It is appropriate.
For the Chosun Journal is devoted to the
continuing online exposure of the horrors of the brutal North Korean regime.
And more. It is an activist site. It not only works to move consciences
about the misery being inflicted daily on the people of North Korea, but it
also provides practical guidance on what we can all do.
Many people in the West have been shocked
by recent revelations that North Korea’s leaders, in breach of their own
promises, continue to develop a nuclear capacity. But spend time reading the
articles on this site – start with
this one, and then
this one - and little will shock you again about the brutal nature of
these evil men.
Evil?
With its notions of moral absolutes and
judgement it’s a word that makes some people cringe. Yet I challenge anyone
to read much at the Chosun Journal site and come away with any other
description. Here’s
another example. And
another. And
another.
The Journal’s editor is New York
University law student
Edward Kim, who
also maintains the excellent Christian website
Veritas.
He writes this about the website:
Visiting the Holocaust
museum in Washington, D.C. can be a harrowing experience. But what if you
were visiting the museum while the Holocaust was still going on? This site
is a memorial to the ongoing atrocities still happening in North Korea
today, and a witness against the world that lets it happen. But unlike a
visit to the museum in Washington, D.C., here visitors can make a difference
right now to help stop the crimes against humanity being committed with
impunity by the regime of Kim Jong Il.
And he is passionate about his cause. His
latest editorial is “Give
Violence a Chance”. The title may put some people off. It shouldn’t.
Read it to the end. The conclusion may surprise.
Here’s just an excerpt:
It is admittedly a strange irony, perhaps
even a tragedy, that those who deserve Nobel Peace Prizes may be the ones
who effect peace through violence. At the same time, those who have received
Nobel Peace Prizes…may have done the least to promote peace (which by
definition is not merely the absence of conflict but the establishment of
justice) through their non-violent efforts.
"But what about Martin Luther King, Jr.
or Mahatma Gandhi?" proponents of non-violence will object. Surely they
exemplify the truth that the best way to achieve peace is through
non-violence.
No, those great men only demonstrate the
truth that non-violent methods of civil disobedience only work effectively
against regimes with functioning moral compasses. This truth was
acknowledged by the German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer who participated in
the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. Sometimes regimes can be so evil,
that violence, or the credible threat of violence, is the only moral way of
stopping their aggression.
October 22nd, 2002
