North Korean Defector Confronts Legacy of Lies

Saw this on CNN. A story very relevant for those of us who had to deprogram ourselves from HWA's deceptive propaganda.

 To the outside world the images from North Korean state television are nearly comical -- weeping soldiers chasing Kim Jong Un into the freezing sea, elderly women screaming as the young leader approaches, and North Koreans unleashing dogs at a poorly made effigy of a South Korean leader.

But as Chae Young Hee watches, her eyes begin to brim with tears and her lips tremble uncontrollably with national pride. Chae is not a North Korean anymore, having defected to South Korea 11 years ago, abandoning the totalitarian regime. In the North, she experienced starvation, the brutality of the regime and fled with her daughter in hope of a better life in the free world. But as Chae watches KCTV, the North's only television channel its citizens can view, the power of the propaganda she grew up with takes hold.

"They're God," she says, referring to North Korea's trinity, Kim Jong Un, his father Kim Jong Il, and grandfather Kim Il Sung. The tears are now running down Chae's perfectly made up face and she chokes back a sob. "This is how you are brought up since birth. Even I can feel the pull in my heart. I thought I forgot about this feeling since it has been so long.

Read the rest here: North Korea's propaganda machine grips defector 11 years on.

Also relevant to this topic:

Why I Fled North Korea.

North Korea already won.