<div dir="ltr"><font face="georgia, serif">Dear Visionaries:</font><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif">For some time I've been trying to find a way to write about North Korea and Suki Kim's book was the answer.</font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif">A short version of this appeared in the Daily News last week and the longer one appended below was published in the Sandpoint Reader yesterday. The full version is attached.</font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif">I believe that Trump is actually crazier than Kim Jong-Un, but neither one of them can be trusted.</font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif">nfg</font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><b><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">North Korea and the Full Meaning of “I and
Thou”<span></span></font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><br></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif"> Suki
Kim’s book <i>Without You, There is No Us</i>
is one of the most moving accounts of another culture that I’ve read in a long
time. During the summer and fall of 2011, Kim, born in Seoul and now a New York
writer, taught English at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST)
in North Korea.<span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif"> As
incredible as it may seem, PUST, where the sons of North Korea’s elite are
schooled, is financed and staffed by Christian missionaries. They are forbidden
to proselytize, but nonetheless believe that by “showing the love of Christ and
being kind” to these future leaders, they would plant the seeds for their
eventual conversion. <span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">As Kim explains:
“North Korea was the evangelical Christian Holy Grail, the hardest place to
crack in the whole world, and converting its people would guarantee the
missionaries a spot in heaven.”<span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif"> Suki
Kim mentions two meanings of “without you, there is no us.” The first is that Koreans cannot recover
their true identity as a people without a peace treaty and the unification of
their divided country. Over the years, some family visits have been allowed,
but most Koreans do not know what happened to family members after the war. <span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">North
Korean officials make this process nearly impossible by removing people from
their home towns. The ancient clan system, which provided social cohesion
through large extended families, has been abolished.<span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">The most
remarkable insight in Kim’s book is the realization that her students were not
just robots. They joked around and teased each other, and they expressed
genuine love for their teachers and parents. <span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">One day
Kim asked her students to write a letter on any topic. Most of them wrote to
their mothers, about how they missed them and how they kept their pictures
nearby for consolation. One of their fondest memories was helping their mothers
make kimchee. <span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">Kim found
them to be ideal students: “They shouted out each answer together, hung on my
every word, and demanded more homework. I had never been revered so
absolutely.” Kim was convinced that their sincerity was not false, and they
truly loved their dear “professor.” They cried when she left after their summer
session together, and they desperately wanted her to come back in the fall. <span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">It is
significant that, in the open topic letters she assigned, none of Kim’s
students mentioned the late North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. Miraculously,
they were liberated for just a brief moment.
One of them wrote: “I am so glad at this chance to write down what is on
my mind.” Kim was surprised that one student had the courage to write that he
was “fed up” with the PUST routine.<span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">But then
on December 17, 2011, the “Great Leader” died.
The second meaning of “without you, there is no us” now captured their
minds with full force. Years of brainwashing convinced them that without Kim
Jong-Il, they could not be. These young
men who missed their mothers and loved their teachers were now nothing but
shadows, something very much like the wraiths of Hades. <span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">The next
morning Kim was in the dining room eating her last breakfast on campus. Her
students refused to sit with her or even meet her eyes, and they looked as if
the “life had been sucked out of them. I no longer existed for them in this
world without their Great Leader.” In stark contrast to the departure after
summer session, this time there were no tears and no good byes. <span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">North
Korea is one of the last hold-outs of the Cold War, an ideological battle
between Western individualism and Communist collectivism. Most people have
found the latter not only economically destructive but also morally corrosive,
and North Korea is the most dramatic example of the multiple failures of Communism.
<span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">We in the
West have not fully examined the fundamental problems with our own excessive
focus on the individual, which has led, arguably, to many of our society’s
ills. When pondering this issue, I
always like to turn to the wisdom of Martin Buber for guidance. <span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">In his
classic book <i>I and Thou</i> Buber writes:
“There is no I as such but only the I of the basic word I-Thou. I require a Thou
to become; becoming I, I say Thou.” For Buber, too many of us interact with
others on an “I-It” basis. The truth in Buber’s profound statement is verified
in the fact that our personal identities are just as much formed by others as
they are by ourselves. <span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">So Buber
offers the most fundamental meaning of “without you, there is no us.” The
I-Thou relationship is the only place where authentic persons are found, but, every
day, individualist and collectivist ideologies may rob people of their very
souls.<span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">Nick Gier
of Moscow taught philosophy and religion at the University of Idaho for 31
years.<span></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><span><font face="georgia, serif"> </font></span></span></p></div><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div> <div style="height:auto;width:auto"> <div> <div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><font size="2"><div style=""><font face="georgia, serif">A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. <br style=""><br style="">-Greek proverb</font></div><div style=""><font face="georgia, serif" style=""><br>
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not
in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your
own understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.<br>
<br>
--Immanuel Kant<br>
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