Also, In a Just World, Isaac Hayes Would Still Be Alive
That night there came from the farmhouse the sound of loud singing, in which, to everyone’s surprise, the strains of Beasts of England were mixed up. At about half past nine Napoleon, wearing an old bowler hat of Mr. Jones’s, was distinctly seen to emerge from the back door, gallop rapidly round the yard, and disappear indoors again. But in the morning a deep silence hung over the farmhouse. Not a pig appeared to be stirring. It was nearly nine o’clock when Squealer made his appearance, walking slowly and dejectedly, his eyes dull, his tail hanging limply behind him, and with every appearance of being seriously ill. He called the animals together and told them that he had a terrible piece of news to impart. Comrade Napoleon was dying!
A cry of lamentation went up. Straw was laid down outside the doors of the farmhouse, and the animals walked on tiptoe. With tears in their eyes they asked one another what they should do if their Leader were taken away from them. A rumour went round that Snowball had after all contrived to introduce poison into Napoleon’s food. At eleven o’clock Squealer came out to make another announcement. As his last act upon earth, Comrade Napoleon had pronounced a solemn decree: the drinking of alcohol was to be punished by death.
By the evening, however, Napoleon appeared to be somewhat better, and the following morning Squealer was able to tell them that he was well on the way to recovery. [George Orwell, Animal Farm, Chapter 8]
The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and LA Times are quoting U.S. or Western intelligence sources that that Kim Jong Il is “seriously” or “gravely” ill. From there, the reports diverge. One senior South Korean intelligence officer says it’s “certain” that Kim Jong Il is ill. One South Korean diplomat says the illness was “not serious enough to threaten [Kim’s] life,” which may or may not contradict “Western intelligence sources” which suspect a stroke. One legislator from the leftist opposition Democratic Party, who purports to quote an intelligence source, says he’s recovering from the problem, whatever it was. The North Koreans say the reports are not only false, but “a conspiracy plot.” Let me translate this my analysis into words that may not be suitable for the President’s Daily Briefing:
Who the f*ck knows?
It’s all speculation, and probably groundless speculation at that. Who do you suppose has access to up-to-date information about Kim Jong Il’s health that would actually leak it to foreign intelligence? We have no way of knowing whether the information is (a) credible, (b) accurately interpreted, or (c) outright disinformation. And then there’s this point made by the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler:
Still, in recent months, a variety of media outlets have reported that Kim was so weak that he could not walk 30 yards (he later appeared in public and seemed able to walk), that a group of German doctors went to North Korea to perform heart surgery on him (the doctors denied it), and that he passed away (most likely untrue because he’s since appeared in public, although at least one veteran expert has suggested the government could be using body doubles).
Meaning, I’ve written about these reported illnesses and extended absences enough times to know that we’ve never managed to figure out if there was a greater significance to any of those reports. All of them could be true, or none of them. I will boldly predict, nonetheless, that sometime within the next 20 years, Kim Jong Il will die, and there will be much rejoicing carefully disguised as mourning. Then, some time within the next five years, when one junta leader has managed to stab all of his rivals in the back and consolidate the next oligarchy, there will be a “secret speech” about His Porcine Majesty’s “mistakes.” Andrei Lankov, quoted in the L.A. Times story above, puts it this way:
“He is going to die sooner or later, and eventually one of these reports about his health will be true, but this one is probably much ado about nothing,” said Andrei Lankov, a respected Pyongyang watcher and a professor at South Korea’s Kookmin University.
Oh, and the AP’s drive-by Korea-watchers Pamela Hess and Matthew Lee — whose analysis of world events seldom fails to blend illogic and superficiality — wrote a story under the single dumbest headline I’ve seen all year:
Which I suppose is a lot like printing one that says, “Hitler Suicide Jeopardizes Non-Aggression Pact with Stalin.” Safe to say, Hess and Lee haven’t really been keeping up with the state of those talks and ought to take a few moments out of their busy schedule to read this blog now and then. Remember, children, they get paid for this. I do it for free.
