Mulitcultural and Cosmopolitain Citizenship

North Koreans do deserve rights-- the same rights as everyone else in the world (at least the basic ones, laid out by the UN). They do not necessarily deserve to be a protected group throughout the world, they just need to be treated with dignity and respect, especially in their own country! One of the major problems that North Koreans run into when fleeing their own country is deportation back into NK. They might need to be given protections allowing them to claim refugee status, since that is what they are-- NOT illegal immigrants, as China seems to think.

Modern (or Western) ideals have been spreading quickly, especially since the end of the Cold War. These include human rights and democracy. North Korea is one of the few countries left in the world with an authoritative, Communist government. As far as purposely spreading Western ideas, there has been major resistance from the North Korean government, and not much effort on the part of any Western countries to "westernize" North Korea. There has not been much push for Western ideals in North Korea, nor has there been much attention paid to the situation at all.

The system that is in place currently is one of complete oppression of the people, just to keep them under the control of their leader, Kim Jung Il. The system is clearly working for the elites, and the people have absolutely no say, making it difficult for anything to change. Another challenge in this situation is the nuclear arsenal that North Korea has been building up for a while. They might not have perfected the delivery of these weapons, but they are dangerous none the less, making it harder for any changes to be suggested or made.

There has not been much thought given to the issue of North Korea or North Korean refugees (except maybe when President Bush included them in the "Axis of Evil"). If the problem was acknowledged, I think there would be a fair amount of consensus that something needs to be done, but the extent to which something should be done would be a major debate. If something were to be done, there would be a large amount of resistance from North Korea-- mostly the government, but also from the people. They have been forced into submission, and have been told that the North Korean way is the only, best, correct way, and that their leader, Kim Jung Il is essentially equivalent to a god.

On another note, I went down to the LiNK headquarters in Torrance with Megan this past Thursday. It was a really fun day, with some awesome experiences. We were essentially in charge of contacting their past supporters to ask them to vote for LiNK in the Pepsi Refresh project, where LiNK is in the running to win $250,000 towards the Liberty House (which is the safe house that North Koreans can stay at until they learn English & are legally allowed to move freely).