I recently saw a documentary from 2001 called "Welcome to North Korea"
Watching it has given me a great interest in North Korea and its history, I would love to find something with a austrio-lib author on the subject, someone like Woods. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
If you haven't seen the above mentioned documentary, its on Youtube for free and is only about an hour long. For folks on this forum who are enamored with ideas of individual liberty this will be like sitting through a horror movie along the lines of Saw.
Also please feel free to give your 2 cents on North Korea ( I know that's a bit of a generalized topic). What I am so amazed by is the strength of the personality cult of their beloved leader and now his son. Also, how do we as non-interventionist approach a situation like this? Do we just let it collapse on itself until it is absorbed by the neighboring countries? From what I have read and seen so far I get the feeling that the country would essentially starve to death before the collapse of the regime.
I'm willing to bet that most of the people who live there are filled with a pent-up resentment towards the regime, like in the former Soviet Union, but lack the courage to say anything because as an individual it would amount to suicide. The only thing keeping the regime from collapsing is fear. While many people might be thinking the same thing about the government, they are afraid of talking to each other about it for fear of exposing themselves individually, and so have no clue that the majority is also sick of their government. If the people of North Korea found out one day that the regime was universally opposed, they would find the courage and solidarity to speak up and the regime would be history in no time.
With that in mind, here is my shoe-string budget idea of how to free the North Korean people:
A Pirate radio regime-collapse hoax. Organize this well in advance and produce the broadcasts to make them as high quality and convincing as possible. The premise is basically this: multiple pirate radio stations off the coast of NK will, on a very specific day, broadcast messages into certain territories in NK claiming that OTHER territories and cities in NK have successfully risen in revolt of the regime and cast down the government. Make it sound dramatic and historic: "Glorious revolution! The province of Kangwon has cast off in defiance the tyrannical rule of Kim Jong Il! The heroic soldiers have willingly put down their arms in resistance to the tyrant! The people are free! Glorious, glorious revolution!" And so on. Make it sound realistic. The radio broadcast should "recap" the "events" of the day leading up to these events, and include interviews with fake North Koreans about how ecstatic they are over this miraculous turn of events. Repeat this for many other provinces, all the while claiming that the OTHER provinces have already successfully overthrown the dictator. Keep these broadcasts going on for hours and update the people on more fake revolutionary news as it "breaks."
The whole point of this of course is to encourage the population to rise up against the regime in solidarity. If the people of one province believe that a successful revolution has already occurred in other provinces, they will be more likely to overthrow the regime locally, and there will soon be a domino effect.
What do you think? Unethical? Subversive? Genius?
I have a friend who's a highly specialized repair/maintenance technician and as such has traveled far and wide in the world. He has always maintained there are just two downright frightful places: Saudi Arabia and North Korea.
The first thing foreigners are supposed to do when arriving in Pyongyang is to go bring flower to the "Dear Leader", Kim Il-Sung. Of course is not compulsory but guides and political commissars will corral you to his mausoleum as soon as they can and put in you hands flowers you have to pay for at grossly inflated prices. Once you are ready to start work a van will pick you up at your hotel and drive you to the workplace. Routes are carefully chosen as to avoid exposure to unwanted sights even if this means a long detour. "Guides", usually young daughters of career military men or low level party members who went to a foreign language school in China, won't leave your side for a second even if you have to work in a factory with nobody else in it. Everything is designed to make you feel like an unwanted guest, even if your skills are apparently so indispensable to the regime as to hire you and pay full expenses without blinking an eye. You simply cannot "talk" to ordinary people because exposure will be kept to a minimum: the hotel staff, the van driver, perhaps a couple technicians, the border guards and of course your guide. According to my friend even Saudi aren't so paranoid.
I also had occasion to learn from South Koreans that while many would love to see a reunited Korea they are downright terrorized at the idea of fixing up the North. They argue that Germans are still paying the bill for reunification and the DDR wasn't in such a bad shape: the Soviet Union kept them well supplied with everything and at least nobody starved. They argue that in the end is just better to keep on bribing Kim Jong-Il than having a whole country to rebuild from scratch with the scary prospect of having a new Southern Italy to feed for decades.
Solarist:Also please feel free to give your 2 cents on North Korea
The leaders know the internet and access to the world would cripple their regime and destroy "communism". They have openly acknowledged they know it will.
Local MP went to North Korea about a year ago. Was given a tour. I went to his first speech event when back and asked about the prospects for revolution, i.e through the internet. He then went onto mention, it's extremely controlled, internet cafes are rare, expensive etc.