The article ‘Born and Raised in a North Korean Gulag’ by Choe Sang-Hun, published in the New York Times on Monday, July 9, 2007 was a shock to me. Having read 1984, a fantasy book, I should have been prepared for this, but I had no idea this kind of world could really exist nowadays. How naïve of me to think that something this terrible couldn’t exist in our modern world. I was aware of the fact that torture, death, murder and child labor existed but that someone or a group of people could create a camp like this where people in there don’t even know that there is an outside world, seems unrealistic. The prisoner that was released was in that camp for over 20 years. In 1984 of course, people have spent their whole life there, under this regime except the elder ones that can remember that it used to be different.
When Shin Dong Hyok describes his life in the camp, it seems like he’s talking about a bad war movie, which has an ending that’s only partly happy. The day someone told him about the life outside the walls of the concentration camp, he starts to dream and wishes to be free. In 1984 Winston develops these same feelings when O’Brian hints at him that there is ‘another place’, and he starts to fight for his freedom to love and to have a life of his own. In camp n.14 as well as in 1984 Oceania, the people are ‘deprived of their ability to have the most basic human feelings, such as love, hatred and even a sense of being sad or mistreated’ (Choe Sang-Hun p.2). As terrible as it sounds, it is probably for the best, because if the people in the camp were to feel love and sadness, their lives would be a simple torture. In these camps the people aren’t treated like humans, but like machines. Each day is repetitive and equally awful. Women have to work from 5a.m. ‘til midnight, I wonder how they survive longer than two weeks. The survivor describes a scene where a girl had been beaten to death for hiding wheat grains in her pocket. What kind of person would do that, and how can someone not be terrified and shocked at that view? I don’t understand how you can be immune to those feelings of disgust and fear, while watching it happen.
In Valley no.2, where Shin Dong Hyok used to go to school, there was a slogan carved into a wooden plaque saying: “Everyone obey the regulations!” We have talked about propaganda in class, and it is common in dictatorial regimes to help the popularity of a party using catching or patriotic slogans. The best examples are the Soviet Union with Stalin and Lenin, Hitler’s rule in Germany and also 1984. In this case, the slogan was put there to remind everyone of the single thing they have to do in the camp: Do what you’re told to do. When he escapes from the camp, he admits that he misses being told what to do. He finds it much simpler than having to make your own decisions, which I can understand to some extent but it baffles me how you could miss being treated like a rat. Dong Hyok watched his mother and his brother die. He sat in the audience when his own mother was hanged, and all he felt was hate. He didn’t love her, he hated her for trying to escape, even though he doesn’t know if it’s true, and he still can’t forgive her. Living in the camp, it never occurred to him that something was unfair or that he wasn’t treated right.
It is amazing how similar life in this concentration camp and life in Oceania are. Orwell’s book was his imagination, his warning about the future, but this article actually describes something that happened. Still today there are concentration camps like this one in many countries that we don’t know of and unless someone lucky and smart enough to escape comes and tells us what’s going on, we might not find out about all of them anytime soon. The thought that there are still people living in these exact conditions, not feeling a thing, not having any emotions, scares me. It’s a good thing that this man could escape even though his friend had to die during the escape, because now the message is out there. Now the authorities can take action and hopefully they already did with success.
I can completely see where you come from when you write this. I was so shocked as well when I realized a place like this, and then after quite mad that people actually could treat others like this. Especially because a lot of the people like Shin in these camps are being 'punished' for something that their ancestors did probably a decade or longer ago.
ReplyDeleteBut, I do understand or at least sympathize with Shins want to go back. If you look through 1984 and We there are always references to how people in the past wanted the "chains" and how ignorance is bliss. To Shin his world was what he knew, and if he didn't know anything else than what was happening didn't seem bad. And his desire to go back is natural, he grew up there, he was told what to do and all of a sudden he was placed all on his own in a word he had only heard of. It is only human nature to want to go back to what you know cause it is easier. So as much as it was "immoral" for us, it was his home.