An unthinkable debate in North Korea

Han Song-mi, center, made her first visit to Freedom Speakers International (FSI) Nov. 26, 2019, when the organization was still known as Teach North Korean Refugees. She met FSI co-founders Casey Lartigue, right, and Lee Eun-koo, left. Courtesy of Freedom Speakers International

I recently witnessed something I never expected: North Korean refugee Han Song-mi openly challenging a former North Korean diplomat in an impromptu debate.

As background, Han was born in North Korea’s countryside at the bottom of the country’s caste system far removed from the privileges of the elite. Daily life was not about choice or ambition but about survival. She and her mother lived in a barn, were homeless, often ate grass to survive, and Han attended elementary school for only one year.

In 2011, she followed her mother to freedom with the help of brokers. Starting a new life was not easy and she struggled for many years. I first met Han when she found me online in 2019, eager to study English in Freedom Speakers International, the NGO I co-founded in Seoul. I have seen her grow from an anonymous English learner into a public speaker, we are co-authors of her memoir "Greenlight to Freedom," and she calls me the “turning point” in her life. Knowing her history made it even more striking to watch her engage in a debate with someone who once represented the North Korean state.

In contrast to Han’s difficult upbringing was a former North Korean diplomat. He grew up as part of the elite, attended the best schools, and lived a life of luxury compared to most North Koreans. He used to travel abroad to defend the very system that had denied her basic rights. To protect the confidentiality of the former diplomat, I won’t name him or give specific details about the occasion.

The discussion was unexpected. Han was speaking with another participant at the conference when the former diplomat overheard her and interrupted. He told her she was wrong. Setting up a strawman to boldly knock down, he insisted that not everyone escaped North Korea because of hunger. Han wondered why he said that because she had made no such point, she was aware that people escape from North Korea for different reasons.

He disagreed with her point about sungbun (the state’s rigid class system), claiming that as a former government official he knew of no such hierarchy. Han pushed back, telling him there are many people who cannot work where they want or rise in society because of sungbun.

The former diplomat dismissed this as untrue. For Han, his denials felt less like debate and more like disinformation. It was the first time she had ever met someone in-person who openly insisted that dictatorship was the “right way” and that North Korea needs strong power to control people.

The contrast could not have been sharper. The former diplomat argued that dictatorship is simply one type of political system and that it deserved respect like any other. He claimed that North Koreans had freedom, but that those North Korean refugees who criticized the regime were people who had failed to meet the expectations of the government. His reasoning placed the responsibility not on the state, but on the individual. It was not the system that was flawed, but the people who could not adapt to it.

Han did not let that go unchallenged. She countered that North Koreans do not have freedom, and that what he described as freedom was in reality forced obedience. Then she pressed him with a pointed question: had he ever said what he truly believed while living in North Korea? It was a question he evaded.

Instead, he repeated that the world should “respect” North Korea’s system. But when she asked him why he had fled, his answer was personal rather than principled: his family had escaped first, so he followed.

But if the North Korean system was to be respected, why did he flee it? To Han, this was incomprehensible. How could a man who once represented the regime abroad defend its legitimacy, yet privately admit that he had abandoned it when his own circumstances changed? His words carried an irony that could not be ignored: he demanded respect for a political system he had not respected enough to remain within himself.

While some might choose sides between the two combatants, what was striking to me was that the conversation happened at all.

Such a debate would have been impossible inside North Korea. Someone from the lowest class, like Han, would never have been permitted to openly question an elite diplomat. Only outside the country could such a clash of perspectives take place.

I asked Han what would have happened had she met this former diplomat inside North Korea and disagreed with him there. She said she never would have been in a position to meet such a person, and definitely they would not have been on equal terms. If she had encountered him and disagreed with him? “I would have died. I would have been killed.”

It was good meeting such a person because not every North Korean refugee rejects the regime. They are joined by some South Koreans, Southeast Asians, and Westerners who express sympathy for Pyongyang. Some of them go on a rampage any time a North Korean refugee speaks out. A few years ago, I was even profiled by “Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang” as if I were the godfather of North Korean refugees destroying North Korea, and have been attacked by other sympathizers of North Korea.

Watching this debate, I was struck less by who “won” than by the sheer possibility of the conversation itself. For Han, asking pointed questions would have meant death in North Korea. For the former diplomat, he was still defending a dictatorship that once brought him privilege. It was an unthinkable conversation that could not have happened in North Korea and was only possible in freedom.