Stop mocking repressive tyrant
When most Americans think of North Korea, we do not usually picture work camps or atrocious torture, or the state of poverty and impressment in which their people are living; rather, we think of their crazy leader, Kim Jong Un, as he attempts to be the supreme leader of the land and creates propaganda with photos of himself riding a unicorn.
Belittling North Korea’s torturous acts leads us, as Americans and Westerners, to disregard the pain North Koreans endure. Instead of trivializing the situation, we should be making efforts to improve the lives of their people.
The movie The Interview created a huge splash in the international community. Portraying the assassination of another country’s leader made North Korea angrier with the Western world than it already was, but it also trivialized the acts of torture executed by the North Korean government.
Americans were outraged when we discovered the NSA was spying on our every move. Imagine the reaction if we were denied our most basic human rights. Yet we do not have this same reaction to situations in other countries like North Korea, in which the basic rights of their people are oppressed.
Unfortunately, we do not understand that a movie like The Interview and the Charlie Hebdo cartoon are blatant acts of provocation rather than defenses of free speech. And although we should not disregard how they react to our acts, we should try to avoid provoking further acts of terrorism.
Therefore, rather than joking about their leader, the West must make an effort to address the problems in North Korea and make it clear to their leader that we will not tolerate their acts of violence against their people.
