Long Walk to Freedom

article by: Bill Powell
review by: Me – Keelee

I have just finished reading Long Walk to Freedom (hereafter, LWTF) by Bill Powell. This article was the cover story of the Asia edition of TIME magazine last April 23, 2006. And I certainly believed that I had the good fortune of having been given a task of making a review of the article as a requirement for SSP2 (Asia and the World).

LWTF is a fascinating article mainly because it tells of one moving tale. Reading the article is like watching a television documentary – it brims with big names, drama, spectacular effects and of course, the trademark chest thumping. The article does tell how North Koreans risk their lives to reach freedom, with the aid of American Christians. It is also an expose into the life and death of North Koreans as they try to escape their homeland and China. The inside tale of one escape.
LWTF is a story that fills in a lot of gaps and sheds a lot of unanswered questions about what happens when a North Korean goes out of his or her borders. Kim Myong Suk was one of them.

Why do these people want to escape from their country and what happens if they are caught?

“My motivation was hunger, and also there is no freedom in North Korea. It is a closed society. Even though we were out of the (labor) camp, we fwlt we were locked up in that country” Kim says.

Here is Kim’s story.

February 1998 – Kim Myong Suk 9an alias she uses to protect herself and her relatives) was twenty years old when she fled from North Korea to China. She was immediately “sold off” into marriage. Her husband was a Chinese peasant from Heilongjiang, and it took time for Kim to grow her affection for him. Then she became pregnant. Unfortunately, on October of the same year, the Chinese police conducted their periodic raids in search of refugees from North Korea. Kim was one of those who were arrested. She was immediately sent back to North Korea and was sentenced to three years in labor camp. There, she was treated inhumanely and eventually lost her unborn child. But she was released under a special amnesty decree after one and a half year. Again, on March 2002, she escaped and was on China for a second time. Together with her sister and mother in the city of Mudanjiang, she met an ethnic Korean-Chinese man and got maried again. In China, there is a threat for them to get caught again, so Kim’s mom and sister decided to go to Seoul. Kim stayed in China. But her mother kept on worrying about Kim and said that she would do everything to get Kim out of North Korea and Chinese border. Finally, on October 2005, Kim’s case was brought to Rev. Tim Peters (an evangelical Christian pastor from Michigan) who runs the Seoul-based charity Helping Hands Korea – an organization aiming to assist North Koreans in crisis. Then they did the so called “underground operation”, the Seoul Train.

Having said that, let me share what struck me the most in the article: The very long process and the amount of money one should have in order to go through the secret route. The operation is different from any other rescue operations. It needs money, a meticulous plan and reliable people. There is no magic formula to know how many people and how much money is needed, hence, it varies in time and situation.

Today, there are an estimated 250,000 North Korean refugees living underground in China. They escaped a food crisis and other persecutions at home that have claimed the lives approxiamtely 3 million in the past ten years. As the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stands idly by, the Chinese Government – in direct violation of international laws to which it is a party – systematically arrests and forcibly sends back hundreds of these refugees each month. Defecting from North Korea is a capital offense, and sent back refugees face human rights abuses ranging from concentration camps and torture to forcedabortion and summary executions.

For a lucky few refugees, however, there is hope. A group of multinational activists has taken it upon themselves to create an Underground Railroad. Via a network of safe houses and escape routes, the activists – at great perconal risk – help the refugees on daring escapes to freedom over hundreds 9and sometimes thousands) of miles of Chinese territory. This is an odyssey where betrayal and deceit lurk around every corner, and the price of getting caught likely means death. It is an epic tale involving years on the lam living in the underground shelters, North Korean and Chinese agents, double-crossings, covert border crossings, and the terror of what happens if they get caught.

In order to capture the essence and urgency of the current crisis, a story of one refugee (Kim) is told through interviews – and I will go on record to say that the article is very well written because of that. I tip my hat off to Bill Powell for thw wonderful manner in which he was able to weave the refugee’s story, the secret route and the North korean politicsinto one seamless tapestry. You follow the refuge from her arrival in China – before she begin her escape attempts – as she recount the horror she left behind. You also hear her fears of being caught and sent back to North Korea, where she knows her doomed fate.

In Seoul Train, you meet the activists on the front line, learn of the risks they take for their refugees and for themselves, and see firsthand the toll their work takes on them.

Their system of government is to blame for this situation surely.

North Korea is a classic example of the “rule of man.” Overall, political management is highly personalized and is based on loyalty to Kim Il Sung and the Korean Worker’s Party. The cult of personality, the nepotism of the Kim family and the strong influence of former anti-Japanese partisan veterans and military leaders are unique features of North Korean politics.

Fiesta Forever

Pomp and pageantry, fun and fantastic colors harmonize as Davao celebrates Kadayawan, a melding of history, religion and culture into a living tradition. Celebrated every month of August, the month of the harvest, the festival is a soul enriching experience, a renewal of the Davaoeños ties with their ethnic roots. A way of giving recognition to the different indigenous tribes by way of merrymaking, prayer, rituals and revelry.
Sun up to sun down festivities unfold amidst backdrop of diverse cultures with different tribes competing and joining the parade of dance, chants and body language. The “Indak Indak sa Dalan” or dancing in the street is loaded with a deafening roar of drums, surging and ebbing as succeeding tribes file past in practice perfect choreography designed to dazzle street and rooftop spectators and the judges, seducing them to become part of the street dancing fete.

