1. Do some research and explain the origin of the
North Korean Communist Regime.
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The official flag of North Korea
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In 1910, after the 5-year
Russo-Japanese War, Japan annexed the peninsula of Korea as a colony. By that
way, the king Gojong was removed, and the entire nation of Korea became a
district of the Japanese empire, which made a lot of efforts and investments
(hydro-electric dams, steel mills, manufacturing plants, energy
stations...) to convert Korea into a more industrialized nation, removing
the subsistence farming in which the Korean economy was based. Besides, this
political crisis in Korea led to the appearance of radical and nationalist
groups in the interior of the peninsula and in Manchuria, which
were influenced by the early communist party of Russia. For that reason,
Japan failed in his aim to unify the entire Korea under his government, and
when the World War II finished, the peninsula of Korea and the rest of the
colonies of Japan were divided between the USSR and the USA. According to this
treatment, the Korean Peninsula was divided in two parts taking the 38º
parallel as the dividing line between the Soviet zone and the American zone.
The northern area was left to the soviets and the southern part was left to the
Americans that take the control of the capital Seoul. Although in the first
moment the aim was to unify the two Koreas, the politics, ideologies and the
emerging Cold War separated both countries. At the beginning of North
Korea as a separated nation from South Korea, the Provisional Government
(Provisional People's Committee for North Korea) was established. Kim Il-Sung,
a fervent communists from Korea that belonged to the nationalist's movements
that took place after the Russo-Japanese War, was set as the provisional
premier.
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North Korean childs during the Korean War
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However, the treatment of division
of Korea in 1948, in which the leaders of the world powers said that they
were "mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea ...
determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent”; was
like a bomb for the radical and communist groups, whose wanted independence
immediatly. For that reason, as the unification was impossible, the South was
declared as an independent state, what led its north partners to do the same,
proclaiming the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (DPRK). From
that point on, the tension raised rapidly and that pressure gave place to the
Korean War in 1950.
2. Find three recent news about North Korea from
different digital sources and include the links to them.
Source: The New York Times By: Jane Perlez and Yufan Huang March
31, 2016
Source: CNN By: Paula Hancocks
April 6, 2016
Source: National Post By: Tim Sullivan
April 4, 2016
3. What are the names of the North Korean leaders
mentioned in the documentary? Who is
the current leader of the country?
4. What are the instruments used by these leaders to
maintain this dictatorial regime?
In my opinion, the main
instruments used by the North Korean leaders to maintain this dictatorial
regimen are: strict restrictions, the Juche communist ideology
(based on subsistence), cult of the personality of the leader, control of
information and arbitrary laws.
On one hand, the three dictators
have set strict restrictions to what can be said, to what can enter into the
country (goods and ideologies) and to what can be done if you are a North
Korean. In fact, this dictatorship imposes a schedule for all the inhabitants
that must be followed and also imposes strict rules regarding to the devotion
that must be shown to the leader "because it saved the North Koreans from
the humiliating conquest of the Americans". Also, as a closed and reserved
communist nation, there are no private properties or independent organizations,
and every aspect of life is controlled by the government. For that reason,
everyone that breaks the rules, even when there is no apparent cause, is send
to the "reeducation" system; and severe cases are sentenced with the
death. In fact, there is no rule established in that country, and whoever that
shows a different opinion or whoever that is considered as a possible problem
for the stability of the government, is sentenced within an arbitrary law
system (E.g: the uncle of nowadays leader Kim Jong-un, who was sentenced to
death because someone suspected he was planning to take the power).
Finally, one of the main tools
used by this dictatorship to maintain stability is the cult of the personality
of the leader that is shown as a god that comes to save the North Koreans from
the threats of the exterior. In fact, they use the TV programs, the newspapers
and everything that could influence the opinion of the people to
"sell" the boss of the nation as a multifaceted man that is able to
control the country, give everyone everything they need and even able to write
18,000 books, what means he must had written one book a day during 49 years!
Also, this propaganda is focused on reinforce an anti-Japanese sentiment, the
hostility to South Korea and the hate to Americans while it gives a manipulated
image of the world to the inhabitants and shows North Korea as a world example
of progress and innovation (E.g: the nuclear weapons).
5. What's the meaning of the word "gulag"?
What does it come from? Is there
anything similar in NK?
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North Korean prisoners of a Gulag |
These camps imprisoned suspected political traitors
from the Korean War and were used as both punishment and propaganda to terrify
North Koreans. Nowadays, although Korean leaders say these camps don't exist,
are used to punish people that dislikes the regime. Besides, the conditions within the camps are of near or even total starvation, particularly in times of national food deficit. Prisoners are given just enough food to avoid the death and are forced into hard labor, such as mining, logging and wood cutting. GULAG (in English means "prisoner") was the
General Direction of the Working Camps of the USSR, which lasted from 1930 to
1960. Actually, it did not control the Working camps of the Soviet Union, but
it controlled all the soviet system of forced labor. This term comes from the origins of comunism in Russia (1917, the Bolshevik Revolution), that established a system of Working Camos before, during and after the World War II, where they punished political defectors and also Nazi prisoners that came directly from Nazi Working Camps.
