lunes, 13 de junio de 2016

Escaping from North Korea in search of freedom

Speech from Yeonmi Park telling her story of life in North Korea and calls for action against such human rights violators.

Yeonmi was speaking at the One Young World Summit 2014 in Dublin, Ireland. The Summit brought together 1,300 young leaders with 194 countries represented to debate and devise solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems. 


Even though some of you shared their feelings after watching the video, I´m kindly inviting you to participate with some more thoughts on today´s entry. Some ideas revolve around:

1) what struck you while watching the video.
2) how tough, sensible must someone be to be able to stand before an audience and pronounce such a speech.
3) if such presentation could produce an effect. Which?
4) which are the lessons we are getting from her.
5) digging deeper into your feelings while watching it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufhKWfPSQOw

Love
Dean

6 comentarios:

  1. To begin with, my eyebrows were raised through the length and breadth of Yeonmi Park's video. Be that as it may, if I was asked what struck me the most while watching it, I will, beyond the shadow of a doubt, draw the attention to the following quotes: "I admit it: I thought the North Korean dictator could read my mind.", "It seemed that only the stars were with me" and "Armed with knives, we were prepared to kill ourselves."
    I simply cannot picture in my mind's eye such a dreadful ordeal! I mean, how would it feel to survive day after day in lieu of enjoying the joyous prospect of living life to the full at such a young age? How would it feel having a sense of powerlessness in which your wishes and inner pipe dreams are daily hampered by dominant dictators? How would it feel to be forbidden to sing and express your opinion publicly? These whole bunch of questions are answered the same way: North Koreans endure nightmarish living conditions as part of their quotidian routine.
    In my book, Yeonmi is nothing but one of those examples in which age and maturity are far from being directly related. Thus, so as to deliver such an impassioned fervent speech, she must have gone through anguish and torment: hell on earth. How had I been able to perceive it? Just by gazing at her teary eyes. In this case, it is vital that Yeonmi be shrewd enough so as to convey her message to the audience properly: she has to be both heart and soul connected with her words.
    When it comes to assess which effect could such presentation bring about I'd say the following: I fathom awareness regarding North Korea's situation has been considerably heightened. Before indulging myself in Yeonmi's life story, I thought her country was streets apart to that which I actually came to know thanks to the speech. Hence, no sooner had I finished watching the video did I fully comprehend what has been going on through years without anyone telling me so.
    Which are the lessons we are getting from her? Not to be pusillanimous when it comes to open up. Have you ever ponder about helping others fight towards human rights just by telling your own version of events, precisely those which add the unique ingredient to your moving story? Whether you like it or not, this is the life you have hence no one should feel intimidated because of it! To put it in a nutshell, Park's poignant video left me pop-eyed, she has proved to be level-headed and sagacious enough so as to stand before a live audience and interpret one of the greatest roles one could ever play: herself.

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  3. Firstly, what struck me the most of the video seen in class was the extreme situations she mentioned, such as the killing of a woman who had been watching a Hollywood film. I think that's insane!
    Secondly, she must have been really strong to pronounce such a speech, albeit she burst into tears. I believe it definitely hasn't been easy for her to express those terrible actions.
    Thirdly, her presentation has caused an impact on anyone spectating it. It certainly made me concern about North Koreans, I have never thought they would live in such conditions... if that could be considered as "live".
    Fortunately, she made a lot of people of any part of the world think differently about North Korea. I hope that those 194 countries are able to come up with a solution and try to stop this disastrous country, with decades of dictatorships.
    I felt sad and strange, yet I'm glad she could get away from North Korea and China's repatriation of those who escaped. Besides, I believe it's amazing she was brave enough to speak out to the world.

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  4. It is essential to say that the women shocked me just in 50 seconds of video when she said: in North Korea we aren’t free to sing, say, wear or think what we want. That just sounds completely crazy and i do not really find a logical explanation to the situation because everyone should be free to express themselves as they want.
    Secondly, i would love to go to North Korea once and see the situation myself because i believe that saying that they are being terrorists with women is very extreme, it might be exaggerated.
    Finally, i totally reckon that the dictatorship situation in North Korea is totally updated, we are in the 21 century, and dictatorships shouldn’t exist at all.
    All in all, i truly believe she was completely brave and strong to express her feelings in front of 2,5 Million people through a YouTube video.

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  6. What schocked me the most was that Yeonmi Park though she could not think against the regime in case they controlled her thoughts. It is hard to believe that someone can live in such a oppresion and lack of freedom.

    On the other hand, it is noteworthy that only a strong person like Yeoni can stand to pronunce such a strong and moving speech. As I see the things, this speech can be very useful way to understand the difficult situation that North Korean people are suffering by Dictator Kim Jong Un. Futhermore, this and other testimonies are the only source of knowledge of what is happening in this Asian country. So I find important that such an significant material could be spread through YouTube, reaching million of viewers around the world.

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