Posted by
Michael on Friday, March 07, 2008 7:48:13 AM
I have a personal fascination with North Korea. I don't go into it
alot, because thinking about life in North Korea is like thinking about
armageddon or life after death, it's mysterious, frightening and
somewhat unthinkable. I have a suspicion, which is all mine and doesn't
have validity in hard evidence, that North Korea may be the worst place
on earth.
From the few holes in the society that we have had access to, we have been able to analyze that it is not a fun place to be:
North
Korea has been in the news lately, in part because the New York
Philharmonic went there, to play a concert. I wrote about this event in
the National Review of February 11. You may read that piece here.
In
it, I canvass some people whose judgment I respect tremendously:
Richard Pipes, Paul Hollander, John Bolton, Harry Wu, Armando
Valladares, etc. Some of them were in favor of the visit (the concert
took place on February 26); most were not. I came down against the
visit: while recognizing the merits of the other side of the argument,
and hoping I was wrong.
I also want to draw your attention to an
op-ed piece published in the New York Times back in October. It is by
Richard V. Allen, the onetime Reagan national-security adviser, and
Chuck Downs, a North Korea specialist, among other things. You will
find that piece here. And I wish to highlight one passage relating to
music:
“During a party on
Christmas in 1992, one of the regime’s former propaganda officers, Ji
Hae-nam, made the mistake of singing a South Korean song. She was
sentenced to three years in jail and, as she testified to the United
States Congress after her escape, beaten so severely she could not get
up for a month.”
Dick Allen and his friends are doing
vital and necessary work. Their organization is the U.S. Committee for
Human Rights in North Korea, whose website is here. The group, and the
site, shine a light on one of the earth’s most hideous corners. Maybe
it is the most hideous of all.