Muck

Where there is no vision,
the people perish.*

I know that a parent's hopes and dreams for her child is the abundant fodder of therapy sessions, but I can't help having hopes and dreams for my future child.

One of my greatest hopes is that he/she will be a muckraker. Remember that term from your 5th grade US history book?

A muckraker is a special kind of journalist. One that reports on muck (yes, that's a technical term :-P). Future child will write about government corruption, kickbacks, and legitimated criminal rings. Future child will do 3 part segments on pedophilia, sex trafficking and modern day slavery. Future child will produce documentaries on the broken public education system, healthcare, and the oppression of the working poor. Whether in DC, Darfur or Dubai, future child will explore, expose, and bring to light the underbelly of the human condition.

Because where there is no vision, the people perish. We cannot be outraged by what we cannot see. We cannot be moved to action by what we do not acknowledge. And we cannot acknowledge what we do not know.

Future child will be like an anti-evangelist. Blessed are the feet of him who brings bad news, news of utter degeneration and depravity, who shines a light on injustice.

Injustice such as that of the approximately 200,000 political prisoners languishing away in North Korea's Labor Camps. Blaine Harden wrote a heartbreaking and soul-searing article on the miserable creatures who work 12-15 hour days, gums blackened from malnutrition and hunchbacked from weak bones.

Their crimes are purely political, which can be as petty as old wives talk, literally. One person was a former friend of Kim Jong Il’s wife and was imprisoned because she allegedly gossiped about the Dear Leader with the wife.

But not only was she imprisoned, her children and parents were too. North Korea has a strict policy of guilt by association whereby many generations are condemned together.

Rape, beatings, starvation--these are regular occurrences that not even suicide can assuage. The punishment for unilaterally ending your torture is the execution of the rest of your family.


So far, no high-profile person has taken up the plight of the prisoners. As Harden writes (quoting an activist), “Tibetans have the Dalai Lama and Richard Gere, Burmese have Aung San Suu Kyi, Darfurians have Mia Farrow and George Clooney. North Koreans have no one like that.”

I think there is no champion because there is very little awareness that this is happening. North Korea denies that these camps exist and all we have is the bitter testimony of survivors and former guards who are desperate to make a living--cash for testimony.

But the more this issue is brought to light, perhaps the more will be done.

By the way, Oprah (or Gayle!), if you’re reading this…
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*Yes, I know I'm totally abusing this verse. Poetic license!