Reflection: Liberty Live Tour 2008

Fall semester of 2008, UNC and Duke's Vision for North Korea along with a host of other colleges and universities in the nation, took part in the Liberty Live Tour. LiNK along with an indie-rock band Miss Vintage and LA's independent songwriter Andy Grammer traveled from state to state to raise awareness for North Korean human rights. In UNC's jazzy cabaret, students enjoyed a coffee house and awesome music, and learned about North Korea through the presentation of LiNK's video 'LIfe in North Korea' (see below). Although short, it gave an encapsulated synopsis of the current situation in North Korea. Moved by the information presented them, students wrote politically-invoked messages on a piece of cardboard. Individual head-shot photos were taken with the message in order to let the policy makers see the faces of university students who care about North Korea and speak out against the military regime's inhumaness. On my cardboard, I wrote, "God loves people in North Korea."

Liberty Live Tour Promo Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9w3WnfDPps

Life In North Korea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwwyzpEnK0M&feature=channel

Crossing Movie Screening

Much thanks to LiNK and its representatives Jonathan, Becky, and Julie, for coming to UNC and Duke this past semester to screen the Korean-made film Crossing. Based on a true story, Crossing was an inspirational film that opened the eyes of many students to see the holocaust realities of North Korea.

If you were unable to watch the screening at UNC and Duke, we highly encourage you to view the movie; DVDs are out in select Asian marksts in the area.

Vision for North Korea, UNC and Duke, plan to hold informational events such as these, one at least every semester.

Crossing Movie Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27CDW0F1Yas&feature=channel

Beyond the Border: North Korea

The Christian Worldview

-JSH

On February 18 and 19, UNC and Duke are hosting a speaker presentation on North Korea that will largely be about human rights and politics. What’s troubling is that as a Christian, I know that there will never be a solution to social injustice as long as sin exists in the world. And because the world is fallen, North Korea is only one of the countless social injustices. Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

One of the main components of this event is aiding the North Korea people. But if God is not at the center of our mission, helping them is meaningless in the scheme of eternity. We may affect their current living condition, but we will not affect the eternal condition of the human soul. If someone is eternally separated from a holy God after death, it will not matter how much his standard of living had been improved on earth, nor how long he had lived on earth. It will not matter how painfully or comfortably one has lived nor how long because in the end, “…there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” (Romans 6:22-23). Knowing this paradigm of eternity, we should realize that something more has to be done besides futilely trying to tear down social injustice and trying to extend people’s earthly lives.

Jesus Christ offers the only solution to all problems. With Jesus Christ, helping people’s pains and afflictions suddenly have unconditional meaning, and the pain and affliction themselves have eternal significance. We’re empowered to help people in the same way that Jesus helped people – he was filled with compassion (Mark 1:41) – and to make Himself known (Mark 2:10). Pain and suffering have meaning because Christ has also suffered: “Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Romans 8:17).

North Korea is the worst persecutor of Christians, according to the Open Doors’ World Watch List. There is no religious freedom, and the entire country practices the Juche ideology, which deifies Kim Jong Il. I literally consider North Korea to be a part of the “ends of the earth” when Jesus says in Acts 1:8: “…and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Thus, in the Christian worldview, apart from social justice, North Korea is a part of the Great Commission. Jesus called his disciples to be fishers of men; we are to be armored with the Sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17) and put our physical swords away (John 18:11), “for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).

Christians’ objectives are not to make political gains, but spiritual ones. Jesus came not as a political ruler, but as a Wonderful Counselor, a Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned… For as in the say of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor… For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:2,4,6).

There are two obvious things Christians can do for our brothers and sisters in North Korea: one is to pray for them; and two is to financially support our missionaries (we will be giving to Pastor Buck). Although the event is disguised as a social justice event because it is sponsored by university organizations, I have been praying that God nevertheless uses the event for His glory because without God, this event is meaningless. There will be a room available after the UNC speaker presentation for people who want to get on their knees and pray together for our North Korean brothers and sisters. Ephesians 6:18 says to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” I have been praying that many Christian students and the church community attend so that they may learn about North Korea and be moved to pray for North Korea. And when we pray, we should mourn for our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted. But praise God – we can also be joyful in their affliction! Christians in places like North Korea and China are spiritually blessed in ways that we cannot imagine here in the United States (The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun). We know that God is a just God and “many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first” (Matthew 19:30).

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:3-11). Though born lowly, North Korean Christians are in a place where they can truly demonstrate, live out, and experience the beatitudes of Christ, and they will be rewarded one day in heaven. In James it says, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him” (1:12). Christ can be the only solution. Christ provides justice for his children.

