Anyway, a significant difference between our views is that my thoughts are geared toward how North Korea might be conditioned before the fall whereas your work is with what to do after the fall.

I want to see the US government working with (overtly or covertly) the orgs who work to promote Christianity and democracy and solidarity with the outside world. In this same spirit, I’d want funding and other aid to go to any Buddhist groups with some tract record of reaching out inside North Korea in the underground.

1. In a post Kim Juche North Korea (pJnK), after securing WMD and getting control over nK’s military establishment, task #1 should be protecting the people. This includes robust protections for the underground Church which will come out in the daylight if it feels it has a minimum of safety.

2. Christian NGOs should be escorted and secured by UN forces as they distribute humanitarian aid.

3. In the case of reluctance of the North Korean people, all public symbols of Juche should be dismantled and destroyed. This will will probably be unneccessary as the people themselves will most likely do the honors, but if not, this will be a national act of collective purgation of the tyrannical idolatry that damned 2 generations of Koreans.

4. Equal protections and support should be given to Korea’s substantial Buddhist communities who are also planning robust humanitarian assistance efforts in nK on behalf of sincere Buddhist believers.

5. Religious leaders in the pJnK should serve as a prophetic conscience to warn against mercantilist carpet bagging by South Korean enterpreneurs. This is a real risk in a capital starved, cheap labor pJnK.

Anyone who underestimates the zeal, intrepedidity, committment or potency of South Korean Christian Churches in regards to their intent to evangelize North Korea is seriously misinformed.

You can email me at usinkorea@hotmail.com for anything you have in mind. As for that post, you can use any of it anyway you like.

I’m trying to locate on my hard-drive a follow up post I seem to remember writing about that where I more specifically outline how I wrote both posts with an eye to a typical secular-minded audience like those in higher education and that likely make up a majority of staff in the departments in the US government who run North Korea policy.

I can see lots of people in that audience balking in knee-jerk fashion out of instinct at the idea of using Christianity and Christian networks to work on the North Korean people.

To me, this is pushing a distaste for evangelicalism and missionaries to an extreme. The tyranny and horrors of North Korea are to such an extreme, can’t we put theoretical discussions about “tainting another country’s culture” and so on aside???

I’m a pretty strong Christian. I don’t attend church, but I listen to three radio ministries fairly regularly and regularly read the Bible and commentaries. I pray every day. I’m a spiritual person.

But, if I thought Buddhism or some version of Hinduism would be a good bridge between the North Korean people and the outside world and would cushion the blow and possible bloodshed once the North collapses — I would tell the American government to get into covertly or openly funding efforts to promote those two theologies into the North.

(And being a Christian, I’d think that once North Korean society was open and free, Christianity would be able to promote itself along with those and any other theology/ideology.)

If I thought using digital, miniature means (a new age printing press) to pump in The Rights of Man and all kinds of other documents from the era that spawned the American Revolution or some other secular, socio-political tracts like The Federalist Papers would do the trick, I’d go with them.

Whatever it takes to free the North Korean people and soften their transition into the global community — use it.

To dismiss the use of Christianity out of hand to me is very wrong, but I can easily picture a lot of college educated people even in a fairly religious nation like the US doing that.

That is why when I bring this topic up, I try to keep them in mind and lay out a case in secular terms.

(Lastly, on evangelicalism, I never had that distaste for missionaries and missionary work that seemed to be what my college education tried to teach me. But…

I am not an evangelical – which puts me at odds with a couple of the ideas of the ministries I listen to on the radio: They seem to clearly argue that promoting Christianity is a duty of all believers. It was my understanding in reading scripture that — such work was a “calling” by some members – not a duty of all members.

I was raised and remain a Methodist. And, a couple of points in the New Testament that appealed strongly to me as a young person were the ones about being humble in worship – about the man who quietly sat at the back of the church and made his prayers without trying to be a public spectacle – and so on. For me, even growing up in an area of the south where most people are openly Christian and have no problem with the idea of missionaries, my faith and spirituality was more personal and private. To me, the idea that a Christian has a duty to propagate the faith tries to negate that quiet type of Christian life in those scriptures and which I aimed to live.

