When you take a good long look at a picture of one man, one woman, one child, one person, it is hard to believe that a solitary figure could embody the seed of so much destruction, poverty, damnation, and evil. (I'm not going to use the Hitler analogy, as others have done, since the guy has become the stereotypical basis of comparison of our age). Kim Jong Il was his own form of dictator.
After reading the comments and persecptives of people in the 'free world', reeling from the shock of Kim's death, I was struck by the massive comparison of North Koreans and trafficked people, with Kim Jong Il being the most powerful pimp of the Asian world.
What do I mean?
I mean, North Koreans were subject to a life of fear, deprivation, punishment, and absolute forced loyalty to the political state. Without this, people were hauled off to concentration camps, families divided, citizens killed outright.
"If you do not do what I say right now, I will hurt you and your loved ones."
Classic pimp manouver. Classic power tactics. Yet these tactics have been used for so long, and used so well that many North Koreans feel a deep sense of commitment still to their deceased leader. Comments from the West: "Why?! They're free now! What's wrong with them??"
In the West, we have been so trained to believe that when freedom is offered, oppressed people will automatically jump at our offers, race towards freedom, and be thankful for the end of the nightmare.
Not so.
People... we must be patient. First of all, the world is watching and waiting to see if the totalitarian regime will continue under Kim's 3rd son or if there will be an uprising. Or... will some altogether different happen? No matter the course, believers of the kingdom must continue to support those voices in NoKo who are daring to speak out for freedom, for the malnourishment of their people, for the beauty of their culture, and for singing those songs rising from the underground. They do so at their peril, at the risk of their lives, and at the risk of their families.
When a person or people group is oppressed for a long period of time, or when the oppression is so pervasive that you cannot stand or sit without the blessing or permission of the 'benevolent' leader, people's minds demand a reconciliation of this collision of worlds -- good and evil, freedom and slavery. Often this can look like oppressed people's loving and being devoted towards the almighty pimp - god, in their worlds. To do anything otherwise is to betray the only being who truly cares for them.
Sound familiar?
I cringe to think on it.
Instead of being angry or frustrated with North Koreans who may exhibit these tendencies at this time, we ought to be supporting the 'dissidents' who are valiantly working as change agents in their home country, and praying for all North Koreans and their beloved status before Jesus Christ... not a human dictator seeking undiluted power. This will take time... patience... and also a broadening of our own minds. When the freedom seeds that have been planted in NoKo sprout, they might bear fruit -- true fruit -- to which we are unaccustomed to seeing. Here, too, we must be patient as we learn from our brothers and sisters as they use their voices for the kingdom.
In the meantime, as much as we desire human rights, dignity, and the love of Christ to rise up within NoKo, we must never, ever forget the indignities and the affronts to people in our 'modern' countries. Democracy has shown itself to have its own form of terror and degradation. It is easy to point fingers at violent expressions of human abuses (North Korean concentration camps), but we justify our funny little Arab jokes, spits towards aboriginal people, or even to brothers and sisters in our Body. We even get more than a little pissed off when these seeds of malice are pointed out to us. Undercurrents such as these are the makings of a dictatorship, as well as poison to ourselves as persons. Yet... we're still 'better off' and better people than 'them'. Are we?
It is at times I am thankful we are not accountable to any form of political regime, leader or movement. Our allegiance is to the Creator... our Sustainer... our Saviour... our Eternal... our Messiah -- Jesus the Christ, Son of the Living God. His reign is that of love for all peoples and this world, for all peoples and the world the Word created. And His reign will know no end.
Now if that sounds like brainwashed, unrelenting loyalty to you...
... ask audacious questions of this Christ.
See what happens.
