Are they mad? A growing number of North Korean defectors are risking the arduous and desperate passage once again — to get home. Is life in the free world really so bad?
The North Koreans who want to go home
Are they mad? A growing number of North Korean defectors are risking the arduous and desperate passage once again - to get home. Is life in the free world really so bad?
If you were a student at a school in North Korea, your life would look very different. In the morning, you would do a session of marching on the spot and saluting the image of the leader, Kim Jong-un.
You would study subjects such as communist morality and party policy. You might even have to spend 90 minutes a day learning about the greatness of the supreme leader.1
What delights would await you at the end of the teaching day? Perhaps you could switch on the TV. But be careful what you watch: you could be sentenced to 12 years of hard labour for watching or sharing K-dramas.2 For listening to South Korean music, you could be sentenced to death.3
What about shopping, or trying out the latest fashions? How you look is also heavily regulated: dyed hair, jeans, sunglasses and even shoulder bags, are banned because they "obscure the image of a socialist system".
You could text your friends. But be careful what you say, because the authorities will check your phone to make sure you are not speaking out of turn. Using slang from South Korea will result in serious consequences.
But perhaps a nice, tasty dinner awaits you at the table. Fat chance of that. North Koreans have to endure a mass food crisis in which children are starving to death. Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un has continued to pump vast sums of money into his nuclear weapons programme.
No wonder so many North Koreans have tried to leave their home country. Since the 1950-53 Korean war, around 34,000 North Koreans have defectedTo have left and abandoned one's own country for a new one. to the South. The journey is arduous, with defectors taking increasingly precariousUnpredictable; uncertain. routes. Recently, a family of four fled by sea in a wooden boat filled with holes.4
Kim has tried to establish a "zero escapees era". Watchtowers have been erected and barbed-wire fencing installed. Guards are ordered to shoot anyone trying to cross North Korea's fortified borders.
But what of the other way round? It might seem unfathomableIncapable of being fully understood., but there is a notable number of double-defectors returning to North Korea from their lives abroad. One particularly efficient double-defector crawled over barbed wire fences to reach the South in 2020, before going back the same way just over a year later. This week a defector crashed a stolen bus in a failed bid to return home.
Is it Stockholm syndromeWhen imprisoned people develop positive feelings towards their captors.? Status quo biasPeople's natural preference for keeping things the way they are.? Nostalgia? Fear of the authorities? Culture shock? Or just plain madness?
Some highlight the difficulties of assimilationWhen individuals or groups acquire the habits, attitudes and ways of life of a new society. Often used in the context of immigration. for North Korean defectors in South Korea's highly competitive, capitalist society. Defectors perform mostly unskilled, poorly-paid work there, and can face discrimination in housing, education and employment. Their prospects are all too limited.
Others say it is normal to yearn for home, even when your home poses a terrible threat. Defectors leave family, memories, property behind. But perhaps it goes even deeper.
In psychoanalyst Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom, he argues that authoritarianismA form of government in which individual freedoms are severely limited by government power. Examples include Nazi Germany, Khmer Rogue Cambodia and contemporary China. can act as a mechanism of escape from the anxiety we feel about confronting our own freedom. Fromm thought that freedom from authority makes us feel hopeless and alienated. Some may prefer to relinquishVoluntarily cease to keep or claim; give up. their self-determination to a controlling, authoritarian power.
Is it a kind of madness to crave authoritarian tyrannyCruel and aggressive use of power, often used to describe countries under the grip of a single oppressive leader.? Perhaps so. But some might say that it is also human nature.
Are they mad?
Yes: The stakes could be no higher for those defecting from North Korea. You can be caught and executed or sentenced to decades of hard labour just for trying. And even if you succeed, your loved ones could be put to death by the authorities. Going through all of that just to return is absurd.
No: It is understandable to wish to return home. Nobody would bat an eye at refugees saying they wish that they could go back. Defectors have family, friends, memories and experiences back in North Korea.
Or... It is the kind of madness that perfectly embodies the complex, dichotomousInvolving two completely opposing ideas or things. nature of the human character. Sometimes we crave that which is bad for us.
Defected - To have left and abandoned one's own country for a new one.
Precarious - Unpredictable; uncertain.
Unfathomable - Incapable of being fully understood.
Stockholm syndrome - When imprisoned people develop positive feelings towards their captors.
Status quo bias - People's natural preference for keeping things the way they are.
Assimilation - When individuals or groups acquire the habits, attitudes and ways of life of a new society. Often used in the context of immigration.
Authoritarianism - A form of government in which individual freedoms are severely limited by government power. Examples include Nazi Germany, Khmer Rogue Cambodia and contemporary China.
Relinquish - Voluntarily cease to keep or claim; give up.
Tyranny - Cruel and aggressive use of power, often used to describe countries under the grip of a single oppressive leader.
Dichotomous - Involving two completely opposing ideas or things.
The North Koreans who want to go home

Glossary
Defected - To have left and abandoned one's own country for a new one.
Precarious - Unpredictable; uncertain.
Unfathomable - Incapable of being fully understood.
Stockholm syndrome - When imprisoned people develop positive feelings towards their captors.
Status quo bias - People's natural preference for keeping things the way they are.
Assimilation - When individuals or groups acquire the habits, attitudes and ways of life of a new society. Often used in the context of immigration.
Authoritarianism - A form of government in which individual freedoms are severely limited by government power. Examples include Nazi Germany, Khmer Rogue Cambodia and contemporary China.
Relinquish - Voluntarily cease to keep or claim; give up.
Tyranny - Cruel and aggressive use of power, often used to describe countries under the grip of a single oppressive leader.
Dichotomous - Involving two completely opposing ideas or things.