north korea

I attended a supplemental talk on North Korean refugees. During the two hours, we watched a 2004 BBC documentary on North Korea. Here is a section from my journal. It is obvious that I am still working through a few thoughts...

Where is the light? Where is the hope? How can people perform such atrocities against human kind? Biological warfare? Chemical weapons? Using humans-children-as expendable lab rats. His grandfather committed a crime against the state and he is sentenced to twenty years in jail. Two decades of torture, fear, pain, sorrow, darkness, evil. No reason, no comprehensible justification. Only power and control. The pleasure gained from the pain of others. How can this be tolerated? Who can allow this to continue? Who can participate? Man's inhumanity to man? Didn't someone say that once?* Do the people in North Korea understand what is taking place within their own borders? Is ignorance feigned? Naivete a show? At what point are individuals responsible for being brainwashed? How can someone survive a life of fear? Questions unanswered and suspended confusion. A game of waiting and wondering, but the stakes are so high. Why God? How God? Keep the balance, maintain the order, don't ripple the waters, deny self-responsibility, individuality and conscience. The essence of man is his ability to choose and say no. But we must deny that quality, surgically remove all contrary thought and action. People are breathing but not living. Another Holocaust. Yet somewhere there must be hope. God, there has to be a plan. Shine your light into this overwhelmingly dark place. For you ARE God. That is where my belief must reside. 

*The quote was taken from a poem by Robert Burns: From Man was made to Mourn: A Dirge, 1785:

'Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And Man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, -
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!

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