As the event draws closer, I ask that you pray for God to be glorified through this event. I invite you to come fill a part of the audience and join us for the prayer meeting afterwards. If we are to glorify God even when we eat and drink, then surely we can glorify God through a university event.

About North Korea

by JSH

Overview

The event Beyond the Border: North Korea seeks to educate Carolina and Duke students and the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill community about North Korea and its current political, religious, and social climate through the first-hand knowledge and experiences of a North Korean defector.

As a Carolina student, I’ve noticed that students have little knowledge of North Korea. Students only know—and vaguely—that North Korea is associated with political words that President Bush has frequently uttered: “nuclear weapons” and “axis of evil.” My peers naively ask me whether I am from North or South Korea without realizing that a reply “North” would mean that I am from a “hermit kingdom” of confinement, a Stalinist regime of oppression and starvation, and an Orwellian nation of illusion. More than just a political association, North Korea should be realized as a grave humanitarian situation, where people are brainwashed, stripped of their freedom, brutalized, and killed through a massive system of concentration camps.

The “Hermit Kingdom” of Confinement

North Korea’s citizens are not allowed to voluntarily leave the country. There is no such thing as leaving, only risking one’s life and escaping. Despite the perils of armed guards, exhaustion, starvation, dehydration, and harsh mountainous conditions, in the past 10 years a hundred thousand North Koreans have made it across border into China, North Korea’s northern neighbor. Sadly, one-hundred-thousand is minute compared to the 23.30 million still living under Kim Jung Il’s cruel iron fist. Likewise, a southward escape across the Korean peninsula’s DMZ line, the most militarily fortified border in the world, is another unyielding solution.

How many of those one-hundred-thousand survive after escape is hard to determine. The United Nations and humanitarian organizations worldwide advocate the safety of North Koreans as refugees in China. But China blatantly disregards the international promulgations, collaborating with its communist ally to actively search and seize these “criminals,” to impose brutal treatment upon them in Chinese prisons until their eventual repatriation to North Korea. Upon repatriation, they are punished for the felon crime of defection: executed or imprisoned in concentration camps—tortured and subjected to inhumane amounts of labor, often in dangerous working conditions with little to no food and water.

The Stalinist Regime of Oppression and Starvation

There is an estimated 200,000 prisoners in North Korea’s numerous concentration camps, most serving life-time sentences. Citizens are imprisoned even for the most trivial of crimes, such as stealing a piece of bread in order to survive. (In the mid-1990s a severe famine hit North Korea on top of its already chronic food shortage. An estimated three million people died). The government also imprisons citizens arbitrarily for “posing a threat” to the state and its Juche ideology that practices the worshipping of Kim Il Sung and his successor son Kim Jung Il as gods. Family members of political defectors are imprisoned for up to three generations. This is the government’s grotesque form of punishment for successful escapees and also serves to dissuade citizens from attempting escape.

In the mid-1990s, a famine devastated North Korea that forced its citizens to flee the country in search of food, despite being ignorant of the outside world. As more people continue to escape North Korea, more information leaks out of the “hermit kingdom” of confinement to evidence a Stalinist regime of oppression. The U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea has published extensive research on North Korea’s human rights violations, one of which is The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps. This publication is a compilation of testimonies from thirty in-depth debriefings conducted by the South Korean government of escapees and defectors who were either former prisoners or prison guards. It reveals the specific brutalities that one would experience in North Korea’s concentration camps. Not surprisingly, the exclusive testimonies coincide and also parallel in the level of brutality. Prison-guard sketches of the camp’s blueprint match satellite images. Both prisoners and prison guards can pinpoint exactly where they worked and stayed in their respective concentration camp.

The Orwellian Nation of Illusion

It is remarkable how much North Korea resembles George Orwell’s 1984 dystopian society. North Korea’s citizens are kept isolated from the rest of the world and only fed government propaganda. There is no political or religious freedom. Any sort of dissension is preemptively eliminated through the secret system of concentration camps—people just seem to “disappear”—and the entire country’s fervent worship of Kim Jung Il as a god is very real. Citizens believe they are a part of a “worker’s paradise,” despite the fact that the majority of the population is impoverished; the average North Korean is seven inches shorter than his South Korean counterpart because of malnutrition.

The North Korean government is obviously morally depraved. People are worked and killed off like cattle whenever the government deems necessary. It controls people’s minds by propaganda, and anyone disillusioned is simply eliminated through the system of concentration camps. Thus, countrymen have continued worshipping their leader for decades, their very leader who sanctions violent crimes against them and brainwashes the entire country in order to maintain control.

