The Hidden People of North Korea (37 page)

Some defectors said that people in the North were more likely to help each other, when they could afford to, than people in the South. Once they arrive in South Korea, most North Koreans find they are on their own, shunned by South Korean society as outsiders and avoided by their distant relatives.

What defectors disliked most about life in North Korea was the state’s control over their lives, including the ubiquitous party and police surveillance. Even outside of work, their time had to be accounted for. Local party watchdogs and security officials might pay unannounced visits to their homes. Because of the constant surveillance, people had to hide their true feelings and pretend to be satisfied with their lives, although some defectors said they did not realize how little freedom they had until they came to South Korea. They were not happy living a life controlled by the party, but they were used to it.

When defectors were asked what they had wanted most when they lived in North Korea, they frequently mentioned personal desires. A woman recalled that she had always wanted to learn to dance. Another wanted to own a car. A third wanted to travel to some of the natural wonders in North Korea. A fourth simply wanted access to the latest knowledge in his occupation, which was computer science. Beyond these personal desires, most North Koreans wanted reunification with the South. Reunification was also the ultimate political goal of the Kim Il-sung regime, but after East Germany absorbed West Germany, many North Korean elites came to believe they would be better off if the two Koreas remained separate, whereas those lower on the social and political scale believed that reunification would bring an end to the economic shortages they had endured all their lives. In April 2000, a delegation of French visitors in Pyongyang heard a loud gong signaling that a special announcement was about to be made over the third broadcasting system’s speakers. Their North Korean guides were worried because the last time they had heard the gong, it had heralded the announcement of Kim Il-sung’s death. This time the announcement was that the two Koreas would hold their first summit meeting in Pyongyang in June. One Korean said, “Finally, finally, finally. You know, we could not take it any longer. … You cannot know all the sacrifices we endure, all the wealth and all the resources we sink into strengthening our army, to the detriment of everything else.”
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As it turned out, the summit talks led to only the first small steps toward Korean reconciliation and did little to improve the material lives of North Koreans, who continued to suffer as Kim Jong-il strengthened his military-first policy.

Defectors said their greatest fear in North Korea was for their personal safety. They most feared arrest by the security services, which is understandable considering that most North Koreans are forced to engage in illegal market activities in order to survive. If the police decide to crack down on a particular activity at a particular time, some people are inevitably caught in the net. Likewise, as social controls have broken down and economic hardships have multiplied, the incidence of crime has increased. Women are afraid to go out at night because street crimes such as robbery, rape, and even murder, all of which were formerly rare, are becoming more frequent.

What North Koreans spend their time thinking about depends in part on how old they are. Young people are interested in earning money to buy products that give them pleasure, emulating what they see in South Korean videos. They gather to sing South Korean songs, dance at discotheques, and wear Western clothing such as jeans and printed T-shirts. South Korean movies are having an especially strong impact on the youth, who imitate the clothing and behaviors they see. The Kim regime recognizes that the younger generation is most vulnerable to bourgeois culture and most lacking in “revolutionary discipline,” and the media frequently warn that youth need to be subjected to stronger socialist indoctrination, but boring, heavy-handed communist propaganda is notably ineffective, and foreign culture has continued to spread among the youth.
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Religious Beliefs

Before the communists came to power, Confucianism was the most popular belief system in Korea, although unlike Western religions, Confucianism is an elaboration of principles about the conduct of human affairs rather than the worship of a supreme being. Buddhism was introduced into Korea in the fourth century and Christianity in the nineteenth century, around the same time that Chondoism (
Chondokyo
) emerged as an indigenous religion. Shamanistic practices and beliefs were, and to some extent still are, popular in the countryside.
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When Korea was liberated from the Japanese, a survey conducted in the northern half of the peninsula found 1.5 million practicing Chondoists, 375,000 Buddhists, 200,000 Protestants, and 57,000 Roman Catholics.
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The first North Korean constitution, dating to 1948, declared, “Citizens have the freedom to engage in religious activities,” but it was Kim Il-sung’s typically communist opinion that “religion is a counter-revolutionary and unscientific view of the world. Once they indulge in religion, people come to have their class-consciousness paralyzed and will be deprived of the desire to carry out revolution. Religion can be compared to opium.”
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Following the 1959 publication of a booklet titled “Why Should We Oppose Religion?” the Kim regime began to actively discourage the practice of religion by imprisoning religious leaders and forcing their followers to recant. In the late 1960s, with the completion of the nationwide political classification of the people, Protestants, Buddhists, Catholics, and Confucians were assigned their own subclassifications in the “hostile” class. The South Korean government estimates that virtually all North Koreans who openly practiced religion were killed or imprisoned between the end of the Korean War (when an estimated one hundred thousand Christians fled to South Korea) and 1970, effectively wiping out the public practice of religion.
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The 1972 DPRK constitution guaranteed freedom of religion, along with the freedom “to engage in anti-religious propaganda activities.” The 1992 constitution took a more favorable position on religion, stipulating, “Citizens have freedom of religious belief. This right also guarantees the right to construct buildings for religious use, as well as religious ceremonies.” But the constitution warned, “No one may use religion as a means by which to drag in foreign powers or to destroy the state or social order,” a provision that effectively prevents the practice of religion. In his landmark 1995 text on ideological indoctrination, Kim Jong-il pronounced religion to be antithetical to North Korea’s official ideology of
Juche
: “The religious and idealist views have been defined as if the people’s activity is restricted or their destiny is determined by a mysterious supernatural being. Science has already proven the unreality of the religious and idealist view.”
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In 1972, at a time when the two Koreas enjoyed a brief period of rapprochement, the Kim regime revived several defunct religious organizations so they could participate in the united front campaign against South Korea, whose religious organizations were largely opposed to the dictatorial military governments then ruling the South. The Korean Buddhist League reappeared in 1972, the Korean Christian Federation in 1974, and the Central Guidance Committee for Korean Chondoists in 1974. The Korean Catholics Association was established as a separate organization in 1988. The KWP Central Committee’s United Front Department controls all these associations. Representatives of North Korean religious groups travel to international meetings, where they promote their government’s political positions, especially calling for Korean reunification according to the DPRK’s political formula.