The festival also holds a fluvial parade along the historic course of the Davao River, the site of the community of the early settlers as led by Datu Bago, the Moro chieftain who defended his tribe from the Spanish colonizers. Banca and ferryboats are dressed up with colorful fabrics, flowers and a diorama of events which happened in Davao’s history. The parade of fruits and flowers showcases the agricultural bounty of Davao as Tropical fruits, such as the durian, lanzones, pomelo, mangosteen and rambutan – the fruits in season – are paraded along with floats formed in the likeness of animals, people and other animated creatures, all made up of the freshest and the most colorful orchids, roses and chrysanthemum.
Davao also commemorates every march 16 the charter anniversary of the city, the “Araw ng Dabaw”. The eventful day of jubilation is celebrated with a civic-oriented parade, an agro-industrial trade fair, fashion shows, sports tournaments and the quest for the city’s ambassadress of goodwill, the Mutya ng Dabaw.
Every Christmas season, the private sector led tourism association hosts the “Paskuhan sa Dabaw”. A joyous festival of lanterns and fireworks as participated by different schools in Davao and tourism-related companies by lightening up their establishments.
In Davao, the people do not just promise you of a delightful holiday. They make you a part of it.

Masquerade?

THE FILIPINO as Spaniard, the Filipino as American, the Filipino as Japanese – when is the Filipino going to be himself? He has worn so many masks, appearance is difficult to distinguish from reality. But the mimic, no matter how expert, must, sooner or later, be himself. The act must stop, when the lights go out, in the loneliness of his room, in the loneliness of his soul.

Our masks become our nature.

When we try to remove them, we find we can’t. If we could, the face underneath would prove to be the same as the masks.

To cultivate the virtues of honesty, industry and justice, to learn how to love, is to be human. To be a Filipino, in the best sense of the word. Whether as Spaniard or American or Japanese, or as nationalist, the Filipino must reckon with himself at last. He has no excuse for what he does; he should blame nobody but himself for what he is. If he has courage, he is brave; if he is honest, he is true; if he loves justice, he is decent, and if he loves rather than hates, he is at ease.

The rest is merely economics, politics, and the movies.

Freedom to the Student Writer

WHAT IS this freedom of the (feeling) writer?

It is freedom to be intelligent and informed. Freedom to be ignorant is not freedom, for what is freedom? Is it not liberation? And what is ignorance but a prison?

One should be prepared to die for freedom – and how silly it would be to die for one’s ignorance!

How many editors want a writer who believes in freedom?

Freedom of a writer is freedom – to resign if his editor is not a proper editor, and how many editors are proper editors? Let us be truthful. We know one another.

But what if the student writer himself is an improper writer, without any encouragement from his editor?

Freedom is inseparable from character.

Let us think more about this freedom business.

Let us consider the serious practitioners of this thing called journalism in schools. Not the press prostitutes and degenerates that give the profession such a bad name, assuming it can have a better one.

If one would practice journalism in a serious fashion, one must be free, but the freedom of a writer, the freedom of an editor is merely an extension of the freedom of all the students.

This is what I am trying to say: No matter how serious one may be, how dedicated to journalistic ideals, if one does not have enough readers, one will go out of business. It is not enough to be serious, to be free – one must earn the right to be taken seriously. To establish intelligence and integrity takes time and unceasing effort of both mind and will. The exercise of freedom is fraught with consequences. Freedom must be earned. It must be based on a long record of dedication to reason.

Journalism is a mission. It is literature in a hurry.

We are not as needed as school nurses, subtle as professors, constructive as counselors and obstructive as (some) officials, but we exist and have a proper function. Let us be what we are or are supposed to be. If we cannot be more, let us not be less than journalists. Let us practice journalism in schools.

Open notes ang MST 4 finals

This calls for a HEHEHE!

***

I have some sort of sporadic restlessness in me, like the pen on a polygraph machine. It moves along in curves, then suddenly shoots up, blowing a bubble in my throat, making my chest taut, forcing me to move around. It becomes almost unbearable and then suddenly it will plunge, leaving something that feels like a smooth orange wave.

Time is like wrapping papers. It wraps memories, decorates them with sentiment. No matter (almost) what’s inside, it’s remembered as a beautiful piece of past time. That’s why I even miss my grade school years, which were filled with tiredness, boredome and confusion.

***

Every sentence yawns, stretches, shifts from side to side, and then quietly dozes off.

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Nature moves at its own pace regardless of human wishes.

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If you want to see something, look at something else.

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Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.

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Start to write by writing.

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Unsa man ni?

***

Maski unsa lang.

***

I am not a writer, i mean…

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I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts (char). But I’m one of the world’s great revisers (char again).

***

kato lang.

***

i HEHEHE na lang na choi.

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