The food shortage in North Korea seems to be getting worse: “Some collective farm workers in those regions (rural areas) have not come to work citing the lack of food, and their absence is causing problems with farming preparations in the spring planting season”.
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As much as this and other evidence exposes the hypocrisies of Juche’s principles of self reliance, one must keep in mind that Juche is more than simply a political philosophy. It is more similar to a religion in how it is used by the DPRK government to successfully focus the population’s anger away from Pyongyang’s shortcomings and on to the purported evils of North Korea’s surrounding neighbors. As such, the North Korean population not only suffers as it must, it is willing to suffer as it believes it must.
Tom, very interesting thoughts.
May I ask you, do you think that ending the state of war between the DPRK and US could facilitate some real changes in the Juche ideology or, as you insightfully write, the Juche religion?
Don’t they need an enemy to keep Juche as it is and justify a military-first policy?
I feel really really bad for the people in North Korea. And disgusted. I used to volunteer for a North Korean human rights advocacy group (The Chosun Journal) until they started advocating human rights by means of war. If anyone knows of a smart, *peaceful* NK human rights advocacy group, or of something that might actually help in some little way, please let me know.
I apologize in advance. This is only tangentially related to the topic, but…
The title of this post is just awful. “What one reaps, one sows” does not accurately reflect the adage “You reap what you sow.” The order is wrong. If you insist upon using “one” rather than “you,” it should be “One reaps what one sows,” or “What one sows, one reaps.”
Beyond that, the insistent usage of a higher register than necessary (e.g., “one” rather than “you”) is extremely formalistic, and stylistically poor.
May I respectfully ask, day4night, what other way there is to advocate human rights? I think that the history of North and South Korea would be a textbook case to show that treaties, agreements, food aid, sanctions, and whatever other methods people have thought of to coerce North Korea have been totally ineffective in establishing human rights for North Koreans. It seems like the only possible alternative to change the North Korean regime is war.
Another point that I think this Korean peninsula situation has illustrated is a quote by Tacitus: “A bad peace is even worse than war.” The number one objection that people have against war is that it kills lots of innocent civilians. But how many innocent North Korean civilians have been killed by this bad peace that exists on the peninsula? Too many, I say, and in a drawn-out tortuous 50 year starvation rather than a quick bullet-to-the-chest or bomb-to-the-house. If I was in the position to choose one year of war or 50 years of starvation for some group of people, I’d definitely choose one year of war.
Sorry “UT”, I was in a hurry, thus the flipped sowing and reaping. I would disagree about using a higher register, as you put it. Such was originally considered proper grammar and I don’t think it is really an issue of style either. If I wanted to ape a style, I might have written “A man reaps as a man sows (soweth?). That’s scary corny though.
day4night,
Your good questions are premised on some basic, widely misunderstood, if quite logical, assumptions about Juche.
One needs to recall that while “Juche” appeared as early as the 1950’s in a Kim Il-Sung speech, it didn’t come unto its own as an “ideology” until the advent of China’s Cultural Revolution that advanced Maoism right up to the banks of the Yalu River.
In a defensive reaction, Kim Il-Sung developed a non-intellectual ideology in the form of Juche which non-concretely represented the fundamental underpinning of North Korean socialism as manifested in all aspects of proper society. Even the Dear Leader’s intellectual explanation of Juche is pretty illogical and confusing. As such, it is a concept to be praised rather than to be understood.
As BR Myers pointed out in last year’s RAS lecture, the entry in N Korea’s official encyclopedia on Juche tower is twice as long as the entry on Juche itself.
Now, to address your questions as best I can given the above attempted clarification, I think Juche in fact needs enemies, both domestic and external, to keep people in a state of readiness and/or fear. So, even with an official ending of war with the US, and even with, let’s say, the establishment of a permanent diplomatic US mission in Pyongyang, Juche would have to stay in place to keep the population in a state of vigilance against corrupting, foreign capitalist influences. To what degree Juche would have to be modified, it is hard to say. But my guess would be, given that Juche lacks in specificity and is more emotional than intellectual, there is unlikely to be anything substantial to change since the ideology or religion is intellectually insubstantial.
I hope the above helps explain the issue rather than confuse it. Getting the gist of Juche right, as foreigners, on the first bounce is a dicey proposition.
