We’re all aware of how South Korea and North Korea are at the extremes of how a country could be like, it’s crazy that two countries with the same name are democratic and one is under a dictatorship. My only idea of how the north is comes from movies, mostly American satires that joke about their supreme leader, sbeing the dank memer that I am, I was ignorant of the severity of what was going on in North Korea.
She shared how they weren’t allowed to access any media that is not from the supreme leader, let alone own a cellphone. They had no idea about how life was beyond the borders, some had no idea that there was even a different type of life outside theirs, they were made to believe that life is supposed to be like that. But the Divides in social class are evident only to those at the top, because as much as the country collectively is in poverty, there are no marginalized if there are no people on the other side. While millions suffer, thousands live a luxurious life; only they know that.
The contrast between North and South Korea is not ethnic, it can’t be. They are divided in social class, life-stage and generation, and possibly average age and gender. The access to information is beyond just the digital inequality, in its broader sense, it is affected by the unjust treatment of the government to the people they want to essentially brainwash. According to Yeonmi her first liberation was when she met someone that talked to her about a chance to escape the country, she took it. She shared how the process was extremely dangerous as they had to go through several checkpoints where her mom didn’t make it through. They experienced nights without light, walking in the cold desert nights all hungry, and the culture shock of meeting new people. When she got to China she was forced to marry an older man so that she could stay there and then eventually she got to go to South Korea to study there.
She was different there, because of the malnourishment, she described it as looking like a child among adults. The culture was shocking as it was her first time knowing about life in the west, the moment she did, she knew she wanted to go there. She became aware of the inequality that there is in the digital advances and she became more angry about their life in North Korea. Now, Yeonmi is an advocate for human rights being given platforms such as United Nations, but she shared that being exposed to authorities from her country has been a great threat to her since she would receive a lot of messages that tell her that she is in danger for speaking against their government, but Yeonmi Park is firm with her cause. Let’s all be Yeonmi Park.
NVfromSpace 