Kim Jong-un, left, heir-apparent to the recently deceased Kim Jong-il, right. Photo credit: Dan Chung of The Guardian.
You’ve probably heard by now that North Korea’s infamous ruler, Kim Jong-il, is dead.
He was a strange and horrible man, supreme leader of a strange and horrible country. The nation he ruled is so reclusive, it’s known as the Hermit Kingdom. It is a place where famines kill hundreds of thousands of people, a place where Nazi-style concentration camps (like Camp 22) still exist, a place locked in the absolute grip of a government that controls every aspect of daily life. It is Orwell’s 1984 brought to life. (Take a look at their surreal official website.)
Kim Jong-il himself was a man of many eccentricities. He was a big fan of western movies, and once kidnapped a South Korean filmmaker to help him create his own version of Godzilla. He was so scared of flying that he would only leave the country by train. He claimed to have sunk eleven holes-in-one on his first try playing golf. And, yes, he was responsible for some of worst atrocities in human history.
He died of heart failure on Saturday, 69 years old. Good riddance.
His youngest son, Kim Jong-un, is his appointed successor, but he’s inexperienced, and power struggles behind the scenes are probable. I hope somehow, because of all this, something will change. It doesn’t seem likely, but I can hope. Right now, I honestly think a civil war would be better for North Korea than its current state of affairs.
(Technically, Korea is still in a civil war between North and South. Armed troops still stare each other down across the border, as they have for the past fifty-eight years.)
If anything’s going to change, I’m afraid it will have to come from the top. Protests swept the world in 2011, from Tunisia to Libya to Russia, but those protests relied on masses of angry citizens who knew what their government was up to. The people of North Korea are force-fed so much propaganda that it’s hard to imagine any kind of grassroots revolution taking hold.
By the way, North Korea officially calls itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Article 67 of its constitution reads as follows:
Citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, demonstration and association.
That’s what words on paper are worth. That’s what the First Amendment would be worth, too, if Americans stopped caring (or paying attention). Something to consider if you describe your political affiliation as “apathetic.”
Okay, I’m done. Old Man Buckley is off his soapbox.
Tell me, what does this shift in power mean to you?
Brian D. Buckley 
As much as I would like to think that things are going to improve, I don’t believe that’s going to be the case. Apparently the military might not support Kim Jong-un, but what good is a military takeover of the government? After all, we can see what good that’s done in Egypt.
I read an article several months ago in The Atlantic about people smuggling videos across the border in an effort to spread information counter to the propaganda. As discouraging as it sounds, maybe the only hope for North Korea is for these little things to continue to chip away at the status quo until the change can come bottom up.
Yeah, I’ve also heard stories that the people of North Korea are no longer as brainwashed as the government might hope. There have been many cases of people fleeing the country and then sneaking back in. Every little bit helps, presumably.
I don’t know what it means to me, but it will definitely be interesting to watch. I hope the revolutionaries there are ready to take advantage of this opportunity — or make it into one.
Funny side note: Apparently a lot of people (self included) found out about Kim Jong-Il’s death through Twitter. SOME people didn’t read closely enough and thought LIL KIM had died. …
And sadly, there’s proof:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/people-that-thought-lil-kim-died
I’ve been to South Korea twice, both for short stays of 4 days or less. But in that time, I really came to love the Korean people. I visited the Demilitarized Zone and the propaganda museum (okay, that’s not really what it’s called) and watched movies about the way the Korean peninsula was split in half. I talked to tour guide/historians about the differences between North and South Korea, and what that means to the people.
Kim Jong Il was not a good man. Or a nice man. Or someone to be respected at all. But he was the “enemy you know”. Kim Jong Un is supposedly less stable than his father, doesn’t have the backing of the military, and doesn’t have the experience to deal with any potential coup. But it’s not him that will suffer — it’s the people of North Korea who will be caught in the crossfire.
And, like all weak leaders, he will probably realise that the best way to get the military and the people behind him is to go to war on someone else. Lucky for Kim Jong Un, he’s already at war. And has been for almost 60 years. There’s a reason that, on hearing of Kim Jong Il’s death, the first thing South Korea did was increase its military presence. If hostilities escalate on the peninsula, it’s only a short hop, skip and a jump to the U.S. and China facing off. And that’s a conflict no one will win.
So yes, Kim Jong Il was a bad man. (With a capital B.) But I rue his passing for what it will mean to the people of the Korean peninsula.
I wonder. It feels like Kim Jong-il was keeping North Korea frozen in place. Some kind of governmental instability might be the only thing that can thaw the ice, and could be a positive in the long run.
But yeah, I’m afraid you’re right. In the short term, at least, the people will pay the price.