"The power station always switched off electricity at night, plunging the city into darkness. As far as I can remember, when I was small, electricity cuts during the day lasted several minutes. Then they gradually became more frequent, and, in around 1995, they started lasting all day, then weeks. This meant that water wasn't being pumped, so we had to turn on the taps and hoard supplies as soon as the electricity came back on. But when the intervals were too long, we had to go and collect water from a village not far from the city...

"...Even when everyone's resources were exhausted, the statue of Kim Il-Sung continued to light up the night, even more brightly than before in some people's opinion. But no one ever kicked up a fuss on the subject..."

Hyok quotes Alexander Solzhenitsyn, chronicler of the Russian gulag in a most appropriate way:

"Someone that you have deprived of everything is no longer in your power. He is once again entirely free."

One can manipulate others by threatening loss, but when all is lost, who cares? North Koreans who get to the bottom eventually try to get out of the darkness into the marvelous light of freedom. Many even come to the dazzling Light of the Gospel and discover not only Truth, but real Liberty.