A vision of democratic change
Amar Bakshi, of the Washington Post's PostGlobal section, offers a really touching and telling story of desperation and courage from Kwang Soo, the daughter of a professor and a party administrator, made her journey from a privileged family of status in North Korea to poverty and near-starvation and finally to escape to neighboring China.
Dear (American) Leader
It is a very moving personal story of the harrowing realities of the threat of starvation in a closed, centrally-planned economy, and her suggestions for the U.S. to help the people of the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea.
Here is my reply to the article and one of its respondents.
"'The fact of the matter is that the only way to deal with the North Korean problem is to force Kim Jong Il to bring about significant economic reforms (like China). Failing that, we will have to stomach the continued suffering of many innocent civilians until someone decides that enough is enough dispatches Kim and his haircut once and for all.'
That's funny, anonymous. I don't remember the U.S. forcing economic reforms on China. Quite to the contrary, what I remember was China, like Vietnam and other Communist states, reforming their economic systems with greater freedom of trade and more open economies after years of economic decay, and, much later, a diplomatic tour by then-President Bill Clinton to open up diplomatic relations and economic ties. In fact, what I remember is a China that was highly suspicious of U.S. efforts to pressure it, leverage it, or otherwise act "imperially" in any direction, that made such reforms only after many years of poor results from Maoist central planning and force as a governing philosophy.
This author makes clear in no uncertain terms the consequences of U.S. hegemony and aggressive dominance of the Korean peninsula and generally in world affairs - namely that is makes peoples we wish to persuade to make liberal democratic reforms wary of us and our motives - and yet people still rally for the very kinds of policies that are clearly responsible for that mistrust.
How foolish could we possibly be to repeat all of those same mistakes in this arena trying to validate some backwards and clearly counterproductive notion of progress in our own country?
The beauty of a democracy is that when one leader or group is celebrating a bad governing philosophy, that I can vote for another, no matter how self-righteous the first group might be.
The commenter who noted that Koreans will, eventually, either wait for the U.S. and the international community to open North Korea up to economic reforms a la China or Vietnam, or, given the foolish directions that our own leaders, liberal and conservative, are taking us in, these days, North Koreans will have to make the sacrifices that are prerequisites to freedom, is essentially right.
Either wait for the slow and unpredictable pace of gradual reforms that may one day occur that free up the Korean economy, some, and open it up to the outside world. Or revolt, which would be a perfectly legitimate, and, given enough courage on the part of the Korean people, perhaps a better option, given no movement in the a more liberal or democratic direction, given a realistic possibility of success.
Personally, if I were a North Korean citizen, knowing what I know today, I would try to escape to somewhere where freedom and democracy are taken more seriously and the fruits of those commitments and the opportunities that make them available are more plentiful. And I would work for as peaceful a transition to a free and open democracy and market in North Korea as I could possible witness in my own lifetime. But if North Koreans chose to revolt, I would fight with them, if I were still living with my homeland, and support them morally and materially, if I had escaped abroad.
Having said all of that, Americans and Europeans should stave off the humanitarian crisis in North Korea, given the awful and ugly state of affairs in that country, until Koreans are able to determine their own fates, for political as well as for humanitarian reasons, as a matter of leadership as much as a matter of compassion (and as a matter of making clear that the two go hand in hand in the real world of 21st century democratic politics).
But the readers who are concerned about what North Koreans do for themselves and what the American government is expected to do for them may have a point in the sense that what North Koreans and Americans have in common is that both need to learn to be responsible better both for their own fates and for the fates of others in need on their own accord, more, and less from the largess of their governments. We might question whether the U.S. government should be relied upon to provide such aid not because it is not needed or because Americans shouldn't provide it, but because Americans need to learn such generosity of their own accord and not always rely upon their government to provide such aid when Americans are perfectly capable of helping out with or without their government. Americans, as much if not more than North Koreans, need a lesson in self-sufficiency, in dealing with international aid and times when others are in need of our assistance, learning to be responsible for such problems because it is the right thing to do and not because their government makes them help others by taxing its citizens.
That's a lesson for the whole world to learn, not just Americans or North Koreans.
And that is a lesson that will be learned with greater freedom and the responsibility that comes with that freedom rather than anyone forcing anyone to do anything."
