Today North K*rea "celebrates" 85 years of communism. For me, a person who has lived in an ex-communist state for six years, an ex-communist state that was under communist rule for nearly 50 years, I have a few thoughts on the matter, IF you'd like to hear them.
Over the years I have been very touched by stories that come from places such as C*ba, N K*rea, Ch*na Ven*zuela etc, telling stories of unimaginable crimes on humanity by the government against their own people. I do not have to share links here for you to understand what I am talking about. You have all seen them yourselves, possible as ketchup from your Big Mac dripped out of the burger and onto your lap... but maybe that is a separate issue for another blog.
It has been a long, long time since I have written a blog, because I have felt uninspired, with little stirring the writer in the depths of me. Today, however, that changed as I read the news of the leader of this communist country successfully testing a long range missile in defiance to the whole world. In the past, I have often found myself thinking, as passing the ruins of old war bunkers in the country I currently live in, how different would the world and this particular country be if their paranoid, war-hungry leader had existed in a time with internet and modern-day technology? Would he have conquered? Would the countries in this area be different today? Would this tiny little paradise have been blown off the map by a bigger power? I wonder...
Is the road that Am*rica's leaders are taking a wise one? I don't know. I feel like the general public is deprived of the details it would take to actually form an educated opinion. However, I can tell you that what is happening in that little country today is an unthinkable crime against humanity, and the worst part of it all is that with 85 years of brain-washed, fear-filled, propaganda propelled communism, the people don't even realize that they are victims, and the one or two intelligent ones who did at one time, might have been too scared to speak or were "taken care of" when they did. I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but I beg you to listen to what I have to say, because I currently live inside the remains of one such nation.
On the outside, this tiny country looks like a paradise waiting to explode with investment and tourism, which, in reality, it is from one point of view. On the other hand, it is several generations of confused people who don't know how to exist without a dictator ordering them. In workplaces they seek the strongest, biggest and meanest leader, not the most intelligent and efficient, thinking that it takes brute and abuse to be a leader. They struggle to find work because the government is still pulling itself together and taxes nearly strangle any small business effort that one or two brave souls might try to venture. The majority of the people struggle to ASK for work from a place. This is because for 50 years they were TOLD where they would work, live etc.
The long-term effects of 50 years of this kind of leadership are more than I could dare to explain, having not grown up in it, and more than locals can explain having not known anything different. There are people who seem to truck through life just fine, but when it comes down to it, there is still a very strong pull on their emotions, decisions and thinking towards communism. This is 27 years later. When I worked with Roma children, they struggled to color in a simple coloring page because they didn't know what color each thing was "supposed" to be. You see in communist countries that are ruled to the extreme, there is no expressive art, feeling or emotion. There is no "grey". There is right and there is wrong, in every area of life, from how many children you should have to where you should work to what kind of clothes you should wear, what kind of haircut you should get and, in the end, even what colors you should use to color in a simple coloring page.
I do not have the answers for the people of North Korea nor do I know what in the world anyone else should do. I do know that it is NOT a good situation by any means. I do know that these people are suffering the most damaging kind of torture that people can suffer. I do hope that God will help us do something to help these people and give us wisdom on how to continue to help them after communism falls, if that happens in our lifetime.
If this article touches you in any way, I just ask you to say a prayer for these people and whatever they may be facing today. Their future is only in the hands of God, and I pray He show Himself somehow in the middle of all of this.
