Swallow The Worm

One of the more weird, most awesome, least consequential and utterly meaningless and depressing things to ever happen in the history of television news was George Stephanopoulos' interview of Dennis Rodman after the basketball player returned from visiting North Korea, where he met Kim Jong-un. The transcript is included at the page:

If but the friend to friend right so friend — friend. It's a plan to me that somebody — — go back amen is slipped on the go back into Wednesday and — out more — what — ball but up. War you can make some good thank you should bring this report from Human Rights Watch lady and may be asking questions about death.

As well you might learn a lot more in my present as well but thank you for coming on this morning sharing and — it away and — — — — Do you — report. Yes what — report. Okay just what — but only eight weeks.

Don't we go from nobody knows why don't hate me —

Actually, the transcript sucks. There's a disclaimer down at the end that it is "automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate." Basically, Stephanopoulos allows Rodman to appear on This Week and say inane shit about North Korea like Kim Jong-un is a "friend" and then ends the segment with some condescending twaddle about how the next time Rodman goes there he should take along with him the most recent Human Rights Watch report about the country. The whole thing was shabby — from Rodman even being on there in the first place to the "face-saving" "balance" of theatrically pushing a photocopied report across the table.

Because it's like, sure, Stephanopoulos — the most recent Human Rights Watch report about North Korea is definitely a good place to start, but Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy is even better.

After reading Nothing, it seems like a human rights violation to put the words "human rights" anywhere near the name "North Korea". That the country is repressive is one thing. That it tortures its citizens is another thing. That it is building a nuclear arsenal is yet another thing. But it's entirely horrifying when a government does all this stuff and then has the nerve to basically starve its own people. Actually, "basically" is too mealy mouthed a term to sneak in there: They are actually starving their own people. Nothing to Envy focuses on this last charming aspect of the regime by generating a composite of life in one particular North Korean city — not Pyongyang, which outsiders tend to know more about — through the stories of several defectors.

Put simply, life in North Korea, especially for those outside the capital or not in the army, is a paranoia-inducing, tree bark-eating, corn cob flour-making, tamponless struggle to simply stay alive. If North Korea were an HBO show, George Orwell could have been a creative consultant. And then there are the bizarre parts, like how every teacher has to pass an accordion test, leading to stuff like this:

The title is the kind of irony that is a gift from the English Department gods, gift- and shrink-wrapped and dumped in a writer's lap, the softest of balls lobbed up more meekly than an asthmatic clown's balloon: The only sparkles of color in a drab, colorless North Korean world (literally, not figuratively) are the propaganda signs that pop up along the way. One such sign praising the hereditarily dictating Kim Il-Jong and Kim Il-Sung says, "We will do as the party tells us. We have nothing to envy in the world." Thus, Nothing to Envy. It's sort of like that old saw that "when people say it's not about the money, it's always about the money" — if someone tries to make you believe you have nothing to envy, you probably have something to envy.

A phrase like "human tragedy" is similarly too weak for the 60-plus years of totalitarianism in North Korea. Where Nothing is hugely successful is showing the blunt-force terror and grueling drudgery of everyday life. She follows young people and older people. You can't help but think of your neighbor or your parents limping along. "Human toll" is almost a euphemism these days — at least you hear it so much that you kind of tune it out, like it's something you dump into a basket at one end of a bridge before a gate arm rises — but the human toll in North Korea is massive and unbelievably so: A large portion of its 24 million people are largely ignored, a large enough percentage is imprisoned in actual prison camps (not what Dennis Rodman confuses for run-of-the-mill prisons) and that's not even taking into account that the entire country is basically one big prison camp. Oh, and they want nuclear weapons.

How North Korea continues to exist should be amazing to anyone, but the horrible truth is that it's in no one's interest in Asia (or the world, probably) to just let it implode. Its neighbors, South Korea and China, would suddenly become unstable, taking the world's economy with it. For this reason, South Korea in particular, while basically very generous to refugees, isn't quite ready to welcome 24 million people into the fold. And as Envy shows, China actually works with the North Korean government to send refugees back. For stability's sake, the world seems content to let North Korea's citizens (literally) limp along. I already mentioned that they're building a nuclear arsenal but I don't think I mentioned that they also have 1.1 million active-duty soldiers (the U.S., as a comparison, has 1.4 million).

So basically, people suffer. And "suffer" is another shitty word: It sounds like something the vet would say before they put down the family dog.

Despite all this, people continue to have lives. Teenagers fall in love. Husbands hold out hope they can one day go have a nice sit-down dinner at a restaurant. Teachers continue to trust that they can make a difference. Doctors continue to believe they can follow their professional oath. And then one day none of that is possible and the world implode: The husband starves to death in a shack. Teachers lose most of their pupils. Doctors leave work to go forage for bark to eat. And that's when most of the subjects in Nothing escape out of the country.

On the one hand, Demick was forced into a hopeful narrative: North Korea is closed so tight, especially outside of Pyongyang, that it is impossible to write a story about everyday lives. By necessity, the story becomes about the extraordinary courage and bravery of the subjects in the book who have risked everything ("risked everything" being another dull, thoughtless phrase that is applied to everything from ruthless totalitarian regimes to five-card stud) to become free. It not only softens the blow but also makes for much jerking of tears.

The pressures on the North Koreans profiled in Nothing are huge: Man-made famine and starvation; brainwashing and deprogramming; the terror of being a refugee on the run. And then there's the other side: The book does a great job of showing the absurdity and heartache of living in a free country. For the most part the subjects in the book succeed — eventually, and not without another set of stresses and pressures.

One of Nothing's running storylines is about two teenagers in love. By way of a spoiler, I will report that there is a payoff to the time you put in along the way hearing about their furtive glances, chaste midnight walks and frustrating obstacles. Both end up leaving North Korea, and while you are right there waiting and hoping for a storybook ending — no matter how pat that would be — it never comes, which is actually even more poignant. Like so many teenagers, years later, after they are reunited in the south and life has moved on for both of them, neither can quite see what the big deal was with one another to begin with. It's not so much bittersweet as it is dull and perfectly normal. It is profoundly offensive to think of this human misery as a good movie, but it totally could be; the takeaway here — the Rhett Butler money shot — is roughly this: Freedom means a lot of things, not least of which being able to blow off text messages or gripe that ladies in their 30s just aren't as hot as they were when they were 18. It's powerful axiomatic stuff — sort of like how you can never trust a totalitarian regime.

North Korea may be a huge question mark, but relying on Vice and Dennis Rodman and probably George Stephanopoulos to establish that narrative for you is as depressing as a lot of things in the world. If nothing else, Demick's Nothing to Envy is solid penance for wasting mental space re-remembering the Carmen Electra years.

Posted: May 20th, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Books Are The SUVs Of Writing | Tags: , , ,
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