Locked in a small room called North Korea

Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR) English speech contest / Korea Times photo by John Dunbar

On August 25, Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR) held its 8th English Language Speech Contest. Julia, a North Korean refugee who joined TNKR in 2013, won first prize in the contest, which was hosted by TNKR and the Shin and Kim Law Office, and sponsored by The Korea Times. American Cody Smith coached Julia. Below is the text of her speech.

There is a movie called "Room." In this movie, a woman named Ma was kidnapped by a vicious stranger when she was a teenager. In the interim, Ma has given birth to a son, Jack. The two of them lived in a 10 by 10 room. For Ma, the room was a prison, but for Jack, "Room" is an entire world that is the only life Jack has known. Ma formulated a plan to escape from the?room, taking the opportunity to show Jack the world outside.

After I saw this movie, I thought that the North Koreans who are living in North Korea are just like little Jack who lived in that isolated room. North Korea is the most isolated and secretive country in the world, I would rather say that it is an enormous prison.

Within this prison there are rooms that represent the "songbun" system, which is a caste system. North Koreans who live in this prison are put into these different rooms based on political loyalty and status. This caste system is the biggest reason that Kim's family can control people and maintain the regime.

After the Korean War, Kim Il-sung established the three big classes. These are the core class, wavering class and hostile class. This caste system decides your prospects in almost every area of life, including education, occupation, military service, party membership, marriage, and even food supply. The key factors that decide which room you should be put in are your ancestors' socio-economic background at the time of liberation in 1945, their activities during the Korean War (1950-53), whether you had relatives in South Korea or China, and of course being connected to the outside world is bad for your status.

Among these three classes, the most privileged is the core class. Core class people have the most benefits. It is 28 percent of the population. This includes professional revolutionaries, descendants of "war heroes" who died working or fighting for the North, peasants or those from peasant families in the past.

The largest group, which has little upward movement, is the wavering class. It is about 45 percent. This includes people who had previously lived in South Korea or China, those with relatives who went to the South, families of small-scale merchants, etc.

Finally, the hostile class is the most restricted. This class has hardly any access to the social benefits. This class is 27 percent. This includes descendants of landlords, capitalists, religious people, political prisoners, or anyone otherwise judged anti-Party.

The North Korea regime gives the core room the carrot and gives the hostile room the stick. In these rooms within this prison, no one can escape from state observation. In this system people have to use internal passports, which restrict their movement within North Korea.

People are still stuck in this system; anyone committing any crime or anyone against the state becomes the hostile class, even people from the core class. It is really hard to move up levels, but very easy to move down.

In the movie, when Ma and Jack were obedient to the man, he gave them food and treated them nicely, but if they disobeyed he stopped offering food or turned the heat off and was violent. This is a very effective and easy way to control people. In North Korea, the core room people want to maintain their vested interest, the wavering and the hostile room people are afraid of punishment, such as public execution. The fear of punishment is much bigger than rebelliousness under this songbun system. This is why the North Korea regime system is especially hard to change.

Most people from the wavering room are in little Jack's situation, because they know little about the outside world and have no idea about the reality of the country. I was one of the waving class members because my grandparents moved to China and came back to North Korea after the war.

I was ignorant as little Jack was. Before I escaped from North Korea, I thought North Korea was the best country in the world because I had been taught this from an early age. I?had never seen any other kinds of news items or documentaries about the outside world because all legal televisions were tuned to state-controlled domestic programming.

For me, there was no way to understand the true discrepancy between North Korea and the outside world.

However, these days things are changing. Awareness of the reality of the country and the outside world is growing in North Korea, especially among the young generation at a minuscule rate. They are different from the previous generations because they can access outside media content, even though it is illegal in North Korea.

In addition, they know that the government lies to them because it is obvious. When the government says there is prosperity in terms of food and rice, they see that in reality there is a drought and there is no food for them. So the young generation has started to jump out of their "rooms" and blame the government for the grievous economic conditions, hate its cruelty, and understand that life is much better elsewhere.

Imagine if Jack spent his whole life in that small room, then he would have never seen the real world. Fortunately, Jack and Ma escaped from the room because of Ma's efforts. Similarly to Ma helping Jack, my father told me about the reality of the prison room that I was in. That is why I am here today. To be informed is really important to make a difference in someone's life. That is why the North Korea regime enforces the strict control of outside information.

I know it is very shocking and confusing when someone faces a totally different world they never imagined. However, that is our reality; we need to challenge and face this reality. People from the wavering class have little chance to know the reality, so they need someone, anyone, and whoever is inside North Korea or outside of North Korea to tell them the truth and show them the real world. If they become informed, they can be empowered to make bottom-up changes themselves.

Casey Lartigue Jr., co-founder of the Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center, is the 2017 winner of the "Social Contribution" Prize from the Hansarang Rural Cultural Foundation and the 2017 winner of the Global Award from Challenge Korea.