I’ve heard from some analysts that Kim is tired of being marginalized and kept on the sidelines of world activity. The United States says, Yes, we’ll throw you a few words now and then to reassure you we know you exist, but as long as you stay inside your borders we’d prefer to stay busy in the Middle East. China says, Yes, we’ll dump some resources over the border to keep you approximately functional, but as long as you aren’t too much of a nuisance we’ll continue to regard you mostly as a tool for larger aims. And so on. Who wouldn’t resent being treated as an afterthought?
Partly it’s about the respect issue already mentioned, but at this point, the analysts say, it’s probably more basic than that; Kim, according to this view, just wants attention.
In other words, Team America had it weirdly right: Kim is ronery.
Kim is [list=A][li]trying to scare people by acting so crazy that the world believes he might start lobbing nukes, thus increasing the value of his nukes as bargaining chips[/li][li]trying to show that he will not be influenced by anyone, even a patron like Red China[/li][li]grabbing what he wants (a train) because that is what he has been able to do all his life[/list][/li]
This works sort of like the famines in NK. Kim wants the world to believe that he has nothing to lose by starting WWIII, so he can get what he wants by threatening to do so.
(Russian language. I originally saw these pictures on a forum where someone had translated the captions. Unfortunately, they banned external linking, so this is the source. Also, Babelfish at Alta Vista was not much help)
I have a mental picture of a foreign-affairs analyst writing up a report on North Korea like the psychiatrist taking notes in that Far Side cartoon: “JUST PLAIN NUTS”.
Even then, the rulers of the absolute government have some of the old ways ingrained into their own thinking. My guess is that a sustained internally-generated attempt to wipe out the fundamental precepts of a culture would take about three generations.
I know almost nothing about North Korea, but it seems to me that the axiom that “all politics is local” might well apply to many of Kim’s crazy actions–crazed despots never sit easy, and it may well be that internal concerns motivate him more often than external ones. It seems to me he’s most likely to die at the hands of someone in his government/millitary, and keeping the various factions there placated/cowed is probably his first priority.
Now, how stealing a train might function as a gesture in local politics, I have no clue, but there’s a chance it makes sense in that context. It makes no sense in an international context.
If I were the Chinese goverment, I’d just say, “[sigh] All right, all right! This one’s a freebie! But from now on we use the same train for every shipment to NK. Do the math.”
Ah, thats easy…the NK’s probably need that train. Fairly badly in fact. So…it would be a local bone on a few different levels…both the utility of having a train that actually works as well as showing the locals how tough Kimmy is…he can even get away with tweeking the noses of the Chinese!
Policies and official ideology in China has varied considerably over that period (consider the situation now versus that of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward”). North Korea is more consistent, and the current younger generation there probably doesn’t have much of a frame of reference beyond the cult of Kim (for obvious reasons, it’s hard to get a read on how much non-approved information they’ve gotten despite the regime’s efforts).
Going back to the OP, I’d say that the regime has fired off a wave of Fukk Yu missiles in order to glorify the Leader at home and in the hope of gaining leverage to negotiate bigger aid packages from abroad.
I love that the best picture they can get is a bunch of badly dressed dudes who look like they’ve had their hair cut with weed whackers, freaking out in delight because the westerner has a digital camera! Implies that there’s only one other one in North Korea, and that’s owned by Kim.
Westerner: Why yes, that is a naked picture of my wife. You’re allowed to do that in the free world, you know. More pictures? Well, maybe after you guys can browse the Internet without getting shot, you can visit our website. Of course, you’ll have to wait until you have credit cards, too!
Complete isolation makes programming the masses efficient. They build a case that the imperialistic capitalists wish to kill them and take over. Its an easy case with their history and their problems with us. Break down the walls. Have talks and start trade. A little light would be antiseptic.
The people are in a bad way. They think their leader is god and we want to kill their god and then them. A little exploitive capitalism will fix it up ice.
When you first click on “Enter here”, you are directed to a page with the title “The Leaders are the sun of the nation and mankind” with pictures of “The Great Leader Kim II Sung” and “The Great Leader Kim Jong IL”, with links to a biography for each. The short biography of Kim Jong IL is a 160 pc PDF, which starts with
I haven’t tried to plow my way through any more of that document yet.
From there you head to a page with links such as:
“Tourism” (Air Koryo and Visa info)
“Geography” (A map and very general geography info)
“History” with content like
“Friendship” -
All in all, it reads like a high school level term paper, tacked onto a low budget tourism/chamber of commerce website. Lots of jabs at western countries. Lots of “the glorious state” style statements.
I tried to torture myself by reading parts to the bitter end, but MEGO set in and my eyes haven’t yet uncrossed. Amazing how so many words can be used without saying a damn thing.
I think the real problem is that he’s living in an echo chamber. It’s a basic design flaw of dictatorship. If the boss is so powerful that nobody dares tell him anything but what they think he wants to hear, he will rarely notice when he is making a mistake.