Recently I checked out the curated 'book recommendations' tab on my Goodreads profile which was generated according to my ratings and reviews of books. I was pleasantly surprised as unlike most recommendations; these were not based on 'New York best sellers' list or 'popular fiction'. For each type of book I had read, Goodreads recommended three new ones. Having read 'In order to live: A North Korean girl's journey to freedom' by Yeonmi Park, I came across ‘Nothing to envy' by Barbara Demick. The premise was promising and offered a well-researched insight into the lives of people in North Korea.
Barbara Demick, a Los Angeles Times journalist, narrates the biographical accounts of six North Korean defectors who currently reside in the city of Chongjin. We read the narrations of the following people;
Dr Kim: who was forced to escape North Korea and earn a doctoral degree afresh to start her practice in South Korea,
Mi Ran: brought up as a daughter of a war criminal, who fought through the class struggle in North Korea and became a schoolteacher to earn a respectable living,
Jun-Sang: an elite member of society with a critical mindset who attended the Pyongyang university, and later learnt of the atrocities meted out to the people primarily by watching South Korean television channels which are banned in North Korea
and three more people: Mrs Song, Oak-Hee, and Kim Hyuck....
All these people, along with their families woke up to radios blaring the patriotic song for everyone in the country, each word/phrase in the song was carefully chosen to highlight the pure intentions of their leaders, it portrayed their leader as their loving father. The habitual propaganda convinced the people that there is nothing for them to envy in the whole wide world. The words of one of these patriotic songs are as follows
'Long live Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il, sun of the 21st century. Let's live our own way. We will do as the party tells us. We have nothing to envy in the world.'
Growing up to these songs, none of these people doubted their government even for a second. For them, everyone else in the world was struggling more than them, hence they considered themselves lucky to have been born into a country where their 'fathers' always looked upon them with love, care and sincerity. The government took great care in portraying China, Japan and South Korea as poverty-stricken countries, where people struggled to find a day's meal. This was the condition of North Korea, where children were malnourished, adults survived on a meal a day, where steamed white rice was the most luxurious meal a commoner could think of. Here I remembered Yeonmi Park's autobiography, where she mentions that on most days, she dreamt about a 'whole loaf of bread'. That was their dream, and survival was the only goal each of them could nurture.
While reading Mi-Ran's account, she narrates how she felt compelled to teach the patriotic songs and sing praises of their leaders in a classroom with hungry children. As for Dr Kim, she was habituated to seeing people die of otherwise treatable diseases. As Barbara writes, 'It is axiomatic that one death is a tragedy, a thousand is a statistic.' Daily sights of children perishing, adults succumbing to illnesses, and the never-ending famine.... 'To avoid going insane, one had to learn to stop caring'.
None of the six people in this book, even remotely thought about escaping their own country. The love and patriotism were instilled so deep in them that despite the chaos around, they continued to dust the framed photos of their leaders and sang the national song with every ounce of energy within them. The other reason for their loyalty was also the number of spies around, that worked for the government. In North Korea, rebellion was silenced at the very first breath itself. There were spies everywhere, and no one was to be trusted. If 1984 by George Orwell took shape in the present, it is in North Korea.
North Korean reality was not new to me, having watched countless documentaries and reading books, every word that I read took me to another defector, living somewhere else in the world. The reality of the totalitarian regime has been publicised and has drawn widespread criticism at all fronts. The number of human rights violations committed by the country continues to evoke angst, however nothing is being done about it at all. I see defectors speaking at the United Nations events, to protect the people of North Korea, but nothing happens. According to a Reuters report, dated March 16, 2024, North Korean Defectors have sought the UN to monitor abuses in their former country. (I will link the article below, for anyone who wishes to read it.) One can only hope that there is a better tomorrow for each of them living in these inhuman conditions.
I took a two-day break from reading after completing this book. There were so many issues to process and so many anecdotes I wish I could share and discuss here. But again, that would become a blog-series and not a stand-alone review.
All said, I will not be rating this book on my Goodreads scale, I guess you know why.
If you like to read autobiography/ biographical accounts, or would like to understand more about the economical and socio-political framework of North Korea, I will definitely suggest that you read this. Barbara Demick has done an incredible job in stitching these stories together, with adequate references and fact-checks at every stop. The writing is impeccable and the stories heart-wrenching.
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Reuters Article: North Korean defectors seek more U.N. monitoring of abuses
Good work. Keep it up.
ReplyDeleteGood writing. Keep going 👍🏽
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