My name is Daniel. I was an English teacher in Seoul, South Korea, and am now a writer who has
published three books including South Korea: Our Story by Daniel Nardini.
Right now in Malaysia, the two women who murdered former probable
North Korean leader (and exile) Kim Jong-nam are on trial. It will be interesting to see if they are
convicted or not. But this brings me to the question, "what if?" What IF Kim Jong-nam had become
the leader of North Korea as he was originally was supposed to have been? His father Kim Jong-il
changed his mind, and we now have a monster Kim Jong-un as North Korea's ruler. If Kim Jong-nam
had become ruler, then there might be great changes happening in North Korea now. Things like
people being able to have more freedom of movement, more choice in their lives (or choices at
all), and a loosening of allowing people to move to where they want and what job to hold would
be reality today. We know that did not happen, and Kim Jong-un killed his half-brother to make
sure that there would be no possibility of Kim Jong-nam succeeding him and changing North
Korea. I saw the same thing happen in China over 28 years ago. The pro-democracy movement
that sprouted up could have changed the country, and the Chinese Communist Party itself. In
my book The Day China Cried, the reformist group in the Communist Party supported the
pro-democracy movement that had spread throughout the country and wanted enact important
political reforms that would have changed the face of China. Had the reformists won control of
the Chinese Communist Party, we would see a very, very different China today. A China that
would have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of
peaceful assembly that takes place in the United States, Canada, Japan and South Korea today.
But as in North Korea, this did not happen, and we now all face a malignant superpower China
that is bent in one form or another on world domination. Because of what did not happen we
live in a more dangerous world.
