Nothing To Envy by Barbara Demick

From The Week of January 31, 2010

At the beginning of Ms. Demick's Nothing To Envy, the author describes satellite photos of Asia by night, of how the landscape veritably blazes with electric light save for one area which is as a black hole to the world around it. This is North Korea. It's a wonderful image and it doesn't take Ms. Demick long to use it to exemplify the extent to which this most mysterious nation has cut itself off from the rest of the world economically, industrially and informationally. North Korea is a black hole which sucks up the lives and dreams of its citizens who, according to Ms. Demick's account, are decades behind the rest of the world.

We know now that Communism does not work. Human nature is structured such that we compete with our fellows to succeed, to have more, to be the best. Our natures are antithetical to Communism which is based on an equal division of labor and reward. But Communism's failure is not solely the fault of competitiveness. Humans do not do well when power over other humans is bestowed upon them. In fact, having power over other people is perhaps the quickest way to corrupt a human being, to cause him to lose perspective on his ethics, his morality. And so the centralization of authority demanded by planned economies are doomed to create a tiny, corrupted, ruling class willing to jackboot its way over the prone bodies of its adherence in order to maintain but one goal, the preservation of power.

This is what has happened to North Korea which has chillingly become a living monument to George Orwell's 1984. To cement the political system in place, the leaders of the Communist revolution there have created a cult of personality around the ruling family, plastering their likenesses across billboards, requiring their framed countenances to be hung in living rooms, forcing schools to teach their words, and preventing anyone from hearing voices other than their own. Corruption, on the deepest, most profoundest level... The embodiment of absolute power and how it creates in those who have it a demand for slavish fealty from their subjects... And the worst part, as documented innothing To Envy, not even the widespread starvation of its citizens, brought about by famine, has ignited the faintest change.

Ms. Demick has drawn a heartbreaking portrait of daily life among North Koreans, brave and battered people living in a country that is a graveyard for their hopes and dreams. This is a shattering work. (5/5 Stars)