6. According to the video, what are the main
characteristics of a dictatorship?
Usually, a dictatorship can be resumed in the next
sentence "Nothing against the state, everything for the state, nothing
outside the state". In fact, the video of North Korea by Jon Sistiaga
depicts an actual dictatorship, based on the following characteristics:
1. One Party lead by the Dictator
In this dictatorship only one party is allowed to
exist and it is Kim Jong-un’s own party. Other political parties, associations
and organizations are not allowed to function.
Besides leadership is given to a single man, the
leader, who is considered as a symbol of national prestige. For that reason, he
is the final authority in every matter and his word is supreme.
2. No Individual Liberty:
People is not allowed to enjoy any liberty of speech,
association or press. Consequently, all agencies of education and propaganda
(E.g: schools, colleges, TV, newspapers…) are controlled by the state, and only
the outstanding students are allowed to go to university while the rest are
forced to work in the fields.
3. Nationalism:
Kim Jong-un grants North Korea to the extreme,
teaching a sense of patriotism to the people.
Koreans are supposed to sacrifice themselves for the
nation and the leader, and a big and usually disproportionate army is formed
for the protection of the “independence” of the country. In fact, some of the
documents that the USA and other European Countries have, tell that almost 25%
of North Korean national budget finance the army (For example, it finances the
Nuclear investigations or the construction of highways for the army)
4. Totalitarian State:
North Korea is a totalitarian state that controls
every aspect of human personality, and determines what the Korean citizens must
do in their social, economic, political, educational, and cultural life.
7. Compare the life of a North Korean family with your
own. In addition, try to describe the life of a North Korean teenager of
your same age.
Comparing the life of a North
Korean family to the life of an Occidental family like mine, I would classify
the differences into three groups: lifestyle, technology and human rights.
Lifestyle:
The differences between the lifestyle of
a North Korean family and an occidental family like mine are huge, and the
first one that comes to my mind is the use of time. North Koreans have a
scheduled plan made by the regime for all the activities they should accomplish
(for example on Saturdays, teenagers must dedicate their time to study) while
the occidentals have the freedom to do whatever they want to whenever they want
to (for example going to the cinema on Fridays). Besides, other difference
between my society and that society is the transportation system, as in North
Korea almost nobody has a car, and people must go by bikes or even go walking:
while in my society there is a modernized public transportation system
available for everybody and also a huge number of private cars.
Furthermore, the North Korean regime
controls where do the families should live, as well as they decide and force
those families to change their homes periodically to prevent the establishment
of relationships between inhabitants. Even, people in North Korea has to wear
the same type of clothes (they avoid jeans, because those are a symbol of the
USA), while in Occidental societies everyone could wear whatever he/she wants
to.
Technology:
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| A screenshot of the Kwangmyong intranet |
Apart from this, also the domestic
technological devices such as washing machines or even TV's are considered
luxurious items because of both the high price of those devices and the
difficulties to access to a continuous electric supply. Also, I believe there are several
differences between a North Korean family and my own family if we talk about
technology. In fact, one of the most shocking facts I have found when comparing
both types of family is that in North Korea, there isn't a free internet for
the inhabitants, but there is a kind of internet called Kwangmyong, which
is referred in the documentary as an intranet. It prevents domestic users
within North Korea to access foreign information and also avoids the filtration
of classified data. In reality it is just a censorship of information for the
North Koreans that can afford a device with intranet access, that are the ones
of a high social class very close to the regime. In fact, according to the
information that the USA government manages, only a 0.03% of the population of
North Korea has access to the intranet.
Human Rights:
Regarding to Human Rights, I can
highlight the following differences between my family and a North Korean one:
-There is a right of privacy and to decide about our
future, while in North Korea this is not possible at all.
-There is a judicial equality for everybody while in
North Korea the justice is arbitrary and false accusations are very common.
-There is a right to elect the representatives freely,
while in North Korea, despite there are elections, the leader is continuously
re-elected.
Finally, talking about the
life of a North Korean teenager in a dictatorial regime and my own life in an
Occidental society, I would say that the differences are innumerable and
related to every field. One of the main differences would be the way be are
educated. Despite a North Korean teen would probably have basic skills to read
and calculate with numbers, he/she would have an anti-American and anti-South Korea
feeling based on manipulated information. Also, I believe the way this teen
communicates with other people would be very different from mine, as this teen
would have no access to social networks or to phones, so, relationships with
other people would be quite scarce.
Image of an Army parade
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1 comentario:
Excellent work Mario. Your English is getting more precise and the answers are very well argumented.
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