I wanted to point that out to clearly define where I stand on the issue of evangelicalism and missionary work in general.

When picturing a debate between secularists and religious minded people on the possible benefits of using Christianity with North Korean people to cushion the collapse —- I see things getting muddy very quickly…….(When they don’t have to)……So, I wanted to make my position on the religious angle clear.)

“If you are a Christian, the worst place to live in the world is North Korea, according to Open Doors’ 2008 World Watch List released Monday.

The annual country persecution list ranked North Korea in the No. 1 spot for the sixth year in a row. There were more arrests of Christians in the country in 2007 than in 2006, according to Open Doors.

In North Korea, considered by many the most repressive regime, citizens are strictly banned from worshipping any other gods beside those enforced in the state religion – a personality cult revolving around current dictator Kim Jong Il, and his deceased father, Kim Il Sung.

Moreover, Christianity is considered a serious threat to the regime’s power and there are many reports of Christians being publicly executed, tortured or imprisoned indefinitely simply because of the discovery of their faith.

It is estimated that there are at least 200,000 underground Christians and up to 400,000 to 500,000 believers secretly practicing their faith in North Korea. At least a quarter of the Christians are imprisoned for their faith in political prison camps, from which people rarely get out alive, according to an Open Doors local source.

“It is certainly not a shock that North Korea is No. 1 on the shame list for the sixth year in a row,” said Carl Moeller, President/CEO of Open Doors USA. “There is no other country in the world where Christians are being persecuted in such a horrible and systematic manner.”

Now, couple that with the fact that South Korea sends out more Christian missionaries than any other nation (save the US – and per capita, S.Korea is easily the most zealous missionary nation on earth), and you may get an inkling as to why the Juche regime is mortally terrified of the Christian pamphlets attached a few hundred balloons.

Richardson adds

“Outside information threatens the fundamentals of the cult mythology upon which the Kim family has build its power, which is why the country maintains its place as the most self-isolated nation on earth. The “military first” policy is specifically meant to maintain isolation from the inside. Again, I agree with Eberstadt on this point:

In Pyongyang’s telling, “ideological and cultural infiltration”–economic and other contacts with the outside world–brought down Soviet socialism; the masters of Pyongyang have no intention of allowing this bourgeois infection to undo their own gulag paradise.

More simply put, this level of invasive engagement is deemed as unacceptable to the regime for fear information exchange and the weakening of the cult.”

(Sorry if this is a repost – I did not see my previous post published)

I would like to use your original work if I may for inclusion into some staff work we are doing here. My email address is abnjumpmaster56m@yahoo.com (don’t want to post my AKO address here).

What most people do not consider is that Pyong Yang once hosted 250,000 Christians (most fled when Stalins goons arrived) and that ties between north and south are still very strong. North Korea is ranked 167th out of 167 nations by Open Door when it comes to nations most hostile towards Christianity.

If you are a Christian, the worst place to live in the world is North Korea, according to Open Doors’ 2008 World Watch List released Monday.
The annual country persecution list ranked North Korea in the No. 1 spot for the sixth year in a row. There were more arrests of Christians in the country in 2007 than in 2006, according to Open Doors.
In North Korea, considered by many the most repressive regime, citizens are strictly banned from worshipping any other gods beside those enforced in the state religion – a personality cult revolving around current dictator Kim Jong Il, and his deceased father, Kim Il Sung.
Moreover, Christianity is considered a serious threat to the regime’s power and there are many reports of Christians being publicly executed, tortured or imprisoned indefinitely simply because of the discovery of their faith.
It is estimated that there are at least 200,000 underground Christians and up to 400,000 to 500,000 believers secretly practicing their faith in North Korea. At least a quarter of the Christians are imprisoned for their faith in political prison camps, from which people rarely get out alive, according to an Open Doors local source.

Now, couple that withis fact: South Korea sends out more missionaries than any other nation in the world save the United States (per capita, its not even close – South Korea is easily the most zealous missionary nation on earth).

