500 sats \ 4 replies \ @kepford 1 Feb \ on: What will become of North Korea? earth
If you are interested in this topic I highly recommend reading Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il by Michael Malice. Its a dark subject but the writer does a good job of using sarcasm to keep you reading. I can tell you that after reading this book I had a much better understanding of why every few years NK is in the news threatening the U.S. Malice stated that as a decedent of survivors of the holocaust and Stalin's purges that he wanted to shine a light on a modern day Nazi Germany state. It doesn't get enough attention.
Here are some things I remember from reading that book and from others that have studied the nation.
Its just a matter of time until the regime falls but the question is how long. They have survived for so long. It is a modern day Nazi Germany.
The book does a good job of showing how the indoctrination works. Children are raised to believe their leader is near to a deity. That they have stood up to the evil Americans. That the U.S. wants to kill them. They have a system of ratting on each other. They have weekly community gatherings where people repent of their failings at honoring the leader, and working for the cause.
Lets say that you live there and you decided to try to escape to China. Your family would be taken to work in a concentration camp (even worse that what they do now). They may be killed. And forever, your family's decedents will be punished. Families that sided with the south are still under punishment for example.
Even those in higher status jobs are poor my western standards. Everything looks old. If you visit you will be put in a hotel where people are segregated by race. The people hate the Japanese. Malice says that if you want to get a laugh all you'd have to do is change the race of any racist joke to Japanese and you would kill. They apparently hate the Japanese with a passion.
They views people hold seem absurd to us but they are largely sheltered from the outside world and alternate views. I hear that is changing and getting harder though. I think conquest by war would be the worst possible outcome. The death and destruction would be terrible for both the north and the south. I hope that the people resist and then like the USSR, the army stand down and refuse to fight their countrymen. But who knows.
The other thing I learned from the book and Malice's talks about it is that most of what you hear on the news regarding NK is pretty much BS. Most commentators either are just paid shills for the MIC or ignorant of NK history and their culture.
Thank you for sharing this kep :) very interesting.
The book does a good job of showing how the indoctrination works. Children are raised to believe their leader is near to a deity. That they have stood up to the evil Americans. That the U.S. wants to kill them. They have a system of ratting on each other. They have weekly community gatherings where people repent of their failings at honoring the leader, and working for the cause.
I was just reading about KJU recently and his current dilemma. Will he continue this legacy his family left him with or try to integrate the NK people into modernization while maintaining his image?
Either way it ends in collapse i agree. I dont see a world in which he could start granting more permissions to the people without it inevitably backfiring.
They views people hold seem absurd to us but they are largely sheltered from the outside world and alternate views. I hear that is changing and getting harder though. I think conquest by war would be the worst possible outcome.
Yeah. If he granted access to the internet or some kind of communication with the outside world the truth would spiral into chaos for the north and south. And i think KJU will be quick to try and make it every other country's problem too
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It help me understand how people could be programmed when Malice compared the textbooks in NK and how they describe the Dear Leader (that's what they call him) to how we were taught in U.S. schools about "honest Abe" and George Washington and the cherry tree. Or even the mythical view many have of "the founding fathers". If you can see how we are indoctrinated to believe in democracy then I think you should be able to see how an isolated people could be conditioned to support their own prison keepers.
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Really interesting summary, the only thing I would question is the comparison to Nazi Germany. NK doesn't really have any expansionist plans or capabilities (beyond the failed invasion of SK 70 years ago). It was born out of a civil war that resulted from Japanese Imperial occupation and the fall out of the second would war, rather than a series of corrupt democratic votes like Nazi Germany was.
Perhaps more contradictory still, NK was backed by the Soviets who had fought against Nazi Germany.
The only parallel is the level of indoctrination & authoritarianism, but I wouldn't consider those uniquely Nazi beliefs.