Songbun System In North Korea

In the book Northing to Envy, Barbara Demick describes North Korea as an undeveloped country. “You can see the evidence of what once was and has been lost…” (4,Demick) The North Koreas aren’t up to the modern world and still haven’t learned that all humans need rights to be happy. Many aspects of human rights are broken in North Korean society that affect the people negatively, making them feel violated.

Also the lack of jobs has led to the majority of the people to be below the poverty line. And the ones with jobs do not get paid much or at all due to government corruption. For example, “Men are forced to work long hours for the government, often without pay, and those that don’t show up for work risk imprisonment”. Which has led to men working worthless jobs and women becoming the breadwinners of the families but still not having the same respect as men. The North Korean government is forcing these men to work for free while their families have no food to eat. Brainwashing and propaganda are also major aspects of the regime to keep the people scared of the world outside North Korea, namely the United States, Japan and South Korea. As shown, “Ak (evil) may be the single most commonly used word to describe Americans. The derogatory term nom, similar to calling someone a bastard, is inevitably attached to the end of any word referring to Americans”. Children from a young age are taught to refer to Americans in such manner to install fear in them to always distrust Americans and their aid. Americans are the worst of the worst type of people, according to the Kim regime, because they prevented the reunification of the two Koreas. Followed closely behind by the Japanese, since there is still resentment from the Japanese colonial rule. South Korea is not as

North Koreas government uses its power to control information and restrict independent thought and freedom. The BBC News mentions, “North Koreas economic hardships or famines are not reported to the domestic audience” (North Korea’s Tightly Controlled Media). This shows how the government in North Korea uses their power to keep the inhabitants of the country blind to issues that would cause worry amongst them. The BBC News author later on mentions that rather than inform its citizens on real life issues occurring, they are informed of technological advances developed by their leaders’ revolutionary thinking. By doing this the North Korean government keeps the people blind and ignorant to complicated

Most people live a life without freedom; it could be because of religion, government, family, or authoritative power. Unfortunately, some people live without freedom to an extent in which they have no true thoughts for themselves. Whether it's through the leading powers of their country or by the process of being brainwashed, certain people live their lives mainly for the superior ambitions of their leaders. In North Korea, the citizens, since birth, are meant to honour Kim Jong Un and all his ideals. Similarly, in George Orwell's 1984, Big Brother and the party are the destruction of souls. As analyzed in Mailto Href and Leela Jacintos “The Country Where Big Brother is watching”, North Korea is a replay of George Orwell's 1984 in many ways.

This is stemmed from the animosity their leader holds for the United States. In turn making hatred a part of their culture enforcing it in elementary school. In North Korea they do not have social class due to the fact they state their society has done away with them. The people of North Korea are broken basically into two groups in, which determines your status in North Korea. Depending on your family history you fall under revolutionary or un-revolutionary origins; this means that the more your family helped in developing the country the higher status you will have in the country. The majority of the people in North Korea were not veterans, or do not have an extensive history. They do not have any kind of social reinforcement from their ancestry to have a real future. There is no family that is not more famed than Kim Il Sung’s family. If you are a relative of the Sung’s

North Korea beings a country engulfed by hunger and poverty can not risk showing their citizens the lifestyles of flourishing countries. This alone can start a subvert of the government, as to why they will not permit it to happen. They make it seems like certain pleasures do not exist. In a way it makes it seem like they are stronger than their adversaries. Luxuries in the country are everyday things to people in more progressed countries like the United States. The citizens do not know of this through media control thus thinking they are living a great life and better than average living standard. Despite this not all are contained and many escape which signifies the insubordinates shown in 1984 who do everything to turn on their government. Whether it be doing the bare minimum such as eating or loving an object, or running away from the

Kim Jong Un’s iron fist extends to all domains of the North Korean life. In the digital realm, the restricted intranet serves as a propaganda echo chamber, where only a select few get access to the universal internet that we all use all use every day, however most of these individuals are merely part of a hacking elite look for expanding the military capabilities on North Korea via the digital battlefront. In the social world, a citizen's social class will determine their fate through their education and job opportunities, ensuring only the most loyal of citizens will be able to sustain a well providing job, but no matter what job is at stake, it all must serve the wishes of the Kim Regime. The power of the Kim Regime extends outwards into dozens of outside countries, where laborers are forced to work indefinitely in cruel conditions, however recent moves by the Trump administration may put change North Korea’s ability to exploit the labor. In addition to immense human rights violations of the state-sponsored labor, nothing quite compares to the Nazi-esque labor camps where any citizen will get sent to if they for even the most minor of criticisms of the government. Finally, North Korea continuously creates

