North Korea doesn't smile 4

It's better not to exceed certain boundaries. I'm probably a little too close here.

One of the highlights of our trip was without a doubt the visit to the Demilitarized Zone. The border between North and South Korea is still one of the most dangerous places ever. First we go via Käsong to Panmunjeom in the demilitarized zone. Our mood is depressed and reminds us Germans in particular of the time of the Cold War, of the wall between East and West Berlin, of the German-German border.

Critical situations have repeatedly arisen between North and South Korea in recent years. In 1976, two American soldiers were killed while trying to cut down a tree. In 1996, several North Korean soldiers entered the demilitarized zone near Panmunjeom and other regions. In 1984, a citizen of what was then the Soviet Union fled to South Korea. Three North Koreans and one South Korean died in the exchange of fire.

The Blue Barracks. The border runs in the middle.

From a viewing terrace we look over to South Korea. And from South Korea they look to North Korea. Our group is even able to enter the Blue Barracks. Panmunjeon is now a military settlement. The end of the Korean War was negotiated here from 1951 to July 27, 1953. Since then there has been a ceasefire, mind you, not a peace treaty. The Blue Barracks have one door to North Korea and one to South Korea.

In the Blue Barracks.

The joint security zone has a diameter of 800 m and is 248 km long. It runs right through Korea. The district is jointly administered by the UN, North Korea, South Korea and the USA. The North Korean guards go on duty every day goose-stepping, like the border guards of the GDR once did.

The middle of the three barracks can be accessed alternately by groups from the south and north under military supervision. If you want to visit the border from South Korea, you must first fill out a form and sign that the visit is at your own risk.

Entrance to the blue barracks.

At the end of the trip, I feel both happy and relieved. Happy about the insights I've gained and about being able to leave the country unharmed. Unhappy because the international community is failing to overcome its ideological divides. The systems are too different.

What I saw in North Korea - albeit filtered - deeply impressed me. The people here, under the most difficult conditions, organize their daily lives against a decadent elite. Yet we in the West have no reason to morally elevate ourselves above other systems. After all, we are part of the problem and no less decadent. Quo vadis, human?

It took two world wars to bring the UN into being. But the UN is unable to act in many areas due to its structures. It would be the key to peaceful coexistence between the systems. I hope it won't take a third world war to finally restructure the UN. The Security Council's composition is unfair. With just five permanent members, it represents a politically morbid minority. A bad joke. How can the global community of states maintain at least some degree of peace in the world?

Addendum: The elites do not suffer

In 2011, a delicate plant named Kim Jong-un stretched tiny leaves into the North Korean sky. Born on January 8, 1984, the son of ruler Kim Jong-il and his mother Ko Yong-hi attended the International School (ISB) in Gümligen near Bern, Switzerland, from 1993 to 1998. He left school without graduating in 1998. The hope, albeit vague, of an opening of North Korea under Kim Jong-un did not come true. Quite the opposite.

His path to power was bloody. He didn't even shy away from executing his own family members. The people are starving for his megalomania and exorbitant military spending, leading to nuclear power. At this point, one can safely consider the effectiveness of international sanctions. The elites aren't suffering, neither in North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela, nor Russia. Socialism, communism, doesn't work.

Just to avoid any Western arrogance: democratically governed countries acted no less inhumanely, both on a small and a large scale. Keywords: the treatment of indigenous peoples; the perversion of justice to legitimize wars, e.g. B. against Iraq and the resulting destabilization of the Middle East; the West's role in Afghanistan, with the rather idiotic remark by then-German Defense Minister Peter Struck that Germany's security would also be defended in the Hindu Kush; Western development policy, and so on.

Even democratically governed states are well advised to refrain from moralizing. But despite all the criticism, people are significantly better off in democratically governed countries because mistakes can be identified and corrected. Therein lies the strength of democracy.

The aged politicians club and their toxic masculinity

In 2025, I apply for a visa for the USA. My ESTA is denied. Presumably because I visited North Korea. I have to go to an interview. These days, it's very difficult to get a visa for the USA. The land of opportunity, the land of my heroes from countless movies, is increasingly isolating itself. And even with a visa, you have to expect that the border guard at the airport will refuse entry and you'll be handcuffed and taken to deportation detention. Not a good omen for this world.

The former Russian hope, Vladimir Putin, is turning Ukraine, a sovereign state, into a hell. He is wiping out countless lives on both sides for his war crimes. What good are all the treaties concluded through platitudes in a values-based world order? They aren't worth the paper they're written on because the UN and the International Criminal Court lack the power to impose sanctions.

In the Middle East, Hamas is entrenching itself in residential buildings and hospitals. They are murdering Israeli infants, women, and men, knowing full well that the Palestinian civilian population will pay for their atrocities with their lives. They don't shy away from beating their own people to death whenever they question their criminal activities. And the elderly rulers in Iran are using every opportunity to add fuel to the fire.

Meanwhile, under Netanyahu, Israel is bombing the Gaza Strip to rubble. The images are reminiscent of Nazi Germany's war crimes in Warsaw. But even the slightest criticism is met with accusations of anti-Semitism. Militant Israeli settlers are committing crimes against Palestinians that rarely make it into Western news.

The victims of National Socialism died in vain if we can no longer call crimes crimes. There are no first-, second-, or third-class victims.

So what, Nordkorea?

On one of my many trips to an Arab country, a group of men approached me with the intention of joining their fight against the evil US and Israel. I politely declined. "Why not?" they asked, puzzled. And my answer was as simple as it was straightforward:

"Because I don't want parents to cry for their murdered children. Nowhere in the world. Neither in the US, nor in Israel, nor anywhere else in the world."

Traveling opens horizons.

Against forgetting

In 2015, US citizen Otto Warmbier (born December 12, 1994, died June 19, 2017) traveled to North Korea for five days as part of a ten-person tour group. Shortly before his scheduled return flight, he was arrested on January 2, 2016. He allegedly attempted to steal a propaganda banner from the Yanggakdo Hotel.

On March 16, 2016, he was sentenced to 15 years in a labor camp by a North Korean court.

Otto Warmbier was flown out of North Korea on June 13, 2017, in a persistent vegetative state, for humanitarian reasons. He died on June 19, 2017.

In socialism and communism, a tiny elite owns everything, including your life. The people own nothing.

May the youth always question the old.

Darkland