What is the nation's future under the control of a belligerent new 'Dear Leader’ who is not yet 30?
Up for a fight: the familiar sight of a military in permanent readiness for war Photo: AP
By David Blair
7:41PM GMT 19 Dec 2011
34 Comments
North Koreans have been introduced to their youthful new leader in a style that befits the last truly totalitarian state on earth. Kim Jong-un, the “Great Successor”, has been hailed variously as a martial genius and the “outstanding leader of our party, army and people”.
The rise of the younger Kim, officially 29 but possibly only 27, has mirrored his father’s physical decline: last year, while the “Dear Leader” ailed, the son was hastily made a four-star general and awarded a senior post in the military high command. When the armed forces bombarded a South Korean island with heavy artillery, before sinking one of their neighbour’s warships with a well-aimed torpedo, stories were circulated giving the new general the credit.
Not many countries would deliberately promote their future leader as a child soldier given to impulsive attacks on other countries. The portrayal of the younger Kim reveals much about the psychology of North Korea’s ossified regime, glorying in its own isolation and obduracy. In particular, it reveals the two principal strands of the impoverished state’s official ideology: militarism and an obsession with racial purity.
Thus North Korea spends about a third of its total gross national product on the armed forces, rendering it probably the most militarised state in the world. If Britain were to follow this example, we would have a defence budget exceeding £400 billion – significantly bigger than America’s. A country in which people eat roots and berries to avoid starvation has built a small arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Instead of being the world’s last Communist state, North Korea is best understood as a murderous laboratory for the utopian fantasies of the fascist Right. Its official propaganda glorifies the moral superiority of the Korean race, as compared with the decadence and depravity of the outside world. The North Korean people are portrayed as being almost childlike in their innocence and purity – so different from the amorality of their neighbours, supposedly corrupted by Western materialism and the corrosive influence of America.
Related Articles
North Korea on lockdown as the Dear Leader dies - 19 Dec 2011
Business as usual with North Korea’s new despot - 19 Dec 2011
Kim Jong-il dies aged 69 - 19 Dec 2011
Hague: difficult to be optimistic about North Korea - 19 Dec 2011
Kim Jong-il dead: questions over the basketball-mad son Kim Jong-un - 20 Dec 2011
In such a wicked world, Koreans cannot do without the protection and guidance of their benign rulers. So the official propaganda machine portrays the Kim dynasty as the indispensable shield for a country that is, in the words of one slogan, a “shrimp amongst whales”.
In The Cleanest Race, a study of North Korean propaganda, Brian Myers summed up the state’s official ideology: “The Korean people are too pure-blooded, and therefore too virtuous, to survive in this evil world without a great parental leader.”
The “Great Successor” is now being moulded into this quixotic view of the world. But the state’s propagandists are encountering contradictions that even they may find it difficult to finesse. How can a man under 30 be portrayed as a parental figure? The young Kim might be a great general and military genius, but how can he possibly be a father to his embattled people?
Kim Jong-il was made heir apparent in 1980, giving him 14 years of preparation before he became the “Dear Leader” on the death of his father, Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea. The latest succession, by contrast, has only been in preparation for about a year, while the anointed Dauphin has not even had time to attain middle age.
As Pyongyang’s equivalent of the ministry of truth tries to resolve these inconvenient tangles, the world’s foreign ministries are pondering whether the transfer of power will also herald a change in North Korea’s foreign policy. Apparently anxious not to write off the younger Kim before he has even taken office, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said: “This could be a turning point for North Korea. We hope that their new leadership will recognise that engagement with the international community offers the best prospect of improving the lives of ordinary North Korean people.”
But “engagement” with the outside world is precisely what North Korea’s leaders are programmed to avoid. Their entire world view, based upon their supposed racial supremacy, hails the virtue of resisting the blandishments of foreigners.
A smooth transfer of power to the younger Kim is more likely than not, according to John Swenson-Wright, associate fellow of the Asia programme at Chatham House. North Korea’s leaders have been “preparing for this for over a year”, he notes, giving a “70 per cent chance” of the succession going as planned.
But the new leader will be surrounded by generals, some of them veterans of the Korean War of 1950-53, and powerful politicians who were close to his father, notably Chang Sung-taek, vice-chairman of the national defence commission, who married the younger sister of the late Mr Kim.
“There are powerful competing political forces: the military, the party, the organs of the state,” Swenson-Wright says. “How this untested, inexperienced leader will hold the ring between these competing groups is impossible to say.”
He adds: “The military in general is the key player, perhaps the most influential player, in North Korean politics.”
Given all this, it seems highly unlikely that the new leader will have much room for manoeuvre. Even if he is minded to ease international tensions and consider domestic reform, the old men around him would probably combine to block any such ambitions. Mr Chang, in particular, may emerge as the power behind the throne in the style of the Regent of a medieval court.
