B00BY4HXME EBOK (36 page)

Another traditional medium is leaflets, which are now delivered exclusively by the refugees’ NGOs (a government program was halted a decade ago). This author is somewhat skeptical of the efficacy of the balloon
program. The occasional encounter with a short piece of information provided by a printed text is unlikely to seriously change the worldview of a North Korean. Nonetheless, such efforts might be continued.

The digital age has brought new opportunities that have never been utilized. For example, the continuing spread of VCD/DVD players inside North Korea creates manifold opportunities for introducing information about the outside world. It is now possible to produce visual material—essentially, documentaries—specifically designed for North Korean audiences. Such documentaries can rely on the obvious advantage of visual appeal, and thus have the potential to be more effective than radio broadcasts.

Digital technologies also have simplified the process of dissemination of textual material. In the Cold War era, a broadcast reached a far larger audience than text and had a much greater impact, since printed books were unwieldy and difficult to smuggle and copy. In the Communist countries, photocopying machines were closely monitored by security police, so in most cases copying had to be done by typewriter. It took about one week to make four or five copies of an average book, which is the reason why samizdat, the clandestinely published materials so much discussed in the West, was systematically accessed only by a handful of opposition-minded intellectuals.

Things have now changed, however, thanks to the advent of digital technologies. A book can now be easily scanned and/or converted into a text file. Hundreds of such files can easily fit into one USB drive or DVD disk. In the 1970s it would take years of typewriting (or days of photocopying) to reproduce such a large volume of text, but now the job can be done within minutes. A digital book is also easier to hide or destroy than its paper equivalent. The efficiency of digital technologies means that even one copy of a book (or rather a collection of books, a “digital library”) once smuggled across the border could continue to proliferate inside North Korea.

By their very nature, the texts will be more appealing to intellectuals and the lower reaches of the elite. Such scanned materials might include textbooks on major social subjects and humanities, as well as purely
technical material (and special attention should be given to textbooks and manuals dealing with computers). It is important to introduce books that have different, even mutually exclusive, opinions—as long as the books are well-written and the arguments are sound. North Koreans should not be treated with syrupy propaganda and anti-Communist harangues. Instead, they must become accustomed to intellectual differences and arguments. They should read what was written by the Left and Right, zealous antiglobalists and stubborn libertarians alike. They should be exposed to the modern world, with all its complexity and uncertainty.

When, in the 1970s, Vaclav Havel, the would-be president of the Czech Republic, was talking about the future of his country, he specifically emphasized the special role that might be played by “the second society.” He admitted that the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia (ridiculously permissive and liberal by North Korean standards) was repressive to the degree that made organized resistance impossible. So, Havel reasoned, the only way to resist was to minimize and avoid popular involvement with the regime. People could not (and hence should not) protest openly, but instead they should live their lives as if the Central Committee, Party Youth, and political study sessions did not exist.

What Havel described was already in existence in the 1970s Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Only a tiny minority was directly involved with the dissenters, but many more lived lives that were completely disconnected from the official rhetoric and official ideology. By the late 1970s, among the intellectuals of Moscow (let alone Warsaw and Prague), it became almost suspicious if somebody professed seemingly sincere support for the existing political system. In this milieu, the party rhetoric and party politics were treated as something akin to bad weather. It was tacitly admitted that nothing could be done about it, but rain outside was not a reason to stop one’s daily routine or to deprive oneself of small pleasures of life.

This milieu of nonpolitical (or slightly opposition-leaning) intellectuals was the environment that produced active dissenters. It also played an important role when Communism began to crumble in the late 1980s. Many of these people eventually became political activists, journalists, even industrial managers. They were a group from which a significant part of the post-Communist elite emerged. These were people with knowledge, experience, and, in some cases, nationwide fame and moral authority. They were also people who were not compromised by a track record of collaboration with the overthrown Communist governments.

As a rule, the stronger and more influential such a second society was in a particular Communist country, the less painful and more successful the post-Communist transition tended to be. Among other things, it produced a sad paradox—countries where the former Communist apparatchiks fared worst after the Communist collapse were usually the very same countries where Communism itself was least repressive (Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia).

Unfortunately, the North Korean regime has always been the most thorough in its control over its population. As a result, no second society has been able to emerge there. More or less every North Korean with education and experience can be plausibly described as a lifelong regime collaborator. The Kim family does not give its subjects any chance to live lives that would be autonomous from the state—or at least this is the case with socially prominent individuals. Closet opponents of the regime exist amongst educated North Koreans, but they are usually too terrified to share their doubts even among themselves.

This absence of a second society does not merely strengthen the Kim family’s regime. It is also bound to create manifold problems in the future, when the regime loses power. Everybody will have some skeletons in his/her closet.

It is therefore important to encourage the emergence of a second society, or an alternative elite. Such an elite is unlikely to emerge inside North Korea, however, even though broadcast and proliferation of digital materials might play a role in bringing modern knowledge within the
reach of some educated North Koreans. Hope, therefore, should be pinned on the refugee community in South Korea.

North Korean refugees are very different from those Eastern Europeans who fled West during the Cold War. To start with, they cannot be plausibly described as “defectors” since most of them were driven away from the North by starvation and/or other nonpolitical reasons. Furthermore, Eastern European and Soviet defectors were well educated, while North Korean refugees are largely farmers and manual workers. At first glance, it seems unlikely that from such a group a second society can emerge.

