War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery

 War is Peace

Born and Raised in a North Korean Gulag by Choe Sang-Hun was a shocking story. I hadn't known what happened in North Korea, and Shin Dong Hyok's story brought a lot of emotions along. As I was reading, the first thing I noticed was how the authorities, the cause of Shin's miseries, was merely "a part of life" to him. They had always been there, and always would be. Instead, Shin blames the ones closest to him- the ones that love him the most: his mother. Even now, knowing what he does, still he blames his mother. When he is told that he was paying for his ancestor's crime, he also blames them, and hates them for this. I guess, from the view of the North Koreans, turning the hate onto friends is a useful tactic. This same tactic is used in 1984. Instead of party members joining together against Big Brother, the Party turns any hatred anyone might have onto Goldstein and their fellow members. People, especially children, are encouraged to denounce any disloyal follower. This denouncing of friends also accomplishes something else that both the Party and the North Korean gulag try and accomplish. In the Korean prison, much is done to destroy any semblance of unification or relationships. An arranged "marriage" is given to exemplary workers, and the couple see each other a few times a year. Even a child like Shin after growing up (age 11) fails to see his entire family at one time. This broken relationship leaves little chance of any rebellion or even talking of a better time. In Orwell's novel, people are expected to first love Big Brother before their spouse, and along with creating a shameful image of sex, makes marriage dull and relationships lacking any real love whatsoever, seen when Winston talks about his past marriage. By both preventing marriages/relationships and turning hatred onto friends, along with all the work piled up on the workers, rebellion, and more importantly thought is a rare occurrence.

Ignorance is Strength

Shin lives in his own fishbowl world: a world that consists only of his own work camp. I was unaware of how little he knew of the world, let alone his own country. This ignorance prevents him from knowing about the outside world, and how life could be. Although ignorance gives another person control over oneself, one thing that Yoon Yeo Sang of the North Korean Human Rights in Seoul said brought more thoughts upon my head. When he commented on the North Korean work camps, "'He comes from a place where people are deprived of their ability to have the most basic human feelings, such as love, hatred and even a sense of being sad or mistreated'", it seems like a bad thing: who wouldn't want to love? However, along with the life of knowledge of the world comes hatred, sorrow, and mistreatment.  At first Shin can't stand being in a camp when there was a whole world to explore. Afterward, though, Shin begins to regret- something that is very hard to understand. "Shin said he sometimes wished he could return to the time before he learned about the greater world, 'without knowing that we were in a prison camp, without knowing that there was a place called South Korea'". This statement, while seeming very sad and mad to us, makes sense to Shin. In the gulag, he didn't have all these emotions, which complicate life so much. He wanted instead security, and to forget about the world, along with all of its problems. In his ignorance, he was happy, and that is where he was strong. In the world, he can't even obtain a driving license. I think what he doesn't understand, is that without problems and sorrow, we couldn't enjoy life as much as we do. The happiest moments are when you overcome your problems, and if there was no evil in the world, how would we know what was good?

Freedom is Slavery

So Shin would prefer to be told what to do, and to be back in that prison camp, in his slavery. He felt he was happier there. Or perhaps, he didn't know what happiness was, and so he could not be unhappy either. Freedom is not just doing what one wants to do, but surviving and being happy. To Shin, the prison camp was happy, because life was always the same, and the problems that he had (for instance torture and all that stuff) was not a problem to him: just a part of life. Shin was free of worry and of problems. In that way, freedom is slavery. As in 1984, the workers in the prison camp did not worry about jobs or transportation or any of the usual things that most worry about. Winston is kept so busy so he has a limited amount of time to think those rebellious thoughts. And although all of the Outer Party members live in relative poverty, none of them think much of it because it has always been like that. They are free of worry of almost everything (apart from fear of being taken to the Ministry of Love).


These phrases may apply, but not to the common man. They work only when one looks at the overall Party's ideal: to stay in power. In order for the Party to keep their reign, they use these three phrases: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength. To keep peace within their realm, they make war with Eastasia and Eurasia. Turning anger upon others instead of themselves is a handy way to keep "peace".  Freedom, and more specifically, happiness, exists only when people do not have to worry too much about problems, and gain security: thus, slavery. And in ignorance, people are united and cannot question their leader, and thus together, they have strength. It is interesting to see that these quite contradictory sayings are, in fact, true. A subjective truth, however, because these truths are only an illusion. Although it may seem like war is peace, it is not. And while freedom is slavery, it is not. It just isn't. War may cause a little peace, but not all of it. And slavery is not freedom. Freedom is more than that. These three phrases serve only as an excuse for Oceania to keep on living the way it is.