China, the most important voice in the region and North Korea’s only real ally, appears to view the younger Kim as a man with whom it can do business. The new leader accompanied his father to Beijing in May to meet the Chinese leadership. Yesterday, the foreign ministry in Beijing issued a statement that seemed to warn off anyone trying to disrupt his succession. “We are sure the North Korean people will abide by Comrade Kim Jong-il’s will and unify under the leadership of Comrade Kim Jong-un,” it said.
What remains of North Korea’s economy is kept alive by Chinese aid. Yet the extent of Beijing’s leverage over its troublesome ally is often overestimated. Yes, China could sever all help for North Korea and trigger the final collapse of its neighbour’s economy. But all this would achieve would be an exodus of millions of refugees into China, while also threatening the foundations of a state that Beijing regards as a vital buffer against American influence.
In this context, North Korea’s very weakness is a diplomatic strength. China cannot exert economic pressure on its neighbour without bringing about its implosion, meaning that Beijing’s supposed leverage is largely illusory. So North Korea chose to become a nuclear-armed power in explicit defiance of China’s wishes and, for all the expressions of mutual esteem, relations between the two powers are complicated by tension and mistrust.
Insulated from outside pressure by their own spectacular economic failure, is there any chance of North Korea’s leaders choosing themselves to open up and reform?
Brian Myers believes that bellicose anti-Americanism and the sense that North Korea’s national mission is to resist the corruption of an evil world are the only ways for the regime to secure its legitimacy. If the younger Kim were ever to relinquish these battle cries in favour of an accommodation with Planet Earth, he would probably jeopardise the regime’s survival.
“The unpleasant truth,” Myers writes, “is that one can neither bully nor cajole a regime – least of all one with nuclear weapons – into committing political suicide.”
If North Korea’s leadership one day decides to “trade a heroic nationalist mission for mere economic growth”, it might just as well dissolve itself into South Korea and accept reunification on Seoul’s terms. So the succession from one Kim to the next is unlikely to ease the confrontation across Asia’s divided peninsula that has persisted for more than 60 years.
Reform may come, but only when human mortality sweeps away the pillars of the present regime. As the new leader is under 30, we may be in for a long wait.
Additional reporting by Malcolm Moore
***
Showing 1-25 of 34 comments
simon_coulter
Today 09:39 AM
It's all propaganda and sh*te. Despite decades of mind moulding the average North Korean knows it - but practices such superb adherence to the required Party line that the regime thinks it is getting away with it still.
China could end the nightmare of the Kims overnight - but prefers a suffering buffer zone to letting the South reunite with the North and US influence reach her borders.
Jackthesmilingblack
Today 09:10 AM
DPRK: 1984 made flesh.
"This book, '1984', by this bloke, Orwell: Do you think we can make it fly?"
Kubrickguy
Today 08:11 AM
Instead of being the world’s last Communist state, North Korea is best understood as a murderous laboratory for the utopian fantasies of the fascist Right... What???? Since when was Communism on the right???
Fascism and communism are pure statism therefore both belong on th left.
Left = Statism and collectivism
Right = individualism and freedom
I am sick of being told fascism is right by left wing academics. It is Statist and collectivist therefore left wing.
imnokuffar
Today 07:07 AM
Rock it with Kim Jong Ill he is not longer Ill he is dead !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
thinkoutsideofthebox
Today 05:40 AM
Another lunatic steps into the shoes of his insane father to continue much of the same as before. The civilised world watches, wrings its hands in frustration and looks at ways of getting more food aid to the victim citizens. The Chinese communist party quietly take steps to continue propping up this insane system in the false belief it buffers them from western aggression. Cut of the head of the venomous serpant ( The Chinese communist party) and millions will benefit not just in north Korea but also China, Tibet, Xinjiang and the greater Asia region. Stop investing the worlds global manufacturing and monies in communist controlled China RIGHT NOW.
lels67
Today 04:56 AM
phlpn.es/829r8s
muldooney
Today 04:53 AM
Get a grip David Blair, Kim Jong-un a "Child Soldier" ? he's 27 not 7 you idiot.
pinkpanther
Today 12:34 AM
Um, fascism isn't right wing; there's no such thing as a right wing dictatorship. Fascism is just socialism with added racism.
______ simonlove
42 minutes ago
Yes, you're absolutely correct. Hence, Hitler's party were called the National Socialist party which was a very nationalistic/racist form of socialism...
It's the left leaning media, especially the BBC which for decades now, has gone to such great lengths to perpetually portray fascism as something which is ostensibly 'Right Wing' and inherently evil.
This is of course, so that nobody would ever think the BBC were in anyway the baddies. No the BBC are the goodies naturally—on the side of righteousness and goodness and wholesomeness. Promoting racial pluralism and equality for all, at every opportunity.
