You Can’t Eat Plutonium

The Daily NK previously reported that Pyongyang’s patrician class had swallowed the whole “barrel of a gun” spin after North Korea’s nuclear test.  It didn’t surprise me to hear that.  I’d even predicted it. I’m equally unsurprised that North Korea’s proles, and some of its urban youth, are less impressed and seem completely disillusioned with the course of things.

Young adults in Pyongyang commonly call Kim Jong Il as “that guy,” whereas in the province of Hamkyung, Kim Jong Il is known as “˜Oh~ him.’ A director of a female hospital who defected North Korea once said “What does Kim Jong Il do but run after whores and drink alcohol.

At a gathering in North Hamkyung, family and close acquaintances mock and laugh “Our dictator will find it difficult to work with a potbelly.

Even the army and police have lost their power. The People’s Army once the pride of the nation has now become a mass group plundering the property of citizens and the police have been stigmatized as a group extorting bribes. Hence, the people have now outshone the rule of political power.

Today, young North Koreans socialize together in groups and watch foreign videos as a hobby. Korean soap operas are also very popular. As they watch the videos they frequently comment, “The people in the town below (South Korea) live really well” and “There really is something different about a developed country. Amongst these youth, Korean actors and actresses such as Bae Yong Joon, Jang Dong Gun and Kim Hee Sun are very popular.

The older generation does not want to leave their homeland as long as there is food to eat, whereas the younger generation often says “I would like to live in a place like that. Sayings like “a heaven on earth” of a government propaganda are not even heard by North Korean people who have been greatly exposed to the outside world.

These disillusioned people are ripe for inspiration from a revolutionary idea, whether political or religious, to fill the void where they should instead have dreams, hopes, and plans for their own future.  We ought to be piping in that inspiration in much greater volume.  We should be extending a hand of friendship, in ways that are both tangible and intangible.
A key flaw in North Korea’s domestic propaganda is its failure to harmonize the apparent contradiction between being proud of an achievement and deeply resentful of the price paid to achieve it.  It’s entirely possible to be anti-American and proud of having nukes as a great national achievement, and still long for the day Kim Jong Il hangs for starving their loves ones to build it.
I’m convinced that Kim Jong Il is headed for an unnatural death at the hands of his own people, but I’m increasingly bleak about the United States or South Korea doing anything constructive to influence revolutionary, or post-revolutionary events there.  Fears of the chaos and cost of post-Kim Jong Il North Korea has caused us to turn away from preparing for the inevitable.  The very nightmare scenario some are loathe to provoke thus becomes more likely.