The Reality of North Korea
North Korea has been labeled as a mysterious state as the country is secluded from the rest of the world. The Democratic People 's Republic of Korea is a small country with a population of 25 million and is under a communist model of power. The country has been under control of the Kim dynasty since 1948, it began with Kim Il-Song and since then they have remained in power to this current day. The leaders are plastered all over the city of Pyongyang, with statues and murals on the wall and with the citizens wearing pins with the previous leaders to show their dedication to the regime. The city itself is a front to demonstrate a dynamic and advanced country. The regime has been successful for years, regardless of the fact that the government is repressive and the numerous violations of human rights. After the mismanagement of the famine crisis, which resulted in possibly millions of deaths. How is it possible for the regime to be still intact, especially when so many countries before them, have failed. The regime has successfully indoctrinated children at a young age through their education system, the barricading of information and their implanting of fear among the population.
It seems the people of North Korea have a strong emotional attachment to the Kim 's, which is not surprising since the country is so small it is understandable for Kim to establish strong relationships with his people and allow the population to gain trust in him. However,
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be governed by a dictatorship? What laws do the citizens of a dictatorship have to follow? Who is the dictator, and what is he/she’s responsibilities? Where else in the world is dictatorship being practiced? A dictatorship is a government ruled by a dictator that grants citizens limited rights and is practiced by many countries. Today, North Korea is the most widely-discussed county that is governed by a dictatorship.
They aren’t told stuff about their own country, that they have the right to know. If that information gets out into the public, than that would put the leader’s command in threat. More than three quarters of the population doesn’t have enough to eat. North Korea believes that the Americans started the Korea War. There are many orphans in North Korea, but only a few escaped from the country. North Korea has many markets to shop at just like the United States. Even though the stores are stocked with many goods, many of the items aren’t for sale, they are only to show.
North Korea is a country that is ruled by a dictator and has a communist government. A communist government rules all the land and gives the same amount of money and supplies to all the people in the country. “Daily Necessities were obtained from the Public Distribution System (PDS)” (95,Hassig). The PDS shut down in 1995 because foreign aid was cut off expect for Pyongyang, the capital city. In rural areas, a lot of the children were born as “no-count” meaning that when they were born they weren’t counted as part of the existing society and didn’t have supplies given to them. North Korea was once a unified country with South Korea until September 9, 1948 when it became a separate country. From 1910 to 1945 Japan had ruled
The government structure of North Korea has its existence in one man, Kim Jong Un. It existed in his father, Kim Jong Il, before him, and in his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, before him. North Korea has one of the few successful hereditary dictatorships based on a personalistic regime where the leaders are worshipped as almost a deity (after Kim Il-sung’s death he was made “eternal president”) creating a dynastic transfer of power (Aoki, 2012). In China the one party of the Chinese Communist Party will rule as an Authoritarian body over the nation, but in North Korea the sole power rest dangerously in the arms of one person. Some of the reason for this dissimilarity between the two government structures lies in the country’s differing political cultures.
The conflict I am focusing on is the conflict between North Korea and the USA.
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 Koreaś government is a dictatorship with Kim Jong-un as the dictator. The North Koreans treat Jong-un as a god and that he
The Secret State of North Korea offered a great look into what basic things North Koreans are lacking. Even within the realm of Communism. Lack of freedoms, lack of food, lack of community, lack of trust, lack of a social society, lack of programs for children, lack of equality, and a lack of information. When Kim Il-Sung created North Korea, the government was based on Marxism and Leninism, called “Juche.” Just as the Soviets, the North Koreans followed suite with massive inequality between the government officials and the common people. The documentary showed its viewers what the government is omnipresent in the everyday lives of its people, so much so that recordings of daily life are illegal, and “random” searches take place commonly.
