March 15, 2005
North Korea is fighting a losing battle
Another fascinating article about North Korea, "that closed Stalinist bastion of a nation, fighting a losing battle against the inexorable infiltration of foreign culture, enabled by outside technology".
"Interesting reports have been filtering out of North Korea which point to the probability that the iron hand of oppression is finally having its fingers pried away, finger by finger". [via The Qando Blog]
Excerpts:
[...] "At a human rights confererence in South Korea on Feb. 15, defectors estimated in interviews that about one-third of the defectors in South Korea regularly talk to family members back in North Korea, calling owners of prepaid Chinese cell phones at a prearranged time.
To counter this, North Korea has reportedly started border patrols using Japanese equipment that can track cell phone calls. Reporters tell stories of their contacts who only make calls from their private garden plots in the hills, burying the cell phone in the ground after each call.
The human yearning for freedom lives in even the most oppressive of places. And as more fuel is added to that yearning it will become larger and larger. If you've followed North Korea over the years, you'll know these changes are monumental. They signal the beginning of the end for the existing regime, just as jeans, rock-and-roll and western movies helped grease the skids for the USSR's eventual slide into oblivion".
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