North Korea: Modern Day Horrors

Sean Dynan

Recently, I watched a documentary by National Geographic on the secluded country of North Korea and their leader, Kim Jong Il. North Korea is a small country approximately the size of Mississippi. It holds about 23 million citizens. The people in North Korea worship Kim Jong Il like a god. The documentary is about an eye doctor from Nepal who travels to North Korea and cure patients of cataracts. Cataracts is a disease that causes blindness in one or even both eyes. He is followed by his camera crew and the film is narrated by Lisa Lang. It is amazing to watch them and how different their way of life is compared to ours.

The people in North Korea are completely cut off from the rest of the world. Many of them don't even know a man was on the moon. Kim Jong Il uses fear to strike the hearts of his citizens and control them. In North Korea, many things we take for granted are stripped away. The internet and television are controlled by the government. Cell phones are banned. As the people in the documentary drove around Pyongyang, the capital, there were pictures of Kim Jong Il, and his father, Kim Il Sung all over the city. The North Korean government has complete control and uses a ton of propaganda to make themselves seem superior to their neighbors in the south.

Although all the fighting was over about 50 years ago, many of the North Koreans still hold America accountable for the division of North and South Korea. The communist north, backed by Russia, wanted to unite their nations and tried to expand into the American backed south. The Americans came out victorious and there was never a formal peace treaty. Eighteen out of the twenty two major Korean cities were at least half obliterated. This is a base for the North Korean loathing of America and all its allies. This is the reason they remain so secluded from many countries especially South Korea. They are taught from a very young age to hate Americans. During the documentary, they show a little girl and her mother walking to school and singing nursery rhymes. Seems harmless right? But when they show translations of the lyrics, it is about slaughtering Americans and watching them beg for mercy before Kim Jong Il. The North Koreans don't want anyone entering their country, and just as important they don't want anyone leaving.

The DMZ (demilitarized zone) is a border between North and South Korea that is highly monitored by both sides. The DMZ runs about 160 miles long and is nearly impossible to cross over. Across the DMZ, there are over a million land mines, many electric fences, and over 2 million soldiers on constant watch for anyone trying to pass. North Korea figured this out and built four underground tunnels from The North to the South. The South has these tunnels crossed off but they believe there might be about 16 in total. There is one room that both sides are allowed in, but a meeting is very rare. The North only accept if they are told by Kim Jong Il.

Although we may feel bad for the people of North Korea, some of them have pride in their country. The North Koreans have a history of being pushed around and having their land taken, and now that they have a leader that strikes fear into other countries, they stand a little taller. In the documentary, the doctor and Lisa Lang travel back to a blind ladies house but are carefully watched by government officials. When they arrive they see many pictures of Kim Jong Il and no family portraits. When they ask the blind lady what the worst part about being blind is, she said not being able to see the supreme leader. All the government officials were moved by that line and a thing one of them said surprised me. “If our nation and our leader did not exist, we might as well be dead.” I am assuming that many of these things said in this documentary are said out of fear and manipulation. And that is just what Kim Jong Il wants it to be like.

 

Many people may not know this, but concentration camps are still in use today. Kim Jong Il uses concentration camps that can be the size of small cities. In these camps are slaves who work under harsh conditions and lack basic necessities. Many people think slavery died away with Abraham Lincoln, but they are wrong. One place modern day slavery thrives in is North Korea. We learned a lot about slavery in my History class and I didn’t hear much about North Korea. But instead of enslaving the people who did the crime, they enslave the whole family along with the victim. Cousins, uncles, grandparents are all enslaved because of what a relative did.  A famous camp in North Korea is called 22. 22 contains about 50,000 people and unfortunately, many who enter, do not come out alive. When they abduct the prisoners, they make sure the citizens see it so they know not to talk out or this will be their fate. This is a major way to keep the citizens in line and manipulate them.

 

The conclusion of the film was when the doctor removed the bandages of over 1,000 patients. To my surprise, when the people took off their bandages and were able to see, they walked right up to a portrait Kim Jong Il and thanked him profusely. I was shocked as I watched over and over again the people look right over the doctor who cured them and thanked their tyrant leader. One man’s words shocked me the most. As he thanked the leader, he said that with his newly gained eyesight, he would kill every last American in order to make Kim Jong Il happy. One of the women who was cured as a prisoner and vowed to Kim Jong Il to work harder in the fields.I am highly positive many of these people were either acting out of fear or were threatened to say these things. Cataracts is more common in North Korea because of the horrible medical treatment provided by their government. Many children who grew up in North Korea in the 1990s are chronically malnourished and the conditions are worse for children now. Even the ones who aren't prisoners are left without food, medication, and the average size of a South Korean child is much larger than in the North.

As I finished the film, I realized that although they may not know it, most of the people in North Korea are virtually enslaved. Kim Jong Il controls what they eat, what they watch, how they spend their time, and even control their feelings towards other countries with propaganda. The North Koreans build a large town with nice buildings visible to their neighbors in the south. The buildings that they built were actually hollow. They use this as a way to try to make South Koreans jealous of the North. This country is under complete control by a tyrant who unfortunately has control or nuclear weapons. He strikes fear into the hearts of his citizens and if that doesn't work he imprisons them. This is a truly awful situation and I worry for those starving, enslaved, scared, and dead currently in North Korea.

(Kim Jong Il has since passed away since this documentary. His son, Kim Jong Un took over power and runs similar empire to his fathers.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxLBywKrTf4