South Korean Leftists Should Take a Tip from Oh Kil-Nam
To Oh, a left-leaning South Korean economist, defecting to North Korea with his entire family seemed like a peachy idea at the time (1985). Today, Oh is one of a very few people who has a souvenir photograph of his family standing in the snow at Camp 15, the infamous Yodok Camp described by Kang Chol-Hwan in “The Aquariums of Pyongyang.”
As it turns out, “the relevant organ” means the large intestine.
His activism attracted the attention of North Korean agents, who approached Oh and offered help with a family medical problem. His wife, Shin Sook-ja, a South Korean nurse, was sick with hepatitis. The North Koreans convinced Oh that she would get free first-class treatment in Pyongyang and he would get a good government job.
“My wife did not want to go,” Oh said. “I ignored her objections.”
Via East Germany and Moscow, the family arrived in Pyongyang on Dec. 3, 1985, Oh said, and was immediately taken to nearby mountains for indoctrination at a military camp. “The moment we stepped into that camp, I knew my wife was right and that I had made the wrong decision,” Oh said. [Washington Post, Blaine Harden]
As it turns out, the reality of North Korea’s universal health care fell significantly short of Oh’s expectations. Instead, Oh and his wife were put to work broadcasting propaganda to the South until he was ordered to return to Europe:
[A]uthorities ordered Oh to return to Germany and recruit more South Korean students to live in North Korea. His wife and daughters, he was told, could not go along. Oh recalls that he and his wife argued bitterly about what he should do.
“She hit me in the face when I said I would come back with some South Koreans,” Oh said. “She said I could not have that on my conscience. She told me to leave North Korea and never come back. She told me to think of her and our daughters as being dead from a car accident.”
Technically speaking, of course, “slave laborer at a political prison camp” is a government job.
Yes, Mr. Oh, you’re a fool. How unfortunate that your wife and daughters paid such a terrible price for that.
I believe that last sentence should read “daughters” paid such a terrible price…
I wasn’t following NK 25 years ago (I think I was more interested in Robotech and Voltron at that time), but I understand that NK’s economy was much stronger than the South’s back then. That, to me, is almost unbelievable. North Korea actually used to actually be the more prosperous, more stable, state. In that climate, defections to the North make more sense. I guess prosperity still didn’t stop them from treating all their citizens like ddong, though…
You’re right. I’ll fix that.
Biff, don’t believe that the North was ever more powerful, economically, than the South. Since you can’t trust any numbers coming from Pyongyang, we’ll never know if they ever actually were.
What you can trust is that even in South Korea’s darkest hours, they still had freedom of speech, freedom to start their own business, freedom to buy and sell what they wished.
My wife looks at the taxes and regulations that the US is put under, stuff that is common to us, and asks, “How in the world do you make a living here?” Her parents fed their family through the 70’s and 80’s and although times were tough, they always had economic options.
That economic freedom is more valuable than rice on the table or money in the bank. At the very least, it gives people hope and at best, it means that whatever you eat today, you’ll be eating a feast tomorrow.
Joshua, did South Koreans have freedom of speech under the Park regime?
Jeffery Hodges
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Various resources, including the country studies published by the US government, state that South Korea’s economic development and standard of living surpassed North Korea’s in the 1960s. Even without referring to such resources, it is impossible to believe that the North could have been more prosperous at the time of the man’s defection since South Korea was already a major exporter while North Korea traded mostly with the underdeveloped Soviet Union and China.
Oops . . . I meant “Jonathan,” not “Joshua.”
Jeffery Hodges
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I hope this isn’t taken the wrong way but…not really.
When did Mr Oh arrive back in South Korea? I suppose we can unfortunately assume that since he’s shared his story…his wife and daughters may have encountered something of an unpleasant fate?
Dan Ó C, follow the link to the Washington Post article.
Jeffery Hodges
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Ah, there we go. Thank you.
Sonagi wrote:
If Bruce Cumings were here, that’s not what he’d say:
The North’s industrial growth was as fast as any in the world from the mid-1950s into the mid-1970s, and even in the early 1980s its per capital GNP was about the same as the South’s.
[Kushibo ducks]
Thanks for the additional thoughts, guys. I have to agree that the idea that N. Korea was more economically developed than the South into the 1980s does seem suspect. I assume many of you have also taken the guided tour and seen with your own eyes–but it’s like stepping back into a time warp–not 1980s, more like 1950s–and that’s only what they’re “willing” to show you.
On the other hand, most of what I’ve read and understood about the S. Korean system in the 60s and 70s is extremely negative. I would definitely say freedom of speech was not very evident during the military dictatorships. Even now, it seems its not really legal to speak in support the North Korean regime. I have mixed feelings about that policy.
kushibo:
You make some good points. I just feel like the current ban on pro-North Korean speech is accompanied by a general unwillingness to talk about the regime. So many young South Koreans are so very naive about the North. They see the limits on free speech and think it’s a problem with the South Korean government. A lot of “anti-Seoul control” “anti- ì´ëª…ë°•” sentiment gets channeled directly into anti-Americanism and de-facto pro-North Koreanism.
Ideologically, North Korea is a dead dog. Why not treat it as such? Is there even a museum dedicated to the concentration camps in the North anywhere in South Korea? I think a place like that should be built and should be a mandatory field trip for all South Korean kids. If they also attend a “patriotic” pro-North re-unification event, they can then determine under what circumstances reunification makes sense