North Korea’s family of three dictators
In the global community, no nation is as closed and inscrutable and unpredictable as North Korea, officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). This is why I am currently reading “North Korea” State Of Paranoia” by Paul French.
Throughout its life-time, the DPRK has been ruled with utter totalitarianism by a succession of three dictators:
- Kim Il-sung or Kim 1 or ‘the Great Leader’- the original dictator who ruled the country from 1948-1994
- Kim Jong-il or Kim 2 or ‘the Dear Leader’ – the eldest son of Kim Il-sung who ruled the country from 1994-2011
- Kim Jong-un or Kim 3 or the ‘Great Successor’- the third son of Kim Jong-il and a grandson of Kim Il-sung who has ruled the country since 2011
All them have followed a peculiar political philosophy called ‘Juche’ described as Kim Il-sung’s “original, brilliant and revolutionary contribution to national and international thought”. French describes it as ” an indigenous revolutionary doctrine fusing the basic tenets of Marxist-Leninism with elements of Maoism and Confucianism and traditional Korean social systems”.
The theory is that popular masses are placed in the centre of everything and the leader is the center of the masses. In practice, it is an attempt to make the nation self-reliant and self-sufficient and involves a policy of ‘military first’ in terms of power and resources.
The reality is that North Korea is desperarely poor and massively dependent on international aid. While it seeks to develop nuclear arsenals, its populace is constantly on the edge of famine. Aid agencies have estimated that up to two million people have died since the mid-1990s because of acute food shortages caused by natural disasters and economic mismanagement.