However, the situation is not that hopeless. First, there is a small but not insignificant number of well-educated refugees. Contrary to what is often assumed outside South Korea, they are not actively supported by the South Korean state, so one should not be much surprised by the sight of a former North Korean engineer who makes a living through pizza delivery (well, more likely he will be working at a Chinese eatery, far more common in Seoul). Support systems and jobs for such people are crucial.

Second, there are younger defectors who still see themselves as North Koreans but who can and should be educated. There is an urgent need to introduce scholarships that would specifically target this group.

Scholarships for MA and PhD studies are of special importance, since currently those refugees who are accepted to a university can study for free but this important privilege is granted only to undergraduates. However, nowadays a bachelor’s degree alone doesn’t stand for much in South Korea, where some 85 percent of high school graduates proceed to colleges and universities. It is advanced degrees that matter, but so far there is no systematic support for aspiring MA and PhD refugee students.

One might expect that such support should be forthcoming from the South Korean government. But unfortunately this is not the case—due to reasons largely related to the domestic situation, the South Korean government is not enthusiastic about providing such support (among other things, such preferential treatment might provoke outrage from South Korean MA and PhD candidates and their families). Therefore, such scholarships must be provided by overseas donors.

There is, of course, a need to support the political and cultural undertakings of this small but growing refugee community—radio stations, newspapers, and artistic groups. We need more North Koreans who will become South Korean journalists, policy analysts, and painters. But there is an even greater need for North Korean professionals—construction engineers, accountants, scientists, water-treatment specialists, and doctors.

These people will play at least three roles in future developments.

First of all, refugees will make an additional—and highly efficient—channel for efforts to reach the average North Koreans. Nowadays, refugees stay in touch with their families and friends back in North Korea—thanks to the Chinese cell phones and a network of “brokers” who deal with people movement, money transfers, and letter exchanges. It is understandable that a defector who has become, say, an accountant, will channel back to the North information of much greater importance and imp act than a defector who makes a living by waiting tables at a cheap eatery.

Second, when the eventual collapse and/or transformation of North Korea finally comes, some of these refugee intellectuals will probably go back to their native land north of the DMZ. Some of them will become political and social activists, while many more will apply their technical skills in the reemerging North Korean economy. They will play a major role as educators and instructors, teaching North Koreans how things are done in the South and, broadly speaking, in the modern world.

Third, the emerging refugee professionals and intellectuals will become role models for the North Korean refugee community. This community is bound to grow in whatever direction Korea goes. Right now a North Korean refugee tends to become part of the underclass. As is often the case with other minorities, this low social standing has become self-perpetuating. Being deprived of role models, younger refugees will not strive hard enough to be successful in adjusting to the new society—later paying a bitter price for this. It will be of great help if the mother of some unruly teenager from a refugee family can point to Uncle Kim who has succeeded in becoming a surgeon, or Aunt Park who is now a designer with LG Corporation.

There is little doubt that in the long run the current North Korean regime is doomed. Its innate—and incurable—economic inefficiency and the resulting inability to decrease the steadily growing income gap with its neighbors (especially South Korea) is its Achilles’ heel.

In the long run the outside world and the vast majority of North Koreans themselves will benefit from the likely collapse of the Kim family regime. However, we should not think in the terms that are common for so many freedom fighters, revolutionaries, and idealistic politicians (such politicians might be rare, but they do exist). We should not believe that the demise of the inefficient and brutal regime will herald the sudden, immediate arrival of eternal bliss and happiness. On the contrary, as every historian knows only too well, every revolution fermented, every independence declared, every liberation achieved brings a significant measure of disruption and chaos—and this is applicable even to those revolutions that with the wisdom of hindsight are seen as almost trouble-free. Unfortunately, the future North Korean revolution has little chance of being smooth, and subsequent events will most likely be painful. The regime collapse will mark the beginning of a long, winding road to the recovery of North Korea. It will take decades to clean the mess created by the Kim family regime’s long misrule, and some traces of the sorry past might be felt for generations.

Now is the time to start considering what will happen after the Kim family regime passes—and what should be done to make the recovery less
tortuous. There are some simple and cheap but potentially efficient measures that can be taken now—for example, policies that aim at creating an alternative elite (discussed above) will clearly help to cushion the pains and shocks of the coming transformation. And, of course, it is now time to start an honest, taboo-free discussion of ways to handle the coming challenges.

For decades Koreans have believed that the future unification of their country would be a major, cathartic event that would usher in an era of unprecedented happiness, harmony, and prosperity on the Korean peninsula. In the long run this is indeed likely to be the case—if judged from the perspective of a future historian living in, say, the year 2133. However, for those Koreans who will have to live through the decades immediately following unification, it will be a time of dramatic upheaval, social disruption, and profound shock.

Alas, nobody knows when and how unification will happen—and this alone makes preparations difficult. It is likely to come suddenly, too. In all probability, unification will occur as a result of some crisis of political authority and collapse of state control within North Korea. Such a crisis will come more or less out of the blue, so even the presidents and prime ministers of great powers might learn about such a crisis from TV news reports rather than from predictions by their diplomats and reports from their spymasters.

The world has never seen a unification of two societies so different in their economic and technological levels and their respective worldviews. The unification of Germany is clearly a precedent, but the two Germanys were never as far apart as the two Koreas are. More or less every East German family watched West German TV since the late 1960s, and visits by relatives as well as letter exchanges were easy to arrange. This is a far cry from North Korea, where the vast majority knows almost nothing about actual life in South Korea. The average North Korean has access to only
two sources of information about life in the South—smuggled syrupy South Korean melodramas and the horror stories of official Pyongyang propaganda. Needless to say, both sources leave much to be desired.