Weekly Awareness Topic : North Korea!

Something that's been on my mind lately and something which I've only recently become aware of is the situation in North Korea. Like the satellite image depicted here, North Korea is a bleak, dark country...not only because they only have electricity for a few hours per day (though I'm sure Kim Jung-il and fellow higher ups and party sympathizers are excluded from the darkness--notice the one spot of brightness in Pyongyang), but because of the situation the citizens find themselves in. I've heard all about North Korea in terms of the WMDs that they have and how Kim Jung-il is part of the "Axis of Evil," but I didn't quite know why he was so 'evil' until I started doing some investigating of my own (rather than relying on the "Investigative News" of my local hometown news station). In Nothing to Envy, Barbara Demick presents stories from ordinary citizens in North Korea who have since defected. She tells of love-bird teenagers forced to meet in the middle of the night (during the darkness depicted above) in order to just speak to one another (let alone touch, as the two depicted in the novel did not hold hands until after three years of dating) and of families struggling to find one meal a day, let alone three. She tells of children who leave school in order to forage for scraps of food, of mothers who succumb to selling items on the (very dangerous) black market, and of citizens who must not express any dissenting opinions (or even remarks/complaints about their social status in the hierarchy), lest they be sent to prison and camps akin to the Nazi concentration camps. The BBC documentary State of Mind (to be reviewed in my blog later this week) illustrates similar, very sad stories. In an effort to do some of my own research, I looked up North Korea on the CIA world factbook website. Some interesting statistics include the fact that, as the world's most closed economy, the North Korean GDP per capita (as estimated in 2009) is a startling $1,900--versus the USA GDP per capita of $46,400. As a testament to just how closed off North Korea is from the rest of the world, North Korea has just 3 (yes--3!!) internet hosts--versus 383 MILLION(!!!) in the USA! North Koreans' inability to access outside information is perhaps the epitome of human rights violations, as without an ability to compare their own living situation to those of others, they are left ignorant...and I'm starting to doubt that ignorance is bliss. I've never been so thankful to simply be allowed to blog, to be allowed to check my email, and for having three meals today (nevermind that one was comprised of macaroni and cheese). I'm not religious at all--and I'm trying to fight the guilt that creeps in on me for having these 'luxuries'--but thank God I was born in the USA. I hope you take a minute today to think about how lucky you are to just be able to read my silly little blog :)

To read more about Barbara Demick's wonderful book:
http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Ordinary-Lives-North-Korea/dp/0385523904/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274643119&sr=1-1
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122282495&ft=1&f=1032