"For Those Who Can't Speak"

The body of a young emaciated child lays lifeless on the cold, hard ground. His mother was shot multiple times in the head for stealing food to feed her child, and the father passed away from severe torturing that were induced by prior attempted escapades. The daughter of a man whose family was sentenced to imprisonment at a concentration camp for treason is taken advantage of by the soldiers and guardsmen that whip and beat "slacking" workers. This is the sobering picture of North Korea.

Though cruel and inhumane, who can stop the soldiers?

Who can help the prisoners?

Who can speak for those who can't?

Tenth Avenue North, a Christian band, wrote and recorded a song called, "For Those Who Can't Speak" that featured rappers Derek Minor and KB. Although originally intended to spread awareness and to fight human trafficking, the song still contains elements that support the idea of fighting those who threaten and/or steal basic human rights from people just like you and me, and especially the people of North Korea who are daily fighting the struggles of finding their stolen human rights.

One element of the song is its use of metaphors. In the chorus, lead singer Mike Donehey sings, "I have dreamed of a kingdom coming where evil drowns in mercy streams; I want to see those rivers of justice". Water, representing life and freedom, will eventually "drown" the evil in this world that taunt and torture the voiceless people of North Korea. But just as Martin Luther King, Jr. once had a dream, the "kingdom coming" can only be made true if you and I stopped dreaming, and started acting. The citizens under the oppression of the North Korean regime can only be rescued if we speak up, because the government has taken away their voices.

In Genesis, the first book of the Christian Holy bible, God had created a world that was perfect and beautiful in every manner. Animals were roaming free and peacefully, while the two humans, Adam and Eve, were the gentle, but adequate, caretakers. This was the "picture the Lord painted in Genesis", according to the song. There are people suffering in a land far away, children are dying of starvation, females are taken advantage of, and men are laboring until their backs break, and then some more. Concentration camps of the 1930s and 1940s do not compare to the camps of North Korea. In Genesis, God did not paint a picture of slaves, inequality, malnutrition, and sexual abuse. The song "For Those Who Can't Speak" is simply a song that explains to its audience that we need to restore the picture that "the Lord painted in Genesis", regardless of our individual religions or missions. There was a different picture in Genesis, and there is a different picture in North Korea. We must speak for those who can't speak.

A social justice issue is a situation where there are victims (whether it be humans or animals) of injustices that include, but are not limited, to lack of human rights, unfair treatment, discrimination, and more. The people of North Korea are crying out to the world that they need justice for the theft of their basic human rights; but, to the leaders and government of North Korea, their world is contained within a small jail cell, an execution pole, a casket six feet under, or an interrogation room. We need to do something. We need to take action.

We need to speak for those who can't speak.