After a half century of repression, most North Koreans seem no more interested in religion than in politics, and it is difficult to know what place religion would play in their lives if the authorities permitted it. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the Bongsu (Pongsu) Methodist Church, the Chang-chun Catholic Church, and the Chilgol Church were built in Pyongyang. Their congregations consist of a few party and security agents and a small number of religious believers who have somehow been permitted to practice their faith. Interestingly, the Chilgol Church is said to be built on the same spot as the church that the young Kim Il-sung and his parents attended in the days when Pyongyang was a center of Western religion in Korea. On his 2003 trip to Russia, Kim Jong-il got the idea of building a Greek Orthodox church in Pyongyang, which opened in August 2006 with a delegation of Russians attending, including the Russian ambassador and the metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, who consecrated the church, known as the Jongbaek Church.

In addition to serving a political motive, controlled religion in North Korea has brought in hard currency. Most of the Pyongyang churches seem to have been built with foreign donations, and foreign (mostly South Korean) religious organizations have been generous humanitarian donors to North Korea. For example, between 1995 and 2006, the South Korean Catholic community sent $38 million in aid—certainly enough money to warrant the regime’s toleration of one small Catholic church in Pyongyang.
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Pyongyang’s handful of churches also serve as a place of worship for the small community of foreign residents. The sponsorship of religious organizations and toleration of churches are also means to parry international criticism of the Kim regime’s antireligious policies.

An unknown number of “house churches”—perhaps as many as several hundred throughout the country—hold services, sometimes with the knowledge of local officials. Worshippers meet in groups of a half dozen or fewer (more than that attracts notice and increases the chance that one of the worshippers is a spy), usually in someone’s home. Children, who might be induced to report on their parents, are excluded from worship. People caught worshipping or found to possess religious literature can receive prison sentences of ten years or more for antisocialist activities, which often amounts to a death sentence. Koreans caught in China and returned to North Korea are vigorously interrogated, and if they confess to having been in contact with South Korean or other foreign religious organizations, they are sent to prison. A survey of 755 North Korean defectors published in 2008 found only ten who said they had participated (secretly) in church services while in the North, forty-three who said they had known of others who participated in church services, and thirty-three who said they had seen a Bible.
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Communism as Cult

In a number of respects, North Korea presents the appearance of a large cult, and to the extent that the parallel holds, the study of cults (the politically correct term is
new religious movements
) can provide some understanding of North Koreans and their belief system.
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In cults, the selfishness of the individual ego is seen as separating members from the group and from their “true” nature, just as egotism and individualism are supposed to be enemies of the North Korean community. In a cult, the most menial tasks are valued as necessary and significant parts of a divine plan, providing members with motivation and giving them a sense of self-worth. In North Korea, the press praises the work of “hidden heroes,” and citizens are urged to “silently defend their outposts, regardless of whether they are recognized or not.”
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After cult members are indoctrinated with the group’s beliefs, they have trouble assessing the extent to which their values are realistic or moral. One reason they hold on to their new beliefs is that they have already committed themselves to the cult with their effort, time, and possessions. The North Korean people have likewise sacrificed much in their journey toward a socialist paradise, and it will be difficult for them to admit they have been traveling the wrong road and following the wrong leaders for over half a century. When cult followers find something about their new belief system hard to accept or at variance with reality, they often blame their lack of understanding on limited knowledge and doubt their own judgment. In North Korea, only Kim Jong-il is said to have a clear vision of the future; it is the role of the people not to think but to obey Kim and have faith in his superior wisdom. Cult members are taught to be suspicious of the outside world, just as the North Korean media routinely disparage foreign countries. When a cult falls under the control of a dominating leader, as is usually the case, that leader tends to exploit members for his or her advantage. The obscene wealth enjoyed by Kim Jong-il is made possible by the work of millions of ordinary Koreans who will never enjoy the fruits of their labor and cannot begin to imagine the luxurious lifestyle their leader enjoys.

After they have left the cult, former members often recognize that they have failed to accomplish what they set out to do by joining and are often confused about what their next step in life should be.
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They may discard some aspects of the cult’s belief system but retain others. Likewise, North Koreans who arrive in the South are usually confused about what to do next. The transition to life outside the DPRK is much more difficult than the transition former cult members face because, except for those who have spent some time in northern China, defectors have no previous experience of the outside world. Moreover, defectors have usually left behind family and loved ones and lack close family members to support them in South Korea.

Once free of the cult, former members often reminisce about the more positive aspects of their cult experience, such as the community support they received, and they sometimes question the wisdom of having left the group. Likewise, North Korean defectors often ask themselves whether defecting was a good idea. In a 2004 survey of one hundred defectors, 69 percent said they would prefer to leave their difficult life in South Korea for another country such as the United States or Canada, and 33 percent said they would return to North Korea if they could (although to do so would almost certainly mean lifetime imprisonment).
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By leaving their homeland, defectors exchange one set of problems for another, although most of them believe that by defecting they made the correct choice under very difficult circumstances.