I remember watching a documentary by British journalists who were allowed inside the capital Pyongyang, which serves as North Korea’s (eerie) showcase to the rest of the world, where they have erected buildings too lavish for the country’s poverty. The journalists were taken by the tour guide into Pyongyang’s museum and led into a room only laden with a few desks with pencils. There they were adamantly told that their “Great Leader” invented such things as desks and pencils that the country graciously uses today. Also in the capital, pictures of Kim Il Sung everywhere display his omnipotence like a god. People’s minds are literally encapsulated by the country’s ubiquitous propaganda.

Politics

Politically, government and religion are inseparable. Kim Jung Il, the son of Kim Il Sung, is the supreme godhead and leader. As dictator Kim Jung Il spends 30-50% of the nation’s GDP on military and has created the fourth largest standing army in the world comprised of two million soldiers—yet North Korea is one of the poorest countries. It is no wonder that its citizens are starving to death. Instead of the corrupt totalitarian government feeding its starving people, it has long been indicted of developing nuclear weapons, arming terrorist organizations in the Middle East, and passing nuclear intelligence on to enemy countries such as Syria.

In October of 2007, after 14 years of halted negotiations from breaching a 1994 non-proliferation agreement with the U.S., North Korea has finally agreed in six-party talks with the U.S., South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia, to submit an accurate report of all its nuclear facilities in exchange for one million metric tons of fuel oil or the economic equivalent thereof. The deadline for this report was by the end of 2007; it is now 2008 and North Korea has yet to comply with a full statement.

Vision for North Korea-UNC: Our Mission

Our purpose is to research North Korea's political, economic, social, and cultural climate and history; to increase interest and organize a study of its current affairs; to facilitate discussion and debate; and ultimately raise awareness of its human rights violations. In close collaboration with Duke's VNK, we actively work to raise funds and be an outspoken voice for public awareness on behalf of North Korean refugees. Anne Applebaum, the author of Gulag: A History writes:

“…as in Stalin’s time, North Korea’s leadership doesn’t want anyone to know any of these details [about concentration camps], since such revelations not only will damage their foreign reputation but also put their own regime at risk…

Certainly after absorbing such details, it will be more difficult for Americans or Europeans to sit down and negotiate, coldly, with their Korean counterparts and not mention human rights violations. South Koreans, when they know the details of life in the North, will also find it more difficult to argue in favor of appeasing the Northern regime. If these stories filter back to the North Korean police and administrators, those officials too will find it more difficult to justify their own behavior, or to claim that they don’t know what is really happening in the country’s concentration camps. And if the full truth about the camps becomes known to the wider population, then whatever support remains for the state constructed by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il will begin, even more decisively, to ebb away.

This is not to say that words can make a dictatorship collapse overnight. But words certainly can make a dictatorship collapse over time, as experience during the last two decades has shown. Totalitarian regimes are built on lies and can be damaged, even destroyed, when those lies are exposed. The greater and more detailed evidence that can be provided, the more damage the truth can do.”

This is exactly what our organization seeks to do: spread the truth. We may only be one organization at one university, but we are one of many organizations at many different universities that spread the truth to our fellow students, who can then join us to exponentially spread the truth to the world around us. Our organization seeks to bring human rights to the forefront. We do not want North Korea to just be a political issue, but we want North Korea to be intricately tied with human rights.

We want people to realize that understanding a part of the world so unlike ours is like beholding an abstract work of art. Both are mentally hard to grasp. Although we may not completely understand, it does not mean we don’t try to. Rather, we are challenged to stretch our minds, to rally our creativity, to push beyond our normal limits of thinking—so that we may arrive at a closer understanding. Others’ sufferings are distant to us, and closing the gap of estrangement takes focus. But by doing this, unreality that arises from an idle mind becomes more and more our reality—reality that people who are not any different from us are suffering, that people who are very much like us desire the same basic rights—universal human rights. And ultimately, understanding can move us to action.

"Beyond the Border: North Korea" event

Sunday, Feb. 17
Tae Guk Gi movie screening
UNC Murphey 116 @ 7PM
Korean snacks & drinks provided

Monday, Feb. 18
Part 1: Speaker presentation
UNC Great Hall @ 6PM
Korean dinner provided

Tuesday, Feb. 19
Part 2: Speaker presentation
Duke TBD @ 6PM
Korean dinner provided

Event details:

A North Korean defector Kim Hyun-sik is to speak at Carolina on Monday, February 18, and at Duke on Tuesday, February 19 for a Vision for North Korea two-night event. On Sunday, February 17, the Korean film Tae Guk Gi will be shown on UNC’s campus to jumpstart the whole joint event.

