Underworld

A few years ago I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of an interview with a fugitive from a prison camp in North Korea. His testimony seemed material taken from a book (perhaps a mixture of "Fahrenheit 911" and "1984"), or something you would read in a historical description of the 15th century. It's both shocking and unbelievable that things like that still happen. Here, now.

The man was born in prison, arrested (if you can apply the term to one who's never been free) for a long forgotten crime perpetrated by an unknown ancestor. He had no contact with the outside world, which he didn't even know existed. Forced labour and starvation were a constant, but there was no desire to escape since that was considered normal: it was all that he knew.

At age 14 he saw his brother and mother executed, charged of intenting to escape.  He himself reported them to the guards. Why would he do that? Because that's what people did in his world: work, starve and rattle on the ones who carry dreams of freedom. It didn't seem sad or wrong at the time, it simply was what you were supposed to do. He was then tortured to make sure he didn't share the escape intents.

Years later he met a new prisoner, from China, who had so lived in the outside world. Marvelled by the stories of a place where you could eat as much as you wanted, he decided to escape with his friend. In the run for it, his companion got electrocuted to death by an electrified fence; he crawled his way to freedom over the dead body.

Now, a citizen of the free world, he tries to raise awareness for the situation in North Korea. He does not understand why Western news' channels are only concerned with the North Korea's head of state's new wife, while ignoring entirely the prisoner camps and the regime's opression. How can we possibly explain ourselves?


Filipe Baptista de Morais