Did any of you see this program on PBS? Did you see how dangerously similar N. Korea is to the WTBTS? Did you notice one huge difference, that North Koreans are not brainwashed like most still active JWs are? I'm interested in your thoughts on the show. If you haven't seen it, find it and watch it, if this kind of thing interests you.
Some of my observations and thoughts:
Some things about N. Korea that struck me are the strict dress code (police harrassing woman for her attire, her angrily fighting back), cell phones that only call inside the country/ but it is forbidden to have a sim card that allows contact outside N. Korea. News, movies, TV, radio etc. from outside the country, especially S. Korea are banned, even under threat of death for breaking the rules. It is felt that exposure to pop culture from outside the country causes rebellion.
It's chilling, the similarties between N. Korea and the WTBTS. I've often said that fear can be a more effective way to control the masses. Fear of god(s) can be more effective than government or rules alone. It's one thing to fear authorities. N. Koreans live in relative fear of the authorities, but many, many of them rebel against the laws and authorities, even in the face of death. On the other hand, if you can convince people that their god will get them if they don't follow a code of conduct, it's more likely they will be compliant. * I am not an athiest and don't see that all religions are about this kind of control.* The extreme cults such as the WTBTS and some fundamentalist sects come to mind though. Kim Jong Un may not understand the misuse of religion to control people, but I'm betting that ancients knew it all too well.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZms5O-MwOU
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/arts/television/pbs-frontline-looks-inside-a-notoriously-closed-country.html?_r=0
Glimpses of a North Korea Seldom Seen in the West
PBS ‘Frontline’ Looks Inside a Notoriously Closed Country
PBS’s “Frontline” enjoys some morbid good timing on Tuesday night, presenting its report “Secret State of North Korea” in the wake of the execution last month of Jang Song-thaek, uncle of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and the return to the country this month of the former N.B.A. player and amateur diplomat Dennis Rodman.
Demonstrating its usual good news judgment, the program inserts a reference to Mr. Jang’s death and its implications for the stability of Mr. Kim’s regime but makes no mention of Mr. Rodman.
The focus of “Secret State” is the movement of information into, and out of, one of the world’s most sealed-off countries. Its most dramatic element are snippets of film shot inside North Korea by members of an underground network of citizen journalists organized by a Japan-based news agency.
There’s no way to judge how characteristic the images are, but there’s no denying their grim fascination. Piles of rubble, ox and hand carts and abandoned, starving children are recurring themes.
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Frontline: Secret State of North Korea This PBS documentary, on Tuesday night, shows work inside the country by clandestine photographers. PBS
In an ad hoc encampment of orphans, a boy of perhaps 9 or 10 is asked by the photographer if he has thought of seeking work chopping wood. He can’t, he replies, because he’s missing an arm, cut off by a train.
Particularly gripping is a scene illustrating the rising power of private enterprise: A woman using a truck as an illegal bus fights back against a soldier who tries to stop her, asking where his stars are (to indicate his rank) and shoving him out of the way.
Around this raw reportage, the program investigates the question of whether North Korea is approaching a tipping point where the flow of information into the country could foster radical change. We’re shown DVDs and thumb drives containing movies and television shows being smuggled across the border, and North Koreans huddled in their bedrooms watching them.
Perhaps the most significant change the program reports is the explosion of cellphone ownership since these devices were reintroduced five years ago. The phones for sale can call only within North Korea but can be illegally adapted to make international calls.
The experts the program consults agree that change is taking place, but some are more optimistic than others about its pace.
“If a government is willing to kill as many people as necessary to stay in power,” says Andrei Lankov, a Russian expert on North Korea, “it usually stays in power for a very long time.”
