North Korean defectors

The New York Times had an interesting article this week about North Korean defectors. This part in particular deserves to be highlighted:

Many of the North Koreans interviewed in Thailand said they wanted to go to the United States, even though they were reared in a country that has demonized America for decades. In school in the North, one defector said, she had had been taught that Americans were “inhuman, promiscuous and dictatorial.”

“Even today, I still sometimes refer to the United States as ‘Imperialist America,’ ” she said, laughing.

But as a fourth grader, the woman said, she began to have doubts about that image of America, after she happened upon a photograph in a magazine. As she recalled, it showed a tightrope walker balanced on a wire between high-rise buildings in Washington. The implicit message was that the United States was such an inhumane country that it forced people to perform such jobs, she said.

“But what I remembered about that photo was the tall buildings,” she said. “There was also a beautiful park and clean, wide streets. It was fascinating. There was nothing like that where I grew up.”

North Korea still unleashes daily attacks against the United States through its official media, but the desire of many of the defectors interviewed to go to the United States suggests that the power of ideology is waning.

“After spending a few months in China, they change their minds about the United States,” said a South Korean missionary who regularly visits the North Koreans at the detention center. “In China, they have access to so much information. They look at Web sites and exchange instant messages with people in South Korea.”

This seems to suggest that what the best way to undermine the regime of Kim Jong Il is opening up the country, not subjecting it to further sanctions. If a mere picture could prompt stirrings of doubt, what would North Koreans think after exposure to MTV?