Free NK Radio to Close After Threats

Here is an interesting Aritcle in East Asian Affairs about the online radio station, Free NK that was founded by North Korean defectors and now may have to stop their programming because of threats against them by South Koreans:

We’re not talking big time here. Free North Korea broadcasts live for just one hour each evening. And its start-up costs, a modest 30 million won (US$26,000), were financed wholly by other defectors; not South Koreans, much less the government in Seoul. Its seven-strong staff are realistic about their chances of being heard inside North Korea, where Internet access is all but non-existent. But even in megawired South Korea, they have only 3,000 members so far, with only a modest 10,000 logging onto the site.

So, for now Free NK remains a still small voice crying in the wilderness, seeking to lighten the enforced darkness imposed on North Koreans by their benighted leaders. Topics covered include news, literature, and even philosophy, as well as the often dramatic experiences of defectors. Bravo. More power to them. What person with an ounce of human decency could possibly not wish Free NK well?

Alas, these are not rhetorical questions. Fact is, many South Koreans are not sympathetic – and some are downright nasty. From day one, Free NK has been hassled and harassed – to the point where, after less than a month on the air, it now may have to close down: the building’s landlord can’t cope with the pressure, so he’s given Free NK notice to quit by the end of this month.

I have to wonder how many of these threats are coming from Pyongyang hired goons, but the article concludes with an interesting theory:

Even if the actual bullies are a minority, their violence – for that’s what it is – has been nourished in a noxious new soil that is spreading in Seoul these days. I fear I was wrong about democratization in South Korea. At least some of those who fought against dictatorship weren’t, and aren’t, true democrats. What they hated was the generals’ right-wing politics, not authoritarianism per se.

Such self-styled “progressives”, who rule the roost in the new South Korea, seem to me merely to have turned the old values inside out, rather than made true progress. I sometimes think Koreans don’t do shades of gray, but prefer gestalt conversions: a total switch of world view. They flip.

In the bad old days, woe betide you if you said anything good about North Korea in Seoul. Now it’s a mirror image: If you say anything bad about Kim Jong-il, you’re a traitor. Even if, like the defectors of Free NK, you’ve suffered grievously under the Dear Leader – and therefore know whereof you speak, unlike head-in-sand fellow-travellers living safely south of the border.

I never thought of it that way. Maybe today’s progressives really don’t mind authoritism along as they are the ones in charge.

Hat Tip: Asiapundit