In the space of a few days, former NBA star Dennis
Rodman has flown into Pyongyang, enjoyed a basketball game with
Kim Jong-un, and wormed his way into the headlines by calling the country’s
supreme leader “awesome.” Never a stranger to
controversy, Rodman now finds himself in the unlikely position of being the
Westerner who has spent the most time with one of the world’s least understood
leaders. But if we’re going to listen to the former Chicago Bull’s insights on
North Korea, such as they are, we must also pay attention to the North Korean
people’s voices. In my work for Liberty in North Korea, a nonprofit that works
to bring North Koreans to freedom, I have met refugees who escaped the country
since Kim Jong-un took power. From their testimony and other sources, it’s
abundantly clear that Kim’s rule in North Korea falls well short of “awesome.”
Unlike Rodman, ordinary North Koreans risk their lives
if they try to leave the country without state permission. North Korean
refugees and people who work in the border regions say that getting out of the
country has become much more dangerous since Kim Jong-un assumed power. Both
sides of the border with China have seen major expansions of physical security,
including man traps and electrified fencing, along with efforts to root out the
corruption that enables those with money or connections to leave. (Refugees say
that the regime justifies the massive security increase with false reports of
terrorists sent by Seoul to blow up North Korean statues.) Punishments for
attempted escapes may also be harsher under Kim Jong-un. The number of North
Korean refugees arriving in South Korea in 2012 was down 44 percent from 2011,
the last year of Kim Jong-il’s rule.
Rodman shows no awareness of the disparity between his
experience as a guest and the everyday lives of North Koreans. He was able to
announce his arrival in Pyongyang on Twitter, taking advantage of a 3G Internet
service recently opened up to visiting foreigners. Ordinary North Koreans, by
contrast, are denied all access to the Internet, because the regime knows that
the Web would abolish its monopoly on ideas and threaten its survival. It has
also stepped up efforts to crack down on other emergent sources of
information—including Chinese mobile phones, which provide a line of
communication with the outside world from the border regions, and foreign
media, smuggled in on DVDs and USB sticks.
At the country’s National Security Agency last year,
Kim declared: “We must extend the fight against the enemy’s ideological and
cultural infiltration and psychological scheming, and must ruthlessly crush
those hostile elements with their childish dreams.” Yet encouragingly, refugees
report that the regime is fighting a losing battle on this front; consumption
of foreign media is becoming more widespread in their communities, to the point
where groups of friends are even gathering to enjoy South Korean dramas and
music—developments that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
This is a ray of light in the darkness. North Korea’s
humanitarian crisis shows no sign of ending anytime soon, despite a new public-relations
effort promising people that they won’t have to “tighten their belts again.”
Since Kim assumed power, the price of rice has doubled. The necessity for
economic reform is obvious to all, but the leadership fears that it wouldn’t be
able to control a more open society. Its nightmare scenario, of course, is
collapse and the wholesale replacement of the ruling elite by South Korean
counterparts—or perhaps an even worse fate. So North Koreans are kept in
enforced poverty, the only population in Asia that remembers being better off
during the Cold War than it is today.
This is the real North Korea—not Kim’s North Korea and
certainly not Dennis Rodman’s. It is a country where millions have not only
coped with life under the most repressive regime in the world but also begun
driving grassroots change with which the leadership will eventually have to
contend. What’s truly “awesome” about North Korea is the people’s resilience
and strength in the face of such brutality. American media coverage of this deeply
troubled country should pay less attention to addled celebrities and more to
one of the greatest human struggles of our time.
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