This was true of Stalin’s Russia ,too.
I know a man who was a child at the time Stalin died. He told me that his entire school was lined up and told to cry for Papa Stalin. And he did…Even children understood what would happen to you if you invited suspicion on your self or your family.
I have bolded Jang’s replies that led to his end of life. If true then Jang was not alone in his quest to over throw Kim Jong Un.
It’s just a matter of time before someone else does succeed … they won’t make the same mistakes, but instead they will hope for a coup to bring stability even if they have to die for it.
Except for that whole it being illegal in South Korea to communicate with North Korean entities without prior approval of the South Korean government thing.
Yeah. I read that report and immediately thought, “Wow. The Norks are publishing a ‘how-to’ guide to overthrow their dictatorship. There’s no way that’s what’s been published inside the country.”
I think you all have cause and effect mixed up here. The trial is best understood as about ritual, not truth. I am sure he clapped and willingly stood as much as anyone around him: he wasn’t stupid. And the “confession”, if he made it at all, was “coached”. First they decided to kill him: then they went looking for reasons that would also advance some political goal. There is no reason to think that the real reason is in any way connected to the pretexts.
I don’t know how much stock I’d put into his confession, seeing how it was probably staged, made up or coached to excuse assassination of a potential rival.
It’ll be nice when NK falls, but they could be stable for decades. What would cause them to fall really? A military coup (what would motivate a military coup, and how could one be organized in a nation as totalitarian as NK)? A public uprising (I don’t know if they are able seeing how indoctrinated and terrified they are)? Internal reforms by high ranking officials? The people in charge of NK supposedly don’t buy into the kim worship (according to Andrei Lankov) but they realize any reform will cause them to not only lose all their power/wealth but if they are lucky end up in prison in the Hague. if they are unlucky, tortured to death by their victims in a revolution.
Thirty more years of terror and starvation seems to be more and more likely sadly. At least that is what I’m taking from this. Hopefully I’m wrong.
I’m wondering how all those folks who’ve lost relatives to the camps because another relative screwed up somehow are going to react to the wife of this particular “screw up” being promoted.
That’s the difference between us and them. We live in a world where, at least in theory, we expect the same rules to apply to everyone. They don’t. The concept is probably utterly alien to them.