Modern North Korea
Kim Jong-un gives a speech in front of the Korean Worker's Party. The Atlantic
With incidents such as their nuclear launches and the execution of Jang Song-Thaek, Kim Jong-Un’s uncle, North Korea seems to be further rattling the saber. Yet these may be a false front to a crumbling regime, as evidenced by the growing economic and political liberalization within the country.
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"Sǒngun politics is the idea that the whole society is supposed to respond to the regime in the same way the military, the soldiers respond to the chain of command in the military. So, I think the whole, the core ideology is really one of this identification of the individual with the regime. And, so there’s obviously no political institutions that in any way resemble representative institutions of the regime....and that’s being revived now, around Kim Jong-Un’s ascension."
-Stephan Haggard, Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies |
Changing attitudes in North Korea reflect problems for the regime. Secret State of North Korea
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"[Kim Jong-un] shouldn't be there. He can't do anything. He's too young, you know? No matter how hard he tries, even if it kills him, he's hopeless."
- Anonymous Local Official on Kim Jong-un
- Anonymous Local Official on Kim Jong-un
South Korean soap operas smuggled into North Korea. AP
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"There's an awareness and an ability for the population to communicate that was never there before. North Korea went from zero to one million cell phone subscribers in three years... That concrete wall that has been there for sixty years or so has become more porous."
- Victor Cha, D. S. Song-Korea Foundation Chair in Asian Studies, Columbia University “We must extend the fight against the enemy’s ideological and cultural infiltration...to ruthlessly crush those hostile elements.”
- Kim Jong-Un, in an October 2013 speech |
“Truth will set North Korea free. The people will set North Korea free. The erosion of control will set North Korea free, not engagement with the regime.”
- Jang Jin-sung, Former Poet Laureate of North Korea
- Jang Jin-sung, Former Poet Laureate of North Korea
Conclusion
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North Korea is a nation of contradictions. It is a self-reliant state that is almost entirely dependent on food aid, and a communist country with a stratified class system. Another paradox is the problem of opening its economic doors - the DPRK will stagnate if it does not open up, and yet outside influences will cause them to crumble. Failure to improve economics will hamper humanitarian efforts. Human rights have been violated to a point where the social contract states that the North Korean people should rebel, but the DPRK’s contract is flawed. Juche is being used to control the people, not protect them. It is those leaders who failed their responsibility to the people who determine the fate of North Korea through their willingness to reform.
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Sokeel Park and Victor Cha explain the challenges to the regime, including the Dictator's Dilemma. PBS Frontline
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"Systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, its institutions and officials. In many instances, the violations of human rights found by the commission constitute crimes against humanity. These are not mere excesses of the State; they are essential components of a political system that has moved far from the ideals on which it claims to be founded. The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world. Political scientists of the twentieth century characterized this type of political organization as a totalitarian State: a State that does not content itself with ensuring the authoritarian rule of a small group of people, but seeks to dominate every aspect of its citizens’ lives and terrorizes them from within. "
- UN Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights in North Korea, 2014
- UN Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights in North Korea, 2014