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Updated June 15th, 2021 at 15:40 IST

'Even North Korea is not this nuts': Defector Yeonmi Park on anti-western sentiments in US

North Korean defector Yeonmi Park who graduated from Columbia University said her education had left her 'disturbed' over the 'bleak' future of United States.

Reported by: Ananya Varma
Park Yeonmi
Image- Vincent Yu / AP | Image:self
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North Korean defector Yeonmi Park on Monday opened up on the strong 'anti-Western sentiment' in US Universities, expressing her shock over how American higher education institutions were teaching Americans to hate their own people through an extreme-Left slant in their methods of teaching. The 27-year-old who graduated from Columbia University of the Ivy League said that her education had left her 'disturbed' over the 'bleak future of the United States.'

"Going to Columbia, the first thing I learned was ‘safe space. Every problem, they explained us, is because of white men," Yeonmi Park told Fox News.

"I expected that I was paying this fortune, all this time and energy, to learn how to think. But they are forcing you to think the way they want you to think. I realised, wow, this is insane. I thought America was different but I saw so many similarities to what I saw in North Korea that I started worrying," Park stated.

Discussions of 'white privilege' like 'caste system': Yeonmi Park

The North Korean defector revealed that some of the discussions of 'white privilege' at Columbia University reminded her of the caste system in her native country, saying that American Universities were devoiding students of being able to 'think critically.' 

"Classes began with teachers asking for preferred pronouns such as they/them," she revealed saying that she feared being 'socially penalized' for not being 'inclusive in her vocabulary. The young girl revealed that when she told she loved Jane Austen's books she was chided for 'liking writers with a racist and colonial mindset.'

"In North Korea I literally believed that my Dear Leader [Kim Jong-un] was starving. And then somebody showed me a photo and said 'Look at him, he's the fattest guy. Other people are all thin.' And I was like, 'Oh my God, why did I not notice that he was fat?' Because I never learned how to think critically. That is what is happening in America. People see things but they've just completely lost the ability to think critically."

Park who crossed the Gobi Desert with her mother in 2007 at the age of 13 said that she realized that she was still not free and 'America is not free.' “I thought North Koreans were the only people who hated Americans but turns out there are a lot of people hating this country in this country,” she told The Post.

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Published June 15th, 2021 at 15:40 IST

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