in one year.
Another North Korea web-forum
moderator who I spoke with regard-
ing North Korea, CrazyEddie041,
partly attributed the lack of atten-
tion to how long the problems be-
ing ongoing:
Human rights have been an
endemic problem in North
Korea since it was founded,
and the famine that killed
so many people started two
decades ago. Teres nothing
new to get enraged over, so
people dont; they just kind
of accept that North Korea
is a sinkhole and dont want
anything to do with it.
Its worth noting, however, Joseph
Kony and Te Lords Resistance
army were ongoing problems long
before Kony 2012 went viral.
Since Kony 2012, the strategy of
North Korea activists have modeled
their eforts afer it. Relatively short
videos with sweeping melancholy
orchestration highlight the traves-
ties of the North Korean famine and
concentration camps.
Cornerstone Ministry, an inter-
national Christian ministry con-
cerned with North Korea posted a
video, titled Te UNSPEAKABLE
HELL of North Korea Concen-
tration Camps Illustrated Video
Shocking Cruelty, that compiles
illustrations of prisoner condition,
torture methods, and executions in
North Korean concentration camps.
Te video was thumbed down by
43% of viewers through YouTubes
rating system. Te frst comment
one sees looking at the video is,
Tis is not proof these are draw-
ings.
In an attempt to avoid this same
disconnect, Human Rights Watch
posted a 15-minute video in Febru-
ary which combined some draw-
ings of camp conditions with face-
to-face video interviews with real
defectors who lived in those camps:
so far its gained only 132,229 views.
While that number isnt nothing, it
still pales in comparison to the one-
hundred million views of the video
it tries to emulate.
WHY DO PEOPLE KNOW SO LITTLE?
23
It seems that neither news articles nor drawings,
are enough to make the public believe and care about
whats going on in North Korean concentration camps,
but the solution may be more nuanced than just fnding
a way to more disturbing images more in the face of the
public.
Te uploader of the mirror of Te UNSPEAKABLE
HELL of North Korea ofers additional commentary,
adding, If this does not sicken, horrify, & utterly revolt
you, you are probably emotionally and/or mentally ill
& unstable, and you are probably in desperate need of
psychiatric help.
Compassion Fatigue is a psychological condition.
When used in the direct medical sense it typically re-
fers to a the gradual lessening of a persons ability to
feel compassion over time. Sometimes called, Second-
ary Stress Syndrome, the condition was frst diagnosed
among nurses in the 1950s. It develops over time as a
person is exposed to witnessing trauma that engages
their compassion consistently enough and for a long
enough time that it over reduces the brains natural ca-
pacity for compassion in the same way that drug ad-
dicts degrade their natural capacity for feeling pleasure.
Te word callous is evidence enough, however, that
the notion of compassion hardening with wear like skin
afer hard labor was noticeable well before Te Fifies.
Journalism Analysts, like those at Te Columbia
University Graduate School of Journalism, use the
term compassion fatigue more broadly to mean that
the general populations exposure to traumatic images
has dulled societys overall capacity for compassion and
reduce the efcacy of photojournalism. In an online
self-study Unit on Photography and Trauma, the col-
lege teaches:
Reports about international crises war,
famine, disease, brutality and other major
conficts abroad can have mixed efects at
home. Journalist, photographer and scholar
Susan Moeller has written extensively about
the subject of compassion fatigue, a phe-
nomenon in which news stories about partic-
ularly egregious events abroad elicit less com-
passion from readers and viewers because
they do not perceive that there is anything
that can be done about the situation, and they
fnd it difcult to understand the complexity
of factors that result in unspeakable crimes
against humanity. As such, they tune out.
As such, its not necessarily in the best interest of
eliciting widespread awareness and concern for human
rights abuses to saturate media with horrifc pictures
from North Korean concentration camps if we even did
have images to share.
jaywalker1982, a moderator at a North Korea related
web forum, ofered this insight when I asked him about
this issue: In my personal opinion, more imagery of the
human rights plights would be helpful. Not necessarily
gore, though, as that would alienate some people - just
metaphorical like tankman. I was extremely impressed
with this distinction, which was casually slipped into
a long wall of text on the issue. Hes absolutely right.