Of course, this isn't propaganda because propaganda, is intrinsically evil and the BBC being the good guys are obviously incapable of evil.
______ Kubrickguy
Today 08:14 AM
Well said! At last some sense, please read my post above. Fed up with leftist socialist academic lie that fascism is right. It is statist, collectivist and therefore left.
______ AntonyUK
Today 06:55 AM
Hope you will be so sure about "racism" when you find the UK has a white minority race in about 50 years.
______ toadbrother
Today 01:43 AM
Of course there's such a thing as a right-wing dictatorship. Latin America was filled with them, run by conservative elements in the name of the wealthy landowners.
____________ Kubrickguy
Today 08:14 AM
That's very different!
carbonbonds
Today 12:29 AM
I recall seeing Americans Wailing when Hoover Died and when Kennedy Died.
Maybe its nota dictatorial Regime and the news we get is Fake.
Did America invade Iraq for its Brocolli ?
Surely America will got to North Korea to liberate the starving children.
After all , they liberate everything that has Weapons of Mass destruction.
north Korea had WMD's we must go in and have to go in , we cant not go in , and dont forget the Brocolli we can get as they dont have any OIL.
______ Olie
Today 08:55 AM
America invaded Iraq because the French and British feared reigniting the reputation that they were, and still are Imperialists.
America does all the jobs the European states are too afraid to pull off themselves.
America is not loved enough for all its good intentions.
There are 32,000,000 vehicles in the UK alone that require fuel, and there were only a few 1000 men & non-men ready to provide the masses with the resource they refuse to live without.
Poor old America, noone cares :(
nowweareseventy
Today 12:16 AM
So why are North Koreans weeping and wailing. Because those that don't will be reported to the authorities. I recommend "Nothing To Envy" by Barbara Demeck for those who want an insight into the repulsive regimes that run North Korea. It won a £20,000 prize for non-fiction (sponsored by the BBC). Any apologists for North Korea should go and live there. Then maybe they will be among the millions who either die from starvation or live in poverty. The Government is and has been utterly and totally incompetent. Neighbouring countries, with similar natural resources, are moving up in the world while North Korea's leaders squander any cash there is on themselves. Two points: I note the departed dear leader's favourites films were Daffy Duck cartoons, which suggests he had a mental age of a primary school pupil. And his successor is, judging from photographs, incredibly ugly.
______ AntonyUK
Today 06:57 AM
? what has "incredibly ugly" got to do with anything? Take a look around the average UK High Street........should want to make you puke! Ugly he says..ye god's believe me there are no English Roses left or (to be non sexist) any really good looking home-grown guys
matteos80
Today 12:05 AM
He's a King, what's so different to him and any of the monarchs in Britains history? Some of whom inherited the throne much younger without the aid of nuclear weapons to protect them from external threats and a propaganda machine to continue to brainwash the populace.
______ bebeeshuman
Today 03:55 AM
to Mateos80: None of the monarchs of Britain have starved to death or killed 3 million fellow citizens in 2 years as Kim Jung Il did.
______ cardinalpugwash
Today 02:48 AM
Grow up and actually read a bit of history, please!
______ toadbrother
Today 01:46 AM
I doubt you can find too many moments in English history when kings ever wielded the powers that the Kims have in North Korea. Best check out the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution to find out what happened to kings who believed a little too much in Divine Right and Absolutism.
carbonbonds
Yesterday 11:46 PM
Apparently they are isolated because they dont want to be enslaved to the Western system of banking. But what would i know , I just make stuff up on the internet.
Kind of like what happened to Libia and Iraq , oh no wait , they have Central Banks and are controlled by outside forces now.
So lets see , Bank of international Settlements , central bank in each country , no wait , invade them call NATO and get the UN to say they are shonks .
North Korea , no central bank , no Oil no resources , dont bother !
______ majorplonquer
Today 03:29 AM
Two articles from Wikipedia:
1. North Korean Central Bank: The Central Bank of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is North Korea's central bank. Established on December 6, 1947, it issues the North Korean wŏn. Ri Kwang-gon is its president since April 2009.
2. carbonbonds: An utter dickhead who just makes stuff up on the Internet.
______ toadbrother
Today 01:47 AM
I think you're just a NK propagandist, or possibly a Chinese one. I don't know why your governments think they can sway opinion with such easily identifiable claptrap.
______ matteos80 Today 12:07 AM
Funny that Ghaddaffi put all his billions in Swiss banks, maybe he'd have been better off with an internal bank considering how we froze his assets
_______________
What do you think ?
Các anh chị nghĩ thế nào, có ý kiến phê bình gì qua bài viết "Kim Jong-un, the child soldier, takes over in North Korea" và 25 ý kiến phê bình trong số "34 Comments" của đọc giả ?
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
20122011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
No comments:
Post a Comment