Kim Mosh Kimmosh.blogspot.com

KIM JONG UN, CAPTAIN NORTH KOREA?

Under the dictatorship of Kim Jong Un, North Korea has been completely sealed off from the world. The people of North

Korea are stuck in an unfortunate situation right now. Citizens probably don’t know what “Hollywood” is or what pop

culture might be.

The country’s leadership feeds its citizens propaganda about danger and poverty in the outside world and due to the strict

media ban imposed by Kim Jong Un, citizens have no access to any other information. It’s an issue most people are not

aware of. Though there are some human rights campaign that are currently fighting to spread awareness about this, there

is one other method currently being used to enlighten the underprivileged citizens.

A new campaign called “Flash Drives for Freedom” is fighting to smuggle media resources into North Korea. Media

resources like foreign pop culture, movies, TV shows, Korean language translations for Wikipedia pages, and so on. All

these are aimed at showing North Koreans what the outside world really looks like. The Human Rights Foundation and a

non-profit group “Forum 280” are the mainstays behind the “Flash Drives for Freedom” motion. They help collect flash

drive donations from all over United States and the North Korean Strategy Center in Seoul uploads movies, translated

Wikipedia pages, interviews with North Korean defectors and TV shows from South Korea and the Western World unto

the flash drives. Though it’s dangerous, the coalition then smuggles the drives into the North Korean space. Most of the

campaign’s budget is actually used for paying bribes to persuade officials on both sides of the Korean border to let the

transport pass.

Flash drives might be a disappearing part of the American tech scene but a lifeline for the North Koreans to the outside

world. Shows like “Desperate Housewives” and “Friends” are actually favourites in North Korea. Having access to such

information and foreign culture will give North Koreans knowledge and political leverage. So far, the North Korean

Strategy Center has been able to smuggle between three thousand and five thousand media loaded flash drives over the

border annually.