Anyway, feel free to beseech the deity or fetish object of your choice that Kim Jong Il will soon join his old man in the Great Meat Locker. Sure, things could always get worse — and probably will — but that’s more likely to be because the rumors are false than because they’re not.
How much good-health does a man need to stand on a platform and wave at thousands of passing soldiers? Not much, I would say. Most of us can do it, and a “Great Leader†should definitely be able to do it, if only for the sake of his country’s morale. His absence from the parade either means he is gravely ill, as in, close to comatose, or it means he is perfectly fine, and his absence had a strategic purpose that none of us know about. I would bet it is the latter.
As noted in the Daily NK, KJI has some of the best personal doctors in the world. All of them know that if he dies, they die. So if worse came to worse they would probably make a Baron Harkonen (Dune) air suit for him and forcefully keep him cost be damned. My hope is that he lives long enough to stand trial before an international court. Ahh but to dream.
Kim’s absence from the 60th anniversary celebrations seems a lot like the absence of a Soviet secretary general would have been from a Moscow May Day parade–unthinkable.
I’m in Korea. This is not business as usual.
KJI’s absence is without precedent. There are many indicators of a dimunition of control. Shamanism is tolerated now. The black market is flourishing. The Kaesong Industrial complex is humming. MP3s are being circulated. 3k nKoreans successfully defected to sKorea this year.
Most notably, the Kim regime has gone full bore in its cultural information operations (IO) war against the Americans. Seeing our achilles heel in Iraq and Afghanistan, he knows that we are cultural pygmies and is attempting to exploit the cultural cleavage.
To this end the following actions have been taken:
Juche is now practiced as a religion with weekly meetings and obeisance to the Kims;
KJI changed his bio to say he was born on Mt. Paektu, site of the birth of the Korean mythical ancestor Tan Gun;
Pyongyang claims to have recovered the remains of Tan Gun and established a shrine to him on Foundation Day 2002 inviting the sKoreans (yes, they atended);
KJI has co-opted the ancient tradition of ancestor worship to posit Kim Il Sung as the ever present father spirit who hovers over the peninsula;
Almost all this is completely lost on us Americans but not on the sKoreans. Younger sKoreans are growing less tolerant of US Forces and see the presence of USFK as the primary obstacle to reunification.
This is not business as usual and the trajectory of PSYOPs and IO campaigns in Korea have taken on a decidedly ethno-historic cultural emphasis on the spiritual and religious level.
If KJI dies, the Juche doctrine of Su-ryong requires a descendant of Kim Il Sung to lead the revolution and the “arduous struggle” (Juche-speak for Jihad) for reunification.
I’d like to see the f*ucker die a slow and painful death, as long as the North Korean people’s own suffering isn’t prolonged.
@KCJ
troll or just stupid?
Yes, we know.
When has his bio stated otherwise?
And his pelvis is really impressive.
In 1996 I found a little laminated piece of paper with Kim Il-sung’s face on it on an athletic field at SNU. The back said “He lives forever in our hearts.”
Students have felt this way since the 80’s at least.
Just delete “not.”
Since you’re an Isaac Hayes fan, too, you might enjoy this classic video.
@ Rhesus:
I have been shot at in Iraq because of our cultural arrogance/ignorance. Your wrankling at the thought of our cultural ignorance is a demonstration of my point. we don’t know and we don’t think it matters. Drive on. Its really refreshing to engage such an expert.
Odd then that they chose to shoot at a fellow as sensitive as yourself, no?
Thank you for your service, but your argument is logically fallacious. Haven’t you considered the possibility that those who shot at you did so out of their cultural arrogance? I think the way Iraqi public support has shifted recently tells us something about that. I wonder if you even know the nationality of those who shot at you.
Many of us Americans (not all, obviously) aren’t too aware of the cultures that exist outside of our own borders.
I won’t chalk that up to stupidity or “cultural pygmyhood” (time spent in San Francisco, New Orleans or NYC would demonstrate that we’re not cultural pygmies). I’d say the reason is that there’s so much going on right here that immediately concerns us, that many of us forget to be concerned about the rest of the world too.
