Unshackle the Women of North Korea (2022-03-25)

Two North Korean refugees who are members of the Freedom Speakers International (FSI) North Korean Refugee Keynote Speakers Network were featured witnesses at a United Nations session.

Songmi Han (co-author of Greenlight to Freedom) and Minhee Na (YouTuber and TV commentator) were the featured witnesses, giving their most high-profile speeches.

I gave the closing remarks.

Songmi joined FSI in 2019 with no intention of ever telling her story. She had escaped to South Korea in 2011, and had remained silent about her story. Although she had not yet given a speech, I recommended her to the North Korea Freedom Coalition as a speaker at the UN event. Then worked with her to get her ready. She gave her first speech on February 19^th at an FSI event. Since then, she has given four speeches, with three different texts. So it hasn’t been a case of her repeatedly giving the same speech.

* * *

Minhee joined FSI in 2017, at that time she didn’t want to be identified as being from North Korea. She escaped to South Korea in 2015. She began opening up, first giving speeches with us with her identity still being revealed. She began appearing on South Korean TV and became a public speaker with FSI.

There were the usual hiccups that come with organizing an international event online, but we had an extra challenge when Songmi caught COVID-19.

In my case, I was working so much on getting Songmi and Minhee prepared (and the usual work that comes with being co-founder of an NGO) that it wasn’t until about 3 am the day of the event that I wrote my remarks. I had been scheduled to give the Opening Remarks, then that got switched to giving Closing Remarks.

Five organizations came together to make the event happen. North Korea Freedom Coalition, Jubilee Campaign, Defense Forum Foundation, the Isabella Foundation, and Freedom Speakers International.

Behind the scenes, FSI co-founder Eunkoo Lee helped coordinate everything.

It was the start of a busy day!

www.fsi21.org

Get rid of that watermelon!

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Rich talking back

The rich are talked about very often in negative terms, but how often do the rich respond in kind? Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart, who inherited most of her money but apparently has also done very well with it, recently railed against class warfare and had some advice for the non-rich : "There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire," she writes. "If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain. Do something to make more money yourself - spend less time drinking, or smoking and socializing and more time working." She complained about politicians raising taxes, regulations that slow investment, and other anti-business policies that harm the poor. "If you want to help the poor and our next generation, make investment, reinvenstment and businesses welcome."

Common Sense on North Korea (Korea Times, April 2, 2012)

By Casey Lartigue, Jr. As interesting as Kookmin University professor Andrei Lankov’s writings are, there is nothing quite like attending one of his lectures. He can barely restrain himself behind the podium, often pointing and waving his arms. I also enjoy his unscripted speeches, but his answers in Q&A sessions are like the difference between watching Michael Jordan shoot baskets in warm-ups and an actual game. I have finally discovered the secret behind Lankov’s consistently solid analysis about North Korea: Use common sense. At an Asan Institute conference last summer, he argued that North Korea watchers should try to understand North Korea from its perspective. Don’t most people know that you must understand the mindset of others you are dealing with? Yet, common sense in theory gets ignored politically. From the North Korean perspective, nuclear weapons are the best thing they’ve got going. They will NOT give them up easily, even if President Obama ...

Random photos from today

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Last weekend: Suicide, Kim Young Ha, NK

Credit: Joanne Cho Event 1: Friday night I went to a talk given by Fulbright junior researcher Joanne Cho. She did a great job putting together statistics about some of the most commonly cited reasons that so many Koreans commit suicide. Probably the most provocative tidbit: Cho watched 86 dramas from the spring of 2012 to now, she says that 63 had "scenes depicting or discussing suicide" in a favorable light (as a way to solve problems, that troubled people can be forgiven for their sins and are even seen as sympathetic). Another interesting tidbit: While it is often cited that Korea is number one in the world in suicide (among countries reporting reliable statistics), what I had not realized or had forgotten is that Korean men are number 8 in the world compared to men in other countries with reliable statistics, Korean women are #1 in the world when compared to women in other countries. My questions for the speaker: 1) What was a finding in your research th...

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