According to senior editor Peter Weber of the political The Week magazine, “North Korea isn’t Nazi Germany--in some ways, it’s worse.” In this column Weber points out a 36 page report and its 373 page addendum report conducted by retired Australian judge Michael Kirby of the United Nations that revealed grisly details about the human rights abuses occurring in North Korea. The report was based on testimonies from witnesses and former inmates who had spent time in one of the encampments and who luckily made it out alive. Pyongyang 14 is one of the many camps that Kim Jong-un has in place to exterminate, murder, enslave, torture, and starve his people as the report notes. In addition, there are also forced abortions and other sexual violence that take place in this inhumane setting. North Korea forbids that their citizens know about life outside of the country, so if they attempt to do so there will be room for them in one of the prison camps since Jong-un is expanding their capacity. Something as little as watching a soap opera can land a North Korean in one of these camps, that is if they are not killed right away. For example, 10 people in the country were executed last year by firing squad when upper echelons in the North Korean hierarchy found out that they were watching “foreign” soap operas (Ryall). It is beyond belief that one’s life can be taken for something of such small magnitude. In Weber’s column he describes an interview Kirby had with a one-time prisoner at

North Korea is a communist country filled with many beliefs and power over their people. The country has been a big talk lately making big news in media. They seem to be the center of attention. What’s behind all the controversy? North Korea is an oppressive regime because human rights aren’t allowed and free speech isn’t given.

Kim Il-sung had ultimate control over his people as he had the military to enforce his laws. If a citizen dared to speak up against the government, he and his family would be thrown into horrendous prisons for the next three generations. What makes North Korea different than Rwanda and Haiti is that poverty there was a normal part of life. Kim Il-sung cut off communication with the outside world. He controlled television and radio services to ensure that his people were ignorant that their lives were much worse than the rest of the world. Similar to Haiti, North Koreans were faced with hunger and a lack of basic necessities to live comfortably. A rigid system in North Korea made it impossible for families of lower class to improve their status because of tainted family history. Unlike Haiti’s vacillating government, North Korea was dominated by totalitarianism. North Koreans were taught to believe that they lived in the best place on earth, when in reality, they lived in poverty and domination. Their perception of their lives was caused by the culture that Kim Il-sung created. He instilled loyalty using media, force, and religious practices. This is similar to Rwanda because the Hutus and Tutsis were also taught to believe in the ethnic divisions hat separated them through school systems, religion, and

ABC News stated, “North Korea: Lives of luxury for elite as Kim Jong-un rolls out nationwide reform to combat widespread poverty.” The strict set of rules North Korea lives by is setting the nation up for failure. Their leader is a temperamental, immature, and power hunger man that will lead that nation to defeat. Kim Jong-un is testing with nuclear weapons and is threatening us and many of our allies. Jong-un is spending the money that can be used to help the nation thrive to help him gain personally. There is said to still be an estimated 120,000 prisoners still in labor camps. At these labor camps, torture and executions are common.

The Chapter 3 of Charles Armstrong’s The North Korean Revolution focuses on the social engineering of the nascent North Korean regime that brought about drastic social reforms and its implications on various social groups in the North in relation to the formation of the North Korean party-state. Under the auspices of the Soviet authorities, the North Korean Provisional People’s Committee (NKPPC) initiated massive social reforms that mobilized social groups that were formerly marginalized during the colonial era – most notably peasants, workers, women, and youths – to solidify the emerging communist regime of Kim Il Sung. Above all, land reform was the most crucial of the social reforms of the NKPPC and incorporated the peasantry into the largest support base of the communist regime through the Peasant League. Also, through the KCP-controlled North Korean Federation of Trade Unions (NKFTU), North Korea’s sizable urban proletariat population came under the direct control of the regime and became its most loyal supporters.

To add, the North Korean regime has invested a great amount of time and resources creating the “songbun system”. This system prescribes each citizen with a level of perceived political loyalty based on your family’s background. Your particular songbun level can then restrict your life opportunities, including where you can live, educational opportunities, Party membership, military service, occupation, and treatment by the criminal justice system. Any perceived political infractions by your family will lead to your songbun being demoted.

As for the President in North Korea, the only one to decide and take measures which opposed citizen’s rights. The use of certain attires are prohibited. Denims are considered to “symbolize the enemy — the United States” (web). Constant human right abuse persist as the president demands to maintain the population under his dictatorship where also children are affected as “hundreds of thousands of citizens” (Hrw.org), are enslave in prison camps for minor offenses. Such control emphasizes and reflects what a dystopian world categorizes as it demands society to obey sets of rules which if violated severe consequences can occur.

The North Korean system used to be Marxist-Leninist dictatorship which is the development of a state into what it considers a socialist state through the leadership of a revolutionary vanguard composed of "professional" revolutionaries, an organic part of the working class who come to socialist consciousness as a result of the dialectic of class struggle.