In 1994, most people in North Korea were starving to death.
OKAY, I know this is another negative post, but I promise I’ll write about something happier next time.
Why were they starving when most of the rest of the world enjoyed the 90s? In the 80s the Soviets were going through a reformation period so they decided to collect some money from the North Koreans and they could not afford it. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea survived on Soviet aid (A huge clump of which went to Kim. Shortly afterwards, the Soviet Union economy collapsed and North Korea came tumbling down with it. As a result of the collapse, the North’s agriculture died simply because the government was not flexible enough to bounce back from the hit.
A testimony from a North Korean woman on TED talks revealed the hardship of living in North Korea during the famine. She said that her family received a letter from their friends saying that they were laying on the floor of their living room just waiting to die. Famine forced many people to go to extremes such as leaving the country, and we all know how dangerous it gets if you try to cross the border. A large part of the population only survived by eating insects and tree bark.
A survey by North Korea’s Public Security Ministry suggests that 2.5 to 3 million people died from 1995 to March 1998(Wikipedia). It is just so hard to believe that something this preventable happened at such a large scale and it is all thanks to the DPRK government’s poor decision making and a line of consecutive failures in their systems. In a perfect world, the North Korean government would have reached out to the International community to ask for economic assistance however, as I mentioned before, they live by the Juche idea. What is the point of self-help when you cannot even actually help yourself?
Another fascinating point to make about this famine would be the role females in North Korean society. Women made up most of the workforce in DPRK in the 90s, which is more than any country in the world at that time. That is a pretty big deal, and it’s also a change of scenery for women in society compared to the rest of human history. During the famine, the women were in charge of doing everything from labor, bringing home food, water and fuel.
But looking at it from the big picture, everyone suffered equally, regardless of their age or sex or occupation. Even if you or your sons and daughters were in the military, you would still be starved like the rest of the country (except for the Great Leader and his staff).
Even in the modern world of today North Korea continues to struggle with terrible famines due to droughts, flooding and just poor decision making on the government’s part. Kim Jong Un spends a ridiculous amount of money trying to get rockets to blow up while generations of North Koreans suffer from malnutrition, children are stunted. No country wants to give them aid because they’re breaking a million-and-a-half of those nuclear proliferation treaties that the global community holds so near and dear. In addition to all this, during the famine the North Korean government hid the truth, saying that the Chinese and South Koreans were suffering in worse conditions in an effort to prevent rebellion among the population.
The times are changing, more and more cell phones, DVD dramas from South Korea, and books are being smuggled into the North. People are going to start realizing (if they have not already) that the government is lying and that there is a more free world out there.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine#Arduous_March_terminology