Outside View: North Korea in 2012

  In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address, querying whether a nation established "four score and seven years" ago and built upon the principles of liberty and equality, then fighting a "great civil war," could "long endure."
The United States did endure and this year celebrates the 236th anniversary of its birth.
In 2012, we see a nation -- North Korea -- established "three score and three years" ago and so committed to the bondage and inequality of its people, we are left to wonder how it can so "long endure."
With the death of Kim Jong Il on Dec. 17 and the accession to the "throne" of a third generation of the Kim dynasty -- the deceased leader's 28-year-old son Kim Jong Un -- the outside world remains baffled how an enslaved people, subjected to 63 years of brutal, autocratic rule, exhibits no signs of rising up against their master.
Factor into the equation of life in the North the famines regularly devastating the country, leaving thousands dead. Tragically, these famines could be eradicated by a leadership more concerned about the welfare of its people than its own survivability.
How is it that a starving population, so abused for so long, still refuses to bite the hand that fails to feed it?
Under the Kim dynasty, the country has been turned into a laboratory experiment in mind control. By keeping their people in total isolation from the rest of the world, controlling the flow of information, deifying its leadership and imposing fear where these other factors fail to achieve the desired result, the Kim leadership has been able to maintain control.
What is the main contributing factor to this control? Is it the product of a population's mind so denied information access and otherwise isolated from the world community that people really believe, as they have been programmed to believe, no matter how bad things are in their country, things are far worse outside of it? Is it simply fear? Or is it a combination?
The North Koreans' situation brings to mind an earlier generation's plight in choosing between inaction driven by fear or taking action in spite of it.
It was World War II. Thousands of British Royal Air Force prisoners of war were housed at the Germans' notorious Stalag Luft III camp -- immortalized by the 1963 movie "The Great Escape" -- where escape was deemed impossible. Up to the challenge, prisoners dug a hundred foot escape tunnel. On the evening of March 24, 1944, one of the biggest prisoner escapes of the war was attempted.
For some, freedom was short-lived; for most, fatal. Only three escapees reached safety. Seventy-three others were recaptured -- of which 23 were returned to the camp. The remaining 50 were lined up alongside a road and shot in the back of the head, executed as an example to others. The Germans' message was clear -- escape carried a death sentence.
Fear obviously is an effective weapon in molding group conduct. But for these prisoners, it proved otherwise. Despite the fear of death looming overhead, they began construction on another tunnel -- but for a different purpose. Not an escape tunnel, it sought to take the fight to a brutal enemy by accessing an armory inside the camp to access weapons and fight their way out.
The POWs had weighed their fear of death against their loss of freedom -- with the scales tilting in favor of the latter. Although there was risk in pursuing it, life without freedom was worse than the risk of death fighting for it.
While the Stalag Luft III story is one of courageous men able to overcome their fear of death to fight for their freedom, it involves a critical element missing from the North Korea situation -- one missing precisely because Pyongyang's leadership has effectively denied it to them.
The POWs at Stalag Luft III had a taste of something no North Korean ever has. Born and bred in a free society, the POWs were fully aware of its benefits. They had enjoyed those freedoms to the extent they were willing to fight those withholding them.
The average North Korean has no idea what treasures a free society provides. They are unable to comprehend the joys of freedom of choice to do what one wishes to do, free of governmental interference. Having never experienced freedom, they lack man's natural instinct to lay down their life to fight for it.
An empty stomach can do much to cause one not so inclined to fight for a better life to overcome the fear of death to do so. Whether the North Korean people are capable of reaching that point remains to be seen. But, even so, their leadership denies them the basic tools of communication to the extent necessary to effectively organize anti-government protests. Accordingly, such an effort might well prove fatal before a popular revolution can be mounted.
Unfortunately for the people, the Kim dynasty has fully mastered the principles of the art of slavery. And, accordingly, it is highly doubtful the Arab Spring will ever see daylight in North Korea.
The tunnel by which the British sought to launch an attack against their German guards was never completed as the war ended before work on the tunnel could -- but they never forgot the 50 fellow prisoners who sacrificed their lives.
Freedom will prove a much greater challenge for, and extract a much larger toll from, North Koreans who, sadly, may not even yet know what it is they wish to fight for.
(James. G. Zumwalt, is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer who heads consulting firm Admiral Zumwalt and Consultants, Inc. Zumwalt made 10 trips to North Korea from 1994-2004. He has published many articles in various publications and is author of "Bare Feet, Iron Will -- Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam's Battlefields.")
(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)