No food. No electricity. No clean running water. No liberty. These may all be hypothetical statements in the Western world in the twenty-first century, but they are all too real in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
This week BBC's Newsnight has had unprecedented-as-you-get-in-North-Korea access to capture what life is like in one of the most hypothetical society's on this planet. Sue Lloyd-Roberts, a BBC special affairs international correspondent, finds herself in one staged scenario after another as she is taken around what 'real' North Korean life is like under the dictatorship of the Great Leader Kim Jong-il. What is so fascinating in the two-part reportage is the discovery that Jong-il's late father, Kim ll-sung still holds the title of President and is believed will continue to do so for eternity. Flowers are offered in God-like fashion to both the late and current dictators, thanking them for a life that they genuinely believe is far fortunate than their neighbours in the South.
This week BBC's Newsnight has had unprecedented-as-you-get-in-North-Korea access to capture what life is like in one of the most hypothetical society's on this planet. Sue Lloyd-Roberts, a BBC special affairs international correspondent, finds herself in one staged scenario after another as she is taken around what 'real' North Korean life is like under the dictatorship of the Great Leader Kim Jong-il. What is so fascinating in the two-part reportage is the discovery that Jong-il's late father, Kim ll-sung still holds the title of President and is believed will continue to do so for eternity. Flowers are offered in God-like fashion to both the late and current dictators, thanking them for a life that they genuinely believe is far fortunate than their neighbours in the South.
Lloyd-Roberts' British wit and journalistic tenure hold strong in the faces of the script-tied official minders. Her rare insight into a world where the saying 'if you don't know any better' rings loud across the Baekdu Mountain, explores the notion of belief through a system of rigid censorship. Although there are defectors that risk their lives to travel to South Korea, the generations that are left behind continue to live under the virtual grip of Communism that is slowing both economic and cultural development against the fast pace of modernity. What Llyod-Roberts found most alarming was the fact that the people who she encountered - some of whom forgot the script - genuinely believed that she and the rest of the West would believe the portrayal of a life that they only know how to believe in.
View Sue Lloyd-Roberts and her special report inside North Korea at BBC Newsnight: Part 1 and Part 2
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