Revising our Views of North Koreans in Exile
While “refugee” and “defector” are used frequently and interchangeably in academic circles and the Western press when talking about North Koreans, “dissident” and “exile” shine with their absence. The main reason for this labeling and perception has to do with the fact that there is an absence of a functioning civil society or independent political platforms in North Korea which allow its people to express their political views without risking arrest or other degrading penalties.
Governmental control means that the citizens have a very difficult time to express their dissatisfaction with the regime through independent political activism. According to a recent report by Freedom House called The Worst of the Worst: The World’s Most Repressive Societies 2012 North Korea is the only country in the world that has stayed at the very bottom of their rating scale since Freedom House first began conducting Freedom in the World surveys nearly four decades ago!
The severe restrictions imposed on the North Korean public make it almost impossible to operate as a dissident in the country and all North Koreans who managed to escape are therefore labeled in passive terms as mentioned before. A different approach from the media and other organisations can be observed whenever Burma or Tibet are mentioned in the news or among the general public. These two cases are also characterized by their authoritarian regimes, lack of freedom of expression and persecutions of people with deviant opinions and backgrounds. The main difference is that while North Koreans are regularly portrayed as refugees and defectors with no political ambitions, Burmese and Tibetans are portrayed as politically active dissidents who voice their dissatisfaction through several channels and platforms based both in Asia, Europe and North America.
The authoritarian regimes that govern Burma and Tibet today had to face resistance when they were in the process of establishing themselves in 1948 and 1950 respectively. The opposition to the military junta in Burma and the Chinese authorities in Tibet has been there from the beginning but got worldwide recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Celebrities and prominent politicians in USA and Europe gave much moral and economic support to the dissident movements both inside and outside Burma and Tibet and praised the two front figures for democracy in the respective countries for their struggles for democracy and peace. They became international spokesperson as well as symbols for the dissident movements in their respective countries. The same can not be said about North Korea. The authoritarian regime which was embodied by the Korean Workers Party could be established with little serious resistance once Soviet troops left in 1948. The opposition against the leadership of Kim Il-Sung was almost non-existent from then on. Even if there was any opposition, it would be brutally suppressed and eradicated according with Stalinist principles.
It is important to notice that an increasing number of North Korean defectors, residing mainly in South Korea have voiced their dissatisfaction with the Kim regime by joining in demonstrations in times of political tensions, criticizing the regime publicly, providing their countrymen with sensitive information about the true nature of the Kim regime through radio broadcasts, and participating in provoking activities such as sending balloons carrying thousands of anti-Pyongyang leaflets into North Korea. In a way, North Koreans get the opportunity to become dissidents, political activists and exiles once they defect from their country. North Korea does not have its own Dalai Lama or Aung San Suu Kyi but as the North Korean community grows in size each year and more and more North Koreans begin to actively participate in oppositional movements, as we have seen with rising stars of Shin Dong-hyuk and Lee Hyeon-seo, it is likely that such a leading figure soon will appear, drawing attention from both the general public, politicians and maybe even celebrities. The political voice of this growing community is also likely to demand more of a hearing than it currently receives.
It is time that the international community and the mainstream media pays more attention to the protests that oftentimes occur in Seoul in relation to North Koreas nuclear- and missile tests and recognizes North Koreans who voice and act against the Kim regime as active dissidents and not merely as passive defectors or refugees.
This part 3 of a series of articles on reviewing how we label North Koreans. It was written by Jusup Aslakhanov. EAHRNK does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in the article.