“Trade for yourself. Think for yourself,” Park says.

Via Libertarian Republic: North Korean defector Yeonmi Park‘s (박연미) speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum last month has been inspiring liberty lovers around the world. Park’s explanation for how the black market in her former country contributed to her understanding of freedom is an important lesson for why freedom to trade must be protected from government interference.

Park’s speech focuses on the timeline of her trades on the black market, beginning with her as a child. She talked about learning love from Titanic: “A turning point in my life was when I watched the movie Titanic. It wasn’t propaganda but a story about people willing to die for love. It made me realize that I was controlled by the regime. I was not aware, like a fish is not aware of water. North Koreans don’t know the concept of freedom or human rights. They don’t know that they are slaves.”

Park was horrified as a child to witness her friend’s mother being executed by the government for watching a James Bond DVD, a crime that she herself committed. Kim Jong Un once reportedly murdered 80 people in one day last November for watching South Korean movies and owning a copy of the Bible.

“When you grow up in North Korea, the only thing you know is what the Kim regime teaches you, so watching movies is one of the only ways to learn about the outside world,” Park explained to the Daily Beast.

The black market has begun to thrive in North Korea, where people trade DVDs, USB drives, food, clothing and money.

Yeonmi was able to escape to China at the age of 14 with her mother and father, but unfortunately life for them there was almost as bad as North Korea. She and her mother (her father died in China), crawled most of the way to South Korea. When they were captured in Mongolia, they threatened to slit their own throats rather than be sent back to China. “I told my mother I wanted to die with her,” she said. “I would rather have killed myself than be shot by this man.”

Still, when she put the blade to her throat, the guard lowered his gun.

Yeonmi was able to make it to South Korea, though she spent two months in a detention center before being able to go live in a small town in the country. Park endured the struggles of being an outsider at her school, and how when she read Animal Farm by George Orwell everything made sense. Her government was tyrannical and corrupt, but freedom would make her a new human being.

“This book set me free from the emotional dictators in my head,” said Yeonmi to the PanamPost. “Titanic opened my eyes to see that people can live differently, and there is something else out there; the black market gave me an opportunity to be exposed to the outside world, and Animal Farm set me free from brainwashing.”

“I was so used to having no free will, I wanted them to tell me what to do! It took me three years to realize that freedom is a choice and I have to be responsible for the consequences. I think this year I have finally understood it, that all human beings have [the same] rights.”

Park now has a Facebook and Twitter following, and is a media fellow at a think tank called the Freedom Factory in Seoul. She is also a Young Voices Advocate, which is an excellent libertarian blog run by Students for Liberty.