“The Hermit Kingdom” – that’s what they call North Korea.
Sounds enchanting, and endearing when you think of its inhabitants who have no
one but themselves to rely upon. That raw independence has spawned a siege
mentality, beginning with it impetuous leader, Kim Jong Un. Many see him as 27
year old despot with a nuclear arsenal at his fingertips. America calls him
“irrational”. (He must be. He defies America at every turn.)
Speaking at the United Nations this past month, Secretary of
State, Rex Tillerson, said of North Korea:
“They don’t need nuclear weapons.” They don’t? Then who does? America
has over 2500 nukes. We must need them. (Do we need so many?) And, you say
North Korea needs none. Who’s being irrational?
The U.S. wants North Korea to dismantle its entire nuclear
program, (composed of six to ten warheads.) We want the Korean peninsula to be
nuclear free. Are we so full of ourselves that we presume the right to set the
parameters of another nation’s existence?
We have nuclear weapons to deter other nations from
attacking us. Russia has the same nukes. Lesser nations – France, Israel,
Pakistan have nukes for the same reasons: to insure their survival in the face
of nations who only respect the ability of contrary nations to hit them back.
It is called “Mutual Assured Destruction” – “MAD.” That is what N. Korea wants
– what America has in spades: the surety of MAD(ness).
America claims Un threatens our existence. No, he doesn’t.
Un says, “If the U.S. attacks us, we will fight back.” That is a simple
assurance. We, Americans, can trace such assurances back to grade school –
those of us, that is, who had guts to hit the bully back. N. Korea, with its
nuclear program, seeks to keep the bully at bay, like everyone else.
N. Korea saw what happened to Iraq and Libya. Neither of
those countries threatened America. America made them disarm, nonetheless.
Then, we killed both of their leaders,
and left their nations in shambles. “Irrational” would be for Un to disarm in
the face of American intimidation., and expect a different result.
President Trump dispatched a nuclear-powered naval strike
force to the Korean peninsula, ostensibly to intimidate Un into backing down
from any more nuclear, and ballistic missile tests. A day later, Un tested one
of his missiles, anyway. Two weeks later, on the 28th of April, as
the U. S. naval “armada” drew nearer to the Korean peninsula, Un tested another
missile.
By the way, how does one use a nuclear-powered strike force
to convince another nation to de-nuclearize? Weaker peoples might fold. A
determined nation will respond, “I’m gonna be like you.” If nothing else, N.
Korea is determined.
It is interesting that as the United Nations Security
Council convened a special session to discuss N. Korea’s ballistic missile
tests, the U.S. and India, that same week, tested ballistic missiles of their
own. Unbowed, Rex Tillerson stood on the floor of the U.N. and asked that N. Korea – already
the most-sanctioned nation on Earth – be hit with ever more crippling sanctions
for daring to do what we do.
By its policy toward N. Korea, it is apparent that the U.S.
wants to bring that nation to its knees – perhaps to total extinction, and
subsequent absorption into a unified Korea dominated by the U.S.-friendly,
non-nuclear South. Many in the world might say that would be a good thing for
the impoverished N. Korean people. Perhaps…
But, what if that nation views itself as 25 million people
operating as a simple organism, like a colony of honeybees. This is not to
belittle, but to highlight the industriousness of this feisty people who, with
less outside help than any other nation on Earth, strive with dogged purpose to
fulfill its destiny.
As a people, Americans reject the notion – think: humans
were not meant to conform, like bees, to a single purpose. How do we know? Were
all humans meant to be like Americans – slavishly staring into their iPhones,
worshipping money, fame; cramming gratuitous foodstuffs down our throats until
the entire nation is awash in an epidemic of obesity? Are we so much better
than they?
I have had the advantage of being raised in rural Michigan
of the 50’s and 60’s. A hand-pump was our sole source of water, a pot-bellied
stove our sole source of heat, an outhouse at the edge of our backyard our
source of relief. Times were hard. We ate regularly, but food was never in
abundance.
When I hear of the dire straits N. Koreans face, I am
reminded that our family was never closer, never so assured of who we were,
then when times were hardest. Perhaps the hard times the N. Koreans know – the
threats, the sanctions – has only made them more united/less divided than any
other nation on Earth.
Recently, the N. Koreans celebrated the anniversary of their
republic’s founding with a splendid display of pageantry. Such spectacles,
along with the nation’s expansive weapons systems, tax Un’s ability to feed his
own people. Come nighttime N. Korea becomes a black spot on the global map, evidence
of a modern nation that cannot afford to keep the lights on.
Such failures make N. Korea a bright target for ridicule.
Yet, even the U.S. must temper its mockery with a measure of respect. Earth
abounds with nations that fail to feed their own; that have little to show for
their existence besides hunger, squalor, and corruption. Through the hardships
visited upon the N. Korean people, a poor nation has forged itself into a an advanced
and nuclear state.
Still, America cannot resist deploying her smug pit: “They
have no access to the internet!” Big deal! Neither did we. Instead, my siblings
and I were raised on the complete set of “Childcraft” books – children’s
literature from “Bo-Peep” to “Rapunzel”, and beyond.
Look, let not lean with our feigned pity. Ask: “Can the N.
Korean children go fishing, play baseball, go for walks in the woods?” If so,
then many of them are more free than our own children – chained as they are to
their fancy computers and cell phones; addicts to technology that diminishes
them where consequent time spent with nature would enrich their souls.
This is no attempt to romanticize the tribulations of the N.
Korean people. They suffer; who doesn’t. I wish all the world’s children were
free from hunger. That will not happen, especially with world leaders like ours
who feign commiseration out of one side of their mouths, while clamoring for
ever more bone-chilling child-starving sanctions out of the other side.
Leave the N. Koreans be. (Stop trying to make everybody like
your sick selves.) They want to live, that’s all. They have a right to
self-determination; the right to be different. They are a unique people – they are
denizens of “The Hermit Kingdom.”
