It is illegal to say “\” because there is only we. The government has stripped the individual of anything that made them special and forces them into a collective hive mind with everyone else. This world of full conformity is from a book named Anthem by Ayn Rand. Anthem was written in 1938 but today the country of North Korea strongly resembles how the citizens in the book act and how their government rules them.
From limiting them to better ways of living and using technology, brainwashing the entire population to think in a certain way for the benefit of the government and imprisoning those who object to the laws set forth by the government Anthem and North Korea are eerily similar. Even though they have a lot of similarities they aren’t completely alike; in North Korea they worship their leaders and they do not care about the citizens relationships.
The main character in Anthem is a man named Equality 7-2521 that finds a lightbulb then he thinks that if he shows it to the World Council that they will get rid of the candle which is the main source of light but when he shows them the lightbulb they smash even though it would advance their civilization. “This would wreck the Plans of the World Council,’ said Unanimity 2-9913, ‘and without the Plans of The World Council the sin cannot rise.
It took fifty years to secure the approval of all the Councils for the Candle, and to decide upon the number needed, and to refit the Plans so as to make candles instead of torches. This touched upon thousands and thousands of men working in scores of States. We cannot alter the Plans again so soon. ” (Page 74). The council is against the new technology and won’t tell everyone even though it would help the citizens which is similar to North Korea on their stance on phones and any outside sources of information.
The North Korean government limits technolgy and outside information just like the World Council does in Anthem by controlling all of the media and only having three television channels. Freedom House. org judges how free a country is and this is what the website had to say about North Korea “North Korea remained one of the most repressive media environments in the world in 2015. The statecontrolled domestic media produce propaganda with the aim of ensuring absolute loyalty to Kim Jong-un… Access to foreign and independent media is tightly restricted. (freedomhouse. org) North Korea and the World Council both limit the technology and limit knowledge to have control over their citizens. A government can’t control a large number of people without having something to make the citizens fear if they disobey the laws.
When Equality 7-2521 is found by the Council of the Home he taken to the Palace of Corrective Detention where he is later questioned and lashed to get information out of. The prison in Anthem is nothing compared to the actual prison camps in North Korea where people get sent to if they disobey the law. North Korea has committed crimes against humanity. The commission investigated issues regarding the right to food. prison camps, torture and inhuman treatment, arbitrary detention, discrimination, freedom of expression, the right to life, freedom of movement, and enforced disappearances, including abductions of other citizens. ” (CNN. com). The camps in North Korea is what makes the citizens stay in line because the torture that goes on in there is so gruesome. In both they use torture and imprisonment to keep their citizens in line and to get information out of them.
Although in Anthem, Equality is able to escape easily and go back to his tunnel but in North Korea it is nearly impossible to escape they people who are imprisoned are tortured and starved. The major difference between the two is how in Anthem you cannot raise your own child and there are events for mating but no marriage or love because you have to love all people equally. “Children are born each, winter but women never see their children and children never know their parents. Twice have we been sent to the Palace of Mating, but it is an ugly and shameful matter, of which we do not like to think” (Anthem page 41).
North Korea doesn’t care who you love as long you love The Great Leader but in Anthem there is no marriage and no raising of children so make everyone equal. The Time of Mating is just for the repopulation of the world there is no love involved in the process. North Korea is showing signs of a changing country for instance their change on marriage, “As recently as the 1970s, the majority of marriages in North Korea were still arranged, but beginning in the 1980s the increasing trend of “love marriages” gave rise to the North Korea we see today” (nksc. o) but in Anthem there seems to be no improvement.
Both societies have a large population of brainwashed people who are limited to resources that are limited to them by their governments. The people are similarly affected by the laws of their land with a sense of not knowing their purpose but in North Korea their sense of purpose is directed towards their Great Leader and in Anthem they have no one.
The novel of Anthem is supposed to be a warning dystopian novel by Ayn Rand but in 2017 North Korea is alike to it in multiple ways and is a country where modern day people couldn’t even imagine living in. Without individualism we could be like another mindless citizen in the book of Anthem or North Korea that are suppressed by their oppressive governments. Even though Ayn Rand wrote about a world like North Korea she would not have imagined how similar her work and the country would be.