I stayed up half the night to finish reading Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick. Imagine living everyday in fear of what little you have being taken from you. Or having to worry your neighbor might overhear you complaining about the price of rice, or worrying about a headstrong child who won't conform and who can't fully appreciate the risk she's putting herself and her family in. North Koreans don't live like humans. They are stunted in every possible aspect of their lives -- physically, intellectually, emotionally, and morally.
The author interviewed North Korean defectors in South Korea about their lives in despotic North Korea. Their lives were just as horrific as you might suppose -- prison sentences for selling food on the black market, students starving in front of their teachers' eyes, bark soup, mandatory work without any compensation, inspectors to make sure the Leader's picture is up and dust free in every home, neighbors spying on each other, orphaned and abandoned children roaming the country, electricity and pharmaceuticals rare, etc.
Most of the defectors had never heard of cell phones or the internet before leaving North Korea. Even in the middle of famine, when the State could not or would not feed Its charges, Kim Jong Il came down on black markets selling food (the only food available often). Old women who were selling bark and flour cookies or potatoes grown in illegal gardens asked why couldn't the government just leave them alone? Nope, lock 'em up. Because the State isn't interested in whether or not you and those you love survive the famine, only if the State survives.
What makes such despotism possible? How did these people let the State so completely take away their humanity? What do they have to lose by standing up to the few standing on their throats?
Lessons learned from book:
1) Be careful what you value. Fear of losing what little one has seems to be the main method of keeping people in line. Every extra crumb becomes a victory, every increase in living space a vindication of the years of striving and self-control. And as each little nudge up the ladder of material gain is so painfully earned, people come to value that extra chit for food over their very humanity.
2) Those without guns are at the mercy of those with them. North Korea could never happen in Texas.
3) When people have something to gain by turning in neighbors, friends, and co-workers, many will.
4) Escape. It's not likely to get any better any time soon. Several defectors had left behind children with the hope of being able to get them out later. That's a tough decision. One woman left behind several sisters who were then arrested and sent to prison camps and are assumed dead. Lovely country.
i de siste 15 årene, det er hva vi sa før enhver anledning til å komme seg ut av "universell pakken." Chinese supermodellen
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