Understanding how North Korea as a country defines itself in a changing world. Where do they derive their customs and practices, political standings and military power? Define North Korea’s history leading into the modern age and define its culture and characteristics and how they interact with the world today. Understanding a subject as broad as the term culture begins where the culture began with the birth of civilization and the people that influenced it. There are many factors that play a role in the shaping of a nation none so much as turmoil and conflict and the Korean peninsula saw its fair share for the better part of a millennia. A complete statistical breakdown of North Korea shows a struggling nation that strongly depends on
The division of Korea in 1945 would turn out to be an almost perfect social experiment. A single peninsula with largely the same geography, history, culture, and economy, was divided into two parts: one communist, and one capitalist. Looking at it now, it’s apparent the South Koreans can be declared the winners, with an average South Korean citizen being 42 times richer than one from the ‘communist utopia’ of the DPRK.[1], as well as having much higher levels of education, a higher life expectancy, a stronger military, et cetera. All of this makes it tempting to see North Korea as a failed state, and even easier to laugh when it threatens countries much more powerful than itself. Despite having the GDP of a small African country you’ve barely heard of; the North has managed to keep itself from civil war and most other crises associated with third world countries. How come the Kim regime has managed to retain their sovereignty and wealth, ruling over a nation that literally worship them as gods? I believe the Kim regime is much more strategic and intelligent than we may think.
Kim has also shown the world how questionable, impulsive, and illogical his leadership is. Just months after filling father Kim Jong-il’s role as leader Kim Jong-un ousted “older advisers who had been loyal to his father, Kim Jong Il” (Harlan). Kim didn’t stop there, after ridding himself of loyal and trusted advisers Kim recently accused his “uncle Jang Song Thaek, of opposing his rise and plotting an overthrow” (Harlan). Political experts and people alike see Kim’s purge of his fathers advisers and Kim’s execution of his uncle as an attempt to hold all power in North Korea. “Hong Kwan-hee, a professor in the Department of North Korea Studies”, believes “In the short run this kind of action could give Kim a more strong power base, but in the long run North Korea will be faced by very fundamental political instability” (MacLeod). Kim Jong-un in an effort to gain power has ridden North Korea of some of its best leaders and advisors. Possibly due to the lack of advisors Kim has been known to handle situations unprofessionally and irrationally. For example do to South Korean
North Korea appears on the international stage as a country existing beyond the world we all know. It isolates its citizens from the rest of international community and does not obey any rules determined by international law, but requires respect and recognition. Moreover, North Korea is one of the countries that remains aggressive towards its neighbors and applies various terrorist techniques, i.e. illegal contraband, political terror and mass abductions of other countries’ citizens in its foreign policy. The reasons for which the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) behaves so unpredictably and irrationally are diversified. First of all, the DPRK as a country is managed very irrationally – regimes of Kim Il-sung and
This article deals with the United States and its attempts to deal with the dangerous matters of North Korea. Some of the problems that were brought up in this article were North Korea’s plan to restart a plutonium based nuclear program at Yongbyon, North Korea’s plan to build a new highly enriched uranium (HEU) nuclear program, and the tension that emerged between the United States and South Korea. Even though many problems were occurring, there were some positive things that were happening at the time. The United States began negotiating with North Korea and South Korea about establishing railroad links, demining portions of the demilitarized zone, allowing athletes to compete in the Asian games, and allowing abductees to visit Japan.
North Korea (officially named the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) is a single-party Communist state in south-east Asia, ruled since 1949 by the Korean Workers' Party (KWP). Regarded by many in the international community as a pariah state (meaning that it is an outcast), North Korea has in recent years become increasingly poverty-stricken, with many of its citizens having barely enough food to survive.
The negotiations talking on the nuclear threaten and the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula has recently shaped the agenda of North Korean system of international relations, thus affecting the patterns of foreign policy of the DPRK. This issue has gained such a priority to lead to the establishment of the 6PT experiment, thus proving to stand at the core of the debate on the stability and safety debate in the Northeast Asia region.