This summer we discovered the red balloons of Rio, the black balloons of the Nakba, and the orange balloons of British Columbia. Now add to that list the clear balloons of Korea. 

The Christian Science Monitor reports that North Korea has closed its borders to South Korea as a direct response to the balloon activism of South Koreans along the border.

The immediate reason appears to have been South Korea’s refusal to stop activists from launching balloons that wafted over the North, dropping leaflets denouncing the North Korean regime and exposing the prison system there.

“North Korea regards the balloons as South Korea’s effort to force regime change in North Korea,” says Paik Hak Soon, senior fellow at the Sejong Institute here.

In America we celebrate our perennial regime changes with balloon drops, but in North Korea apparently balloon releases precipitate a regime change. By putting a stop to balloons, a regime can hold fast its grip on power. That sounds absurd, but let’s try and take it seriously for a moment. 

The reason why the situation may not sound as absurd as one would expect may have to do with the ability for balloons to be both a medium and a message. As a medium it can transport ideas over walls - over the border, over a fence, over authority. Balloons can travel over the physical and social barriers that limit access to information. The pamphlets it can carry and drop over a population is hard to control or limit.

The balloons themselves contain a message. Perhaps most importantly that ideas like balloons have a natural right to be free. Ideas will not be contained as helium balloons will go up - it is their right to defy gravity or restriction.

From the perspective of the recipient, the balloon shows that someone out there takes interest in me. At first it draws my curiosity, but once I pick up the pamphlets I begin to realize that the balloons are for me.

As the balloon defies gravity, so the human spirit can be lifted up from its oppressive conditions. And as a balloon can soar and yet still is vulnerable, so also the human spirit may be able to rise up without arrogance.

Maybe that’s what it means. Or maybe that’s what the North Korean regime fears it means.