I think the images that would most efectively get
Americans and other people of the civilized world to
care would be the ones that show North Koreans as liv-
ing, dignifed human beings who want and deserve the
same things that they do.
Tis distinction is what accounts for how much global
support the Arab Spring received from the youth of the
international community, who felt so much solidarity
with their Arab brothers and sisters that they were in-
spired by their protests to create the Occupy movement,
but how so very few of them felt that same solidarity
and compassion for their Syrian brothers and sisters by
wanting to intervene when they were having chemical
weapons used against them by their government.
At any rate, while direct images of the atrocities hap-
pening would certainly prove to all but the most staunch
denialists that there are truly horrible things being done
to their fellow human beings in North Korea, I think
the sorts of images and interviews that would be most
efective to show in Te West, that would most invite
action, should try to present North Korean defectors as
brave people who are capable of seeing the wool thats
been pulled over their eyes with a little bit of help and
who are capable of and willing to make brave sacrifces
for their own cause.
COMPASSION FATIGUE
Images like this illegally snuck out portrait have the potential
to remind us that North Koreans are humans, like us.
24
Reddit.com is a website that aggregates links that users submit regarding a specifc topic, that are then rated and
commented on by its millions of international users. For example, a user might submit a link to a news article on
the melting West Antarctic ice sheet, afer which other users either vote it up or down a list of recent submissions
to arrange the links in order of importance. Te same rating system is then applied to arrange the comments for
each article. I took every article from the last month that was voted into the top 10 news articles of that day and
looked that the top rated comment for each article.
North Korean new generation losing faith in the regime:
Afer decades of absolute control, Pyongyangs iron grip
on the lives of ordinary citizens is fnally slipping
South Korea Defence Ministry says North Korea is not
a real country, exists solely for the beneft of Kim Jong
Un, and must disappear soon.
North Korea has written an ofcial letter of complaint
to Britain over a London hair salons advert implying
leader Kim Jong-Un has a bad hairstyle
Satellite images taken on Wednesday include hints that
North Korea may be preparing to detonate multiple
nuclear devices at once
North Korea calls Obama a powerful pimp and gang-
ster for South Koreas prostitute President; says South
Korean presidents behavior like a crafy prostitute
eagerly trying to frame someone by giving her body to
a powerful pimp. Te North then said it was ready for
full scale nuclear war.
Full-scale large military drone operations will start
shortly in Japan and its nearby airspace to monitor Chi-
nese military activities and North Koreas nuclear and
missile development
North Korea ofer condolences to South for Sewol Ferry
disaster
North Korea arrests 24 year old American citizen trying
to claim asylum in DPRK
North Korea accuses US and allies of worst human
rights abuses; says defectors to South Korea who
exposed human rights abuses are terrorists and that
North Koreas masses are leading happy lives. Te North
said that human rights investigations would only make
it achieve Final Victory faster.
I remember reading an account of a younger North
Korean escapee, where she mentions that the trigger
for her was seeing Best Before dates on food aid. Te
idea that food could actually be lef alone long enough
to spoil indicated that maybe life really WAS better
outside North Korea.
I like how must disappear soon sounds infnitely
more intimidating and threatening than any of the
bombastic rhetoric thats ever come out of North
Korea.
North Korea just gets funnier every day.
Its April, nothing to worry about its just the annual
threaten to turn South Korea into a sea of fre festi-
val.
A large percent of NKs public statements sound like
they were written by angry teenagers.
Oh no! Teyre not putting people in their planes!
Dont forget that they are still Koreans to the north.
Diferent ideologies, diferent circumstances, diferent
leaders, but Koreans all the same.
What an idiot.
Not now North Korea. Its Russias turn to be the bad
guy.
Note: the coloring matches headline to comment and doesnt denote anything in itself
25
Doing any level of internet re-
search on North Korea immediately
demonstrates the caricaturization
of North Korea in popular media.
Parody songs like Kim Jong Style
are hardly the only example of this.
North Korea is widely parodied
and poked fun at from flms like
Team America: World Police to
meme images of the pudgy, boy-
faced Kim Jong-un on various in-
spections captioned with the run-
ning joke that he assumes every
item hes inspecting is food thats
being served to him.
