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"The Internet takes things that used to be hidden and puts them a mouse-click away from ubiquity, and not just government reports."
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"while other restrictive regimes have sought ways to limit the Internet - through filters and blocks and threats - North Korea has chosen to stay wholly off the grid."
You might want to check out this youtube video on NK internet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfURt2_2TNA
Hate to say it, but it could be propaganda. I don't know how real it is. NK does do a lot of this. There is a culture of trying to kiss up to their leader in NK. Do you know for example that Kim Jong Il hates people calling him "Dear Leader"? "Dear Leader" was invented by Mr. Kiss up who suggested it upon Kim Il Sung's death and since nobody else dared to object, that name got stucked on Jong Il.
I would like to commend the IHT article for being willing to put links to NK websites. I read the Kim Il Sung principles for unification for the first time. It is good intentioned.
However, I think Korea should follow the Mainland China-Taiwan model for reunification.
The first step requires the removal of foreign direct influences. The problem with the Koreas I see is that too many people are involved (6 parties) with each party having its own goal and dreams.
Next, is more people to people exchanges. South Koreans should be allowed to travel freely into North Korea and vice versa. Right now, reunification efforts have been driven primarily by governments and big businesses. There is little grassroot efforts. Case in point: South Koreans still require special permission from the govenrment to travel to North Korea. Unti l there is grassroot exchanges, reunification efforts will be abstract.
South Korea should remove all investment restrictions on North Korea. It is actually more conducive for farming to be done in South Korea and industry to be relocated to the North based on geographical arguments.
It is likely that if this were done, South Korean businessmen would have 2nd or 3rd wives kept in North Korea.
By then, both countries would be culturally reunited. The pains of being separated would be gone. Like MainlandChina-Taiwan, both governments will still be politically separated but that is merely a symbolic separation in most people's minds.
Then, the final question is how to free the DPRK of its one party system or restrictions on freedom? The answer is to preach the true teachings of Communism. Communism requires democracy as one of its pillars, and when they truly understood communism, they will know that free speech, democracy and human rights are all inalienable rights of a communist state. Albert Einstein was the one who said: " A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual." and "How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?"
Posted by: mahathir_fan | October 23, 2006 at 03:12 AM
Rebecca, do you happen to have a line on any more information about how people actually use these black-market cell phones? Cell phones (at least the ones that are common in the US) need towers to work. I would assume that running secret towers would be pretty hard to do. So, does the diffusion of cell phones into the country max out at only a few miles deep, with people using Chinese towers?
Posted by: Steven | October 23, 2006 at 11:23 AM
Yes, the towers are on the Chinese side of the border so they do indeed only work in the border areas.. or that was my understanding last time I looked into it for the piece I wrote a year and a half ago. I was also told by people who spend time on the border, however, that there was a black market in Chinese cellphone top-up cards in the N.Korean border areas. But again, that was a year and a half ago. I am not up to date on the latest situation.
Posted by: Rebecca MacKinnon | October 23, 2006 at 12:15 PM