Wasn’t Method 29 a breath of fresh air? Today’s must-watch video of Anderson Cooper is not that. The piece below aired last week, but in today’s news cycle, it’s already old news. That’s the danger of the time we’re in. Paul Manafort is up for sentencing today, 45 is already tweeting about campaign contributions and the wall, and in the meantime in North Korea:
Satellite images appear to show the North is rebuilding a facility that had been previously used to test long-range missile engines. Analysis of the images suggests the work on the facility, which had been dormant since August, began right around the time Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met up for their second summit, which ended last week without an agreement.
– via CNN, March 6, 2019
Watch Anderson Cooper’s response to 45 calling Kim Jong-un, the leader of the world’s most repressive dictatorship, “my friend,” “an interesting guy” and a “real leader.” North Korea – the country where failing to keep the presidential portrait dust-free is a punishable offense.
This offers some context for Professor Gene Sharp’s warning that Method 30 should be used only rarely in situations of political or international conflict. What would happen if North Koreans mooned Kim Jong-un’s palace, like Trump’s protestors did in Chicago? By law, three generations of a protestor’s family could be sent to labour camps.
In September 2017, The Telegraph provided a concise list of “brutal and inhumane laws North Koreans are forced to live under.” I’ve provided a condensed version, below:
Three generations rule
In North Korea, if one person is convicted of a serious crime and sent to a prison camp, their immediate family can also be sent with them. Then the next two generations born in the camps can also remain there. The 1972 edict says that up to three generations must be punished to wipe out the ‘seed’ of class enemies.
Access to non-state-controlled media
Listening to unauthorized foreign broadcasts, watching foreign TV shows and possessing dissident publications are considered “crimes against the state.” Those caught face execution or being sent to labour camps.
Freedom of movement
It is a criminal offense for North Koreans to leave the country without government permission. That doesn’t stop thousands making highly treacherous journeys in attempts to escape every year. Even those who successfully make it out of the North can still be pursued by government agents and there are reports of defector’s families being punished in their absence.
Practising Christianity
Although the North Korean constitution officially allows freedom of religion, the state has a hostile approach to religions, particularly to those it sees as western faiths such as Christianity. Those discovered practicing Christianity face arrest and being sent to a labour camp. (I wonder how the half of pastors who approve of Trump feel about the endorsement of Kim Jong-un?)
Economic rights
Private enterprise of any kind is officially banned in North Korea. Those caught face arbitrary punishment even though the black market remains one of the only ways for people to get the food, medicine and other necessities the government often fails to provide.
Method 27 can take many forms, but the approach is to take signs that have been used against people and to turn them into something new. The signs can be repurposed, they can disappear or be replaced with something new.
LEIGH HOPKINS 