North Korea\u2019s recent provocations have put the world on edge.<\/p>\n
The situation, spurred by nation\u2019s 30-year-old dictator, seems to worsen daily as Japan, South Korea and the U.S. have positioned both military and missiles to defend and retaliate against a potential strike.<\/p>\n
Less than a year ago, Becky Duckett, Furman\u2019s Program Coordinator in Asian Studies, participated in an independent educator\u2019s tour of North Korea. On Tuesday afternoon, her reflections on this trip gave a packed McEachern Lecture Hall the opportunity to put the current turmoil surrounding the embattled country in a unique perspective.<\/p>\n
In a nation that collects your visa when you arrive and holds it until you leave, Duckett found her efforts to read between the lines constantly challenged by North Korea\u2019s affinity for secrecy.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, they hold your life in their hands,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Duckett quickly discovered that this privacy extended beyond the withholding of her passport.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t supposed to speak to anyone without authorization.\u201d Even the photographic evidence of her travels had to be acquired surreptitiously.<\/p>\n
As Duckett admitted during her presentation, \u201cmost of these pictures are illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n
In what she perceives as an effort to create a revisionist history in the minds of Americans who have the rare privilege to visit North Korea, her watchful tour guides gave her a \u201ctourist re-education\u201d over the course of her visit.<\/p>\n
Duckett said she and her colleagues were consistently reminded that \u201cAmerica is the evil enemy,\u201d and the sole source of any discord between North and South Korea.<\/p>\n
Throughout her travels, she was also struck by the ubiquity of physically represented honor and loyalty to the authoritarian government.\u00a0 From statues that seemed to sprout up everywhere, to mandatory loyalty pins (the absence of which can result in citizens being sent to unacknowledged prison camps), to slogans and billboards, the prevalence of which made it seem as if \u201cthey built the buildings to put the slogans on top of them\u201d, self-fulfilling propaganda reigned throughout the isolated country.<\/p>\n
Duckett believes the propaganda \u00a0creates a culture of fear and sense of duty among North Korea\u2019s citizens. She suggests that they feel compelled to live within the restrictions of a government that bugs hotel rooms and phones, requires floral offerings to statues in popular city squares, and only allows its most loyal citizens to live in its capital, Pyongyang, a sparsely populated city that \u201cseemed deserted\u201d to Duckett and her cohorts.<\/p>\n
With this forced acquiescence in mind,\u00a0 Duckett was quick to defend the people of North Korea in her condemnation of its oppressive government.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not the people\u2019s faults,\u201d she said. \u201cMost North Koreans don\u2019t really have any knowledge of the outside world. To them, for five or six decades, the Kim\u2019s have lived as gods.\u201d<\/p>\n
(photos by Yangbo Hua)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\t\t