#3 I guess one gets what one paid for ;). opps sorry..you get what you paid for
Hi, I’m replying to Tom and mateomiguel, one at a time. As happens with me, the note got a little long….
Tom, thanks for the thoughtful reply, it’s nice of you. I haven’t had a chance to reply until now. By the way, I’m buying your book on doing business in Korea and have heard it’s great.
I was pleased to read that you do indeed think Juche needs enemies, domestic and external, to keep people in a state of readiness and fear as you say. It’s my understanding that this state of readiness and fear is the pillar upon which the tyranny stands. So it follows that we should try to weaken the pillar to bring down the edifice. Take away the enemy, and policies only justified by having an enemy can be reconsidered.
Some oppose a peace treaty out of fear that it will be seen as American acceptance of the DPRK’s behavior. If North Koreans think the US is in favor of their regime, then how will the regime shut out the US? There might be some secondary foreign policy effects here, but the treaty could be sold as intended to help North Korea open up–which would be the truth. It would be sensible to do it at or near the same time that the US lifted the embargo against Cuba, a prospect over which Raul Castro must lose sleep as his regime is only still in power because of that embargo. There may even be a case to be made that while the other “communists” have transformed or fallen, the DPRK remains an Orwellian wasteland because of US support for the DPRK regime in the form of an ongoing official state of war that gives perfect excuse to their nastier impulses. Isn’t history filled with such ironies?
The argument that the void would be filled by using “capitalists” or other monsters to keep the country shut (down) may be valid, but, in my humble esteem, those efforts would be far less effective than the current propagandist threat of extinction by American arms, against which a nation allows itself to remain militarized and totalitarian.
I can’t see how a peace treaty could be harmful, and Pyongyang seems willing to trade something for one.
The important bits of wider Juche aren’t some notions from Hegel that by historical accident leaked into Kim Il Sung’s great oeuvre. The crucial bits as far as a peace treaty and change in North Korea is concerned are the lies that the regime tells its people, the lies about conditions in other countries, the lies about history and the lies about the government. Those lies are what’s keeping the regime standing. If we have a peace treaty to great fanfare, it’s hard to call America an enemy.
So who’s the enemy?
There is no enemy.
So why do we have such a big army when people are starving?
When people defect because they see a South Korean ramyon wrapper and have an epiphany, that’s something. Take away many of the lies, as may be so very slowly happening now, and excuses for the regime’s behavior dissolve.
Is there really any advantage in our maintaining a situation that feeds the Juche fraud? Isn’t the problem precisely that the country is closed?
OK, and on to Miguel, hopefully more briefly.
I don’t believe in war with North Korea because it would mean the probable death of millions. You do know about the artillery batteries that would likely decimate Seoul, right? Every fourth round a chemical charge? And what would it do to our standing in the world. No, it’s simply ridiculous. Would we occupy North Korea? What about China?
Human rights is the great unused policy tool. It should be talked about at every negotiation. In fact, if ending the regime is the goal, human rights monitors should be sought as much or more than nuclear plant monitors. This is also because the regime is weakened whenever and wherever it can’t violate human rights. Take away the gulags and you also take away the fear of them. Negotiators should show up with a copy of The Aquariums of Pyongyang. Tyrants very often susceptible to shame. I’d be in favor of Kim Jong Il the NBA fanatic hearing Kobe Bryant talking about human rights abuses in North Korea and how shameful they are, or hearing the concerned voice of Julia Roberts, for example. With ongoing pressure and enticement there could be some change, but human rights are an area that the State Department seems to neglect as too woolly. Ever read Survival in Auschwitz? Not so woolly… Carrots, like big trans-border business deals, should be given in exchange for improvements in areas like the justice system, etc. All actions and efforts should support each other.
A human rights and security-based North Korea policy is where our heart and mind should rightly be. North Korea can change. Attacking it would be to pull a Janet Reno vs. David Koresh folly. Threatening to attack it (as we do) is making sure the cult members march in step, keeping them rallied to the flag, in a state of readiness and fear. The opposite of what we want.
Quickly, about the Sunshine Policy, I’d say it was poorly executed (for example no emphasis on human rights) and also that it wasn’t really given a good enough chance to work. Bush came in and destroyed everything.
¿Qué piensan ustedes?