Strangely, this is how the average
young person knows anything at all
about North Korea, aside from the
occasional headline afer a routine
North Korean military threat.
Answers from survey respon-
dents reporting where they learned
what they know about North Korea
included the answers, Tousands
of memes with the dictator with the
crazy hair cut, and most tellingly,
SNL, NPR, Te Colbert Report,
Te Onion.
Only one of the four sources that
the latter respondent listed isnt
completely devoted to comedic
parody, and this is by no means an
exceptional case - its the norm for
young people. As pervasive as this
is though, its worth noting that the
historical norm isnt much better.
Publications have sardonically
reported on North Korea for many
years, like the 2011 Telegraph ar-
ticle reporting that North Koreans
are made to believe that Kim Il-sung
has the power to control the weath-
er with his thought, that he got elev-
en holes-in-one playing golf for the
frst time, that he wrote 1,500 books
while attending university, and that,
Kim wrote six full operas in two
years, all of which are better than
any in the history of music.
North Korea forum moderator
jaywalker1982 complains:
All these rumors once again
just trivialize and mask the
REAL problems in the nation
and many take the country as
a joke.
Demick concurs:
North Korea invites parody.
We laugh at the excesses
of the propaganda and the
gullibility of the people. But
consider that their indoc-
trination began in infancy,
during the fourteen-hour
days spent in factory day-
care centers; that for the
subsequent ffy years, ev-
ery song, flm, newspaper
article, and billboard was
designed to deify Kim Il-
sung; that the country was
hermetically sealed to keep
out anything that might cast
doubt on Kim Il-sungs di-
vinity. Who could possibly
resist?
Te important thing to note is
that, more than anyone itself, its
North Korea itself thats painting
this caricature.
Every decision it makes and ev-
ery monument it builds force any-
one who knows the least bit about
North Korea to think, Of course
they did.
Hitchens wrote that Totalitari-
anism is a cliche, and the cliche
of North Korea has been repeated
many, many times over.
I think this has made the public
consensus on the North Korea situ-
ation gradually shif from It would
be hilarious if it werent so horrible
to it having been decided that its
okay to laugh, which has eventually
made people lose sight on how hor-
rible it really is.
CARICATURIZATION
26
Im sitting on a plastic chair in
the newspaper lab at school, eating
a cake I cant identify with a black
plastic knife because all of the forks
were gone by the time I showed up
to the party. My friend Julius asks
me how Ive been and I tell him that
Ive been working on a project on
North Korea. With a look of real-
ization he laughs, Oh, that survey
you posted on Facebook was real?
I assumed your account had gotten
hacked. I laugh, too.
We talk about the project for a
while over the sound of music com-
ing from the celebration the class
was having to commemorate the
end of the semester.
Afer a while I say my goodbyes to
the class and head back home when
Julius follows me out to walk with
me for a while and fnish our con-
versation. He fatters me for most of
the walk by telling me that he thinks
Im right, even though he hadnt
used the same reasoning when he
frst heard my topic and agreed. I
take the bait and ask.
Talking to Julius always brings
out my innermost cynic. We got
to know each other through being
22-year-old philosophy majors at
the same community college who
would indulge each others cynicism
by laughing at how terrible our lives
and the human experience itself is.
I ask him on the last leg of our
walk together what hed had in mind
and he told me that he thinks people
dont like thinking about North Ko-
rea because theyre in denial about
how bleak and horrible everything
in the world is. We laugh, and he
keeps explaining:
I think people feel like they
have this right to be happy.
You know, like, the pursuit
of happiness and all that.
Tey feel like thats what
they have to do in life. So
when it comes to climate
change or whatever big is-
sue, they kind of just ignore
it so it doesnt interfere with
their happiness.
Te more Ive thought about this,
the more it resonates with me. Sure,
not nearly as many people ignore
global warming as they ignore North
Korea, but look at the language they
use: you never hear Delay our im-
pending doom: carpool or At this
rate the Polar Ice caps will melt by
2063, go vegan so we can push that
back to 2081.