Now, you tell me dear readers, who does Kim Jong Il fear? And why such bellicosity over a few balloons? Because mass conversions to Christ are the next step for a beleagured, despirited ex-Juche adherents after the regime collapses. To quote USinKorea:

“The history of Korean society’s reaction and absorption of Christianity might give us clues as to what could happen in North Korea if terms of —– conditioning the North Korean people to an acceptance of the outside world unimaginable if we only consider that they will face that same world post-collapse with only their incredibly paranoia-driven and anti-Outside World ideology the Kim Il Sung-Kim Jong Il regime has instilled in them for over 50 years.

Meaning: if all we face post-collapse is a Korean society filled with people who have been conditioned by nothing but Kim Jong-Il/Il-Sung-ism —- we’re fucked.

It should be put that bluntly.”

KCJ

Economically, Juche has created a completely unworkable economic model from national to regional to local levels. The society can only survive on international handouts and/or periodic culls of the population through famine and disease. It simply cannot sustain itself.

In terms of information, closing the masses off from the world and convincing them they lived in paradise leaves them open to astonishing disalusionment as the truth comes in.

These things are also why Kaesong was always a stupid idea economically —– without fundamental reform of the regime.

Trickle up reform was unlikely —- due to the instability within the system(s).

Why?

Because, any time things looked unstable, North Korea had proven time and time and time again — it would clam shut.

Also, the regime was never going to allow the clam to open up much in the first place.

For Kaesong to have a trickle up influence on the state, it would have to have been viable long term — and it simple could never have been without a reform of mind at the top.

Which I guess is a kinda contradiction. Kaesong couldn’t be viable long term to help change the society and regime without the regime changing enough to allow that viability in the first place.

And Kaesong never, ever showed signs that the regime had reformed enough to make it viable or allow bottom up influence:

It was always clear Kaesong was hamstrung and that the regime would shut it down whenever it felt like it.

The only purpose it has served is to — help prop up the regime – and I believe that was one of the primary purposes both inside the regime and outside in the halls of power in places like South Korea and even in Washington.

Lastly, on the information and Christianity item, I had to repost this – I deleted most of my blog archives recently —-

The post was somewhat lengthy — it was a brainstorm post about — Looking back at the history of Christianity in Korea for ideas on — How to Condition North Korea for the Collapse.

By which I meant both helping the North collapse and/or helping ease the transition when the collapse does come.

In a nutshell, it seems to me the fact that Korean society, long before it was divided into a North and South, showed a favorableness to the work of Christian missionaries and the spread of Christianity above what was seen in other East Asian areas — suggests we might look at the social conditions of the time inside the Hermit Kingdom – and find some parallels in the North. That the same social paradigm of isolation, tyranny, and poverty can be found in Korea during the time of the early introduction of Christianity and in North Korea today — and the spread of Christianity in the North would connect those influenced to a larger world community.

Efforts like this have to be done if we hope to mitigate the disaster that will come with a collapse.

“What distinguishes North Korea’s quest for survival are the peculiar and punitive conditions that must be satisfied in order to prolong Kim Jong Il’s rule. I will take this a level further and say that what distinguishes North Korea more precisely is the enormous vulnerability the cult foundation has to engagement with the outside world.”

More from DPRK Studies:

“The Role of the Kim Family Cult in Regime Survival and Disengagement

Kim Jong-il is sometimes described as crazy, although he is more likely a sociopath (and may have other issues). At any rate, he is well aware of the unique vulnerability posed to his cult of personality by outside information, and has for years taken active measures to ensure the isolation of the regime, as his father did. Kim Il-sung, however, had an established, if greatly exaggerated, history of fighting the Japanese and was a charismatic leader; Kim Jong-il is none of those things and is much more at risk for it.

The goal of North Korea is regime survival, and I agree with Nicholas Eberstadt here (h/t Marmot):

Pundits often observe that Pyongyang is intent, foremost, upon regime survival. While incontestably true, this “insight” is also utterly superficial, insofar as all governments regard their own survival as a paramount priority. What distinguishes North Korea’s quest for survival are the peculiar and punitive conditions that must be satisfied in order to prolong Kim Jong Il’s rule.”