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Inside North Korea

2013-04-09 · John · watch on YouTube · World affairs · reflection essay

Prompted by Hank's North Korea video, John retells Shin Dong-hyuk's escape from Camp 14 (Escape from Camp 14) and argues the story shows not the strength of the human will but its fragility: Shin's morality was developed after his escape, not innate.

What is said

00:00:00 — Hank's North Korea video recalls Escape from Camp 14; John hunts for the book in his poorly catalogued library (under German editions of Let It Snow)

  • ★★ John says he liked Hank's North Korea video and it reminded him of a book he read, Escape from Camp 14. — 00:00:00

00:00:16 — Shin Dong-hyuk, the only known escapee born in Camp 14: life expectancy, killings, solitary confinement and torture, gruel and hunger; 'this is not going to be a funny video'

  • ★★★ John says Shin Dong-hyuk is the only person ever known to have escaped Camp 14, which is thought to be the worst camp for North Korean political prisoners. — 00:00:16
  • ★★ John says male life expectancy in Camp 14 is around 40, for those not executed. — 00:00:24
  • ★★ John cites a horrifying story from Camp 14: a six-year-old girl beaten to death for stealing five kernels of corn. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John says at 14 Shin was held for eight months in solitary confinement where he could not stand up, and tortured every day. — 00:00:40
  • ★★ John says Shin, born in the camp to a guard-arranged marriage, never ate a legal meal other than cabbage-and-corn gruel; with malnutrition universal, food is a key incentive. — 00:00:46
  • ★★ John says people make jokes about North Korea but it is not funny, and this will not be a funny video. — 00:01:02

00:01:06 — No indomitable moral hero: Shin informed on his mother, watched her and his brother executed and thought it right; he escaped for food, not freedom

  • ★★★ John says we expect a hero with an indomitable will and moral center, but Shin was born into a world where informing on escapers was moral. — 00:01:06
  • ★★★ John says that at 14 Shin turned his mother in after overhearing her talk of escape; she and his brother were executed, and Shin, who watched, felt it was appropriate. — 00:01:16
  • ★★ John says Shin's own escape is ethically complicated, since he knew from experience it would put his remaining family at risk. — 00:01:39
  • ★★★ John says Shin escaped not out of an indomitable will for freedom but because a friend from outside told him China had endless food. — 00:01:50 · China

00:02:07 — The human spirit can be broken: John's 2007 eye infection, why torture yields bad information, the fragility of the will; Shin develops his ethics after escaping; sign-off

  • ★★ John recalls being hospitalised in March 2007 with a not-dangerous infection behind his eye and thinking, at 2:30 one morning, that he was ready for death. — 00:02:10
  • ★★ John says that, besides being wrong, torture fails because people will say anything to make the pain stop, so the information is unreliable. — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ John says he never believed the human spirit can't be broken; what makes Shin's story amazing is the fragility of the human will, not its strength. — 00:02:37
  • ★★★ John says Shin is a hero because he developed an ethical center after escaping, in China, South Korea and the US: in Shin's words, evolving into a human being. — 00:02:41 · China, United States > «evolving into a human being»
  • ★★★ John says most people undergo that moral evolution so early it feels innate, but North Korea shows it is not. — 00:02:51

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