In some way or another our di-
rect engagement with these issues is
coupled with the sense that we can
solve them in a relatively straight-
forward way. Tis is probably actu-
ally due to how complex an issue
like climate change is. When a prob-
lem has thousands of diferent fac-
tors its somehow more gratifying to
take a swing and miss.
In a lot of ways, the North Ko-
rean issue is too simple. In my sur-
vey, regardless of how little someone
knew about North Korea, they knew
exactly how they felt about us inter-
vening.
One participant described what
they knew about North Korea as it
being where M*A*S*H took place,
that they might practice Shinto reli-
gion, and that it has probably very
interesting food. And yet this same
participants stance on what the US
should do in regards to North Korea
was:
I think we should support
but fucking back of. I think
we need to fx our country,
while showing support for
humanity outside our bor-
ders as well. We have no
right being the worlds po-
lice, but we should support
those who sufer in any way
we can.
Climate Change is a complex and
big enough disaster that anyone can
drive a Hummer, eat meat, not re-
cycle and still genuinely feel like
theyre fghting global warming.
North Koreas much too straightfor-
ward for that: everyone knows what
war is and what it costs, everyone
knows the harms of intervening in
another nations afairs, everyone
knows why aggravating a nation
with nuclear weapons is dangerous.
So they just dont think about it.
Sure, they feel bad for the starving,
tortured people when theyre re-
minded of them, but they know, be-
fore theyve heard what exactly the
atrocity the feel bad for is, that peace
wont change it and war isnt an op-
tion theyre willing to consider. So
they just dont think about it.
Maybe he, and maybe I, dont feel
the pull to look away from some-
thing like North Korea because
weve both given up the notion that
the world will ever be an overall
nice place to live in.
DENIAL
27
Finally, theres one more form of denial that I think
is important to mention. Among all the jingoist, isola-
tionist, optimist, ill-informed, buck-passing, and naive
reasons Ive written about thus far, this is what makes
the most sense to me: through the long course of com-
piling and writing all of this, this is how I rationalize
people who I think are smarter, better-informed, and
more compassionate than I am seem to not fnd North
Korea to be as important as I do.
Every apparent option Ive explored so far and have
been able to think of isnt likely to work: Sanctions wont
work as long as North Korea has allies in the world, de-
nuclearization wont work because nuclear weapons are
the only thing keeping the hollow corpse of the Kim
regime alive to begin with, China wont eliminate North
Korea because it wants to share a land border with a US-
allied state, neither China nor South Korea will inter-
vene eliminate North Korea because they cant handle
the fnancial burden of North Korean refugees, North
Korea wont collapse on its own for economic reasons
because its not being held up by its own weight, North
Koreas leadership wont voluntarily resign their power
because the torture and cruelty and famine are all part
of the point of why theyre in power, North Koreas mil-
itary wont organize a coup because every position of
power is completely contingent on delusional loyalty to
the leader, and North Koreas people wont rise against
their leadership from within because they lack the lan-
guage concepts and physical means to compete with
North Koreas powerful military.
Te only remaining option is the one that everyone
already knows about, that everyone knows will end
North Koreas disgusting human rights violation, and
that no one wants to choose. No one wants to go to
war. Everyone knows whos allied with who. Everyone
knows what weapons would be involved.
And given that, if I were in charge, the option I prob-
ably would be pursuing to make change in North Korea
would be to educate the world on whats going on and
make them want to change it and to gradually incentiv-
ize China and Russia to abandon their alliances with
the Kim regime and wait for it to collapse and pick up
the pieces: more or less what world leaders are already
trying and have been trying for decades and made no
progress doing. I would also probably get the UN to set
aside a huge sum of money for taking care of potential
North Korean collapse so that South Korea and China
wont have to bear the burden on their own.
But I will say this: if the World War proves to be in-
evitable because of any of the many, many other poten-
tial causes, if the doomed fate of the current political
climate is to erupt into a terrible storm, I would never
be able to wash of the disgusted shame of having fall-
en into the storm because I couldnt run fast enough,
rather than having had the courage, compassion, and
dignity have stepped forward to oppose it.
A FINAL THOUGHT
28
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