Kim Hyun-sik is currently a professor at George Mason University. He was a visiting professor at Yale University for three years, specializing in teaching North Korea. Before Kim defected, he assumed a prestigious role in North Korea as one of country’s top educators. He was a personal tutor to the former dictator, Kim Sung Il, and tutored his young nephew. In the late 1980s, Kim Hyun-sik was given authoritative leave to study in the former Soviet Union; he is fluent in Russian. This stage in his life coincides with history because this was during the Cold War, when there was great tension between the democratic and communist states of the world; it would have benefited North Korea much as a newly-emerged communist nation to have its intellectuals learn the Russian language, the Soviet Union being the communist superpower at the time. After stepping outside of North Korea, Kim realized the totalitarian nation’s bizarreness and eventually defected from the country, took refuge in South Korea, and immigrated to the United States. His story is not this simple, of course. Kim will tell us his in-depth life story at UNC and Duke, so we can closely examine North Korea from his unique position.

In order for audiences to hear the entire presentation, attendees will have to come to UNC on Monday night and to Duke on Tuesday night, thereby creating a very joint event between our schools. Kim will not tell his entire story at either school, but present half of his testimony at UNC and the concluding half at Duke. (A hired translator will translate from Korean to English). Time will be set aside at the end of each presentation to give audience members the opportunity to donate money to Pastor Buck’s cause to save Korean refugees in China. Our schools’ combined goal is to draw 400 audience members and raise a combined total of $5,000 for donation. We expect university students and staff, and people from the surrounding community to attend as we have already notified major humanitarian organizations in the Triangle.

The speaker presentation at UNC on Monday night will be held in the Great Hall in banquet style. We will have Korean dinner catered from Chosunok, a Korean restaurant in the area. We want this event to be just as enjoyable as it is educational and humanitarian. And we all know that food encourages attendance, which valuably means for us that the truth is spread to more people. A greater number of people will also help us to achieve the goal of $5,000. Duke will similarly provide a banquet setting for the second night of the presentation.

The connectedness and banquet style of the event is specifically designed to benefit both university students in terms of scholarship. We could have organized the event so students need only to attend the presentation of their respective school to hear the entire presentation. However, we made it a continued presentation in order to bring UNC students and Duke students together—providing the grounds for topical dialogue between students of differing university atmospheres, mindsets, and cultures. We hope the dinner banquet setting instead of the lecture hall setting will naturally foster interaction. For our organizations, an element of collaboration will be birthed to strengthen projects in the future with combined efforts.

One question that students may ask is—how could North and South Korea, countries that formed only several decades ago by people of the same ethnicity, be entirely different? That is why on Sunday night before the first night of the speaker presentation, UNC’s chapter will screen the Korean War film Tae Guk Gi. Students will learn of the country’s historical split into a North and South. Individually-wrapped Korean snacks will be provided to couple a cultural experience with the reception of historical knowledge. After the movie, students will have the opportunity to ask questions and learn facts that will aid their understanding of today’s North Korea. For example, there was no peace treaty made after the Korean War—only a ceasefire. To this day North and South Korea remain enemies and are technically at war, producing between them the most militarily fortified DMZ in the world. This explains why North Koreans have to escape through China, and we better understand the refugee situation. Every part of this event is crucial.

JSH

FYI

Event information has been updated. Check these posts frequently as they will continue to be updated until the event becomes finalized.

Korean War Film Festival: Tae Guk Gi

Program Title: Korean War Film Festival*: Tae Guk Gi
Program Date: February
Program Type: social, educational
Program location: Great Hall




Description:
On Sunday night, this event will show a screening of Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War, a movie about the Korean War. Individually-wrapped Korean snacks will be provided to couple a cultural experience with the reception of historical knowledge. Following the movie, there will be a Q&A session on the Korean War. Lastly, an announcement will be made inviting the audience to come out to a Duke-UNC, Vision for North Korea big event on the Monday and Tuesday night of the same week.

Goals:
The goal of this proposal is to create a social event, at which students can learn about the division and formation of North and South Korea. At the same time, since this social event precedes the two-night big event, it will serve as a precursor that sets the big event into motion. Through the movie, this social event is crucial in establishing the historical split of the country into a totalitarian North and a democratic South. With this knowledge, the audience can better understand the existence of today’s North Korea, which will be the focus of Monday and Tuesday night.

Over the span of the two nights, the speakers will tell various aspects of their life in North Korea. In order to receive the entire presentation, on Monday night Duke students will have to come to UNC, and on Tuesday night UNC students will have to go to Duke, thereby creating a very joint Duke-UNC event.

On top of being social and educational, the film festival is resourceful for the big event as an asset for advertising. The big event will have its own advertising, but because we will announce the big event at the film festival, winning people to the film festival will advertise for the big event as well. With that said, advertisement for the film festival will create two layers of publicity for the big event. We hope that this educational production really becomes a three-night discovery into the conflict and tensions of North Korea.

*A continuation of the Korean War film festival will proceed with the movie Silmido in a later month of the semester