However, when some horror going on elsewhere in the world does become well-publicized, we Yanks do know how to open our hearts (and our wallets).
Joshua:
This is not the space to rehearse the manifold bungles of our state dept, military and and political leaders in OIF. Many Iraqi clerics believed we came there to destroy/degrade Islam. We gave them plenty of reason to believe that mainly through ignorance, not intent. Some Shiites believe we came there to kill the Mahdi. Our ignorance of Islam is a huge problem.
If you think a post-KJI nKorea will be a happy, exultant party, you are mistaken. I was on the streets of Baghdad when the Ba’athist regime fell. The people were frightened, confused, bewildered, unsure of where to obtain essential services, did not trust the Coalition Forces and flocked to their Mosques and tribal Sheikhs. The Mosque preachers thought we came to destroy Islam and issues many fatwas against the Coalition Forces and more importantly, against those Iraqis who were assisting us in establishing order and a new government.
Whenever a totalitarian regime is toppled or collapsed, the conditions of instability become dangerous to all concerned, especially in regimes like Iraq and nKorea where the people are armed to the teeth. Add to that equation the deprogramming that will be necessary to eradicate Juche from the indoctrinated nKorean people and you have a complex and dangerous, dare I say it, counterinsurgency fight on your hands against the die-hards, military juntas and true-believers.
I don’t need to flash my credentials here, but your accusation against me re: not knowing the ethnography of Iraq is way off my friend.
Chris,
I admit my remarks are pretty heavy handed, but not without reason do I say that.
This year a SSG defaced a Qoran with 4-letter words, hung it on a sillouette and shot it 14 times and left it there on the same rifle range used by our Iraqi Security Forces partners. Generals and Colonels had to convene emergency ceremonies to make public apologies to the Iraqis.
Marines in Fallujah handed out tracts to Iraqis telling them how to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior (I am Christian, and believe in Christ, but that is not the way to evangelize in a combat zone). The clerics were outraged.
These are just easy to refer to incidents that anyone could find in the news. There are many other faux paux going on and I have my own personal stories as well. The point is, people are a part of the combat operating environment and our military must account for religious, cultural and social activities and beliefs as we prosecute our operations. We are getting better, but we still have a long way to go.
In Islam, there is no separation of religious and political life. The way we have ghettoized religion by the radical secularization of our own culture in the US has caused us problems in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are so used to marginalizing religion and religious leaders in the US that we inadvertently export that same mentality in Islamic societies – and that is pernicious and threatening to the clerics and the devout believers. It also gives tremendous credibility to the IO/PSYOPs of the enemy.
I wasn’t attacking your credentials, I was attacking your logic. Most Iraq vets I know would agree with you that we’ve made some serious and tragic mistakes there, but that generally, we’ve learned from them, and that this has paid off great (and largely undeniable) dividends. The fact that one unknown person of unknown nationality, motivation, and ideology purportedly took a shot at you says nothing whatsoever about the cultural savvy of other commenters on this board. How can I be sure you didn’t accidentally point your foot at him or eat with your left hand?
As for post-KJI North Korea, I’ve said repeatedly that it will be a blightscape and that we should have nothing to do with occupying it. The regime is still going to collapse, no matter how much you might wish to delay that day. So the question is, before or after the next famine? Before or after the next proliferation? Before or after the next reactor is restarted? Before or after the next million dead?
Joshua,
I am in Korea now. I was here 8 years ago and the differences are like night and day.
My own personal perspective has been greatly informed by my experiences in Iraq. You and others who patronize this blog may have a mature understanding of the Juche religion, the missionary zeal of the sKoreans, the cultural co-option of the KJI regime and the difficulties in stabilizing a post-KJI nKorea – but believe me – that knowledge is far from universal where I am right now and the same myopic focus on conventional warfare that preoccupied us in OIF is at work here.
The last thing we need to do is give more reason for potential enemies to become actual enemies. Cultural ignorance has a way of doing just that.
If you read my last few posts you will see that there is nothing wrong with my logic. We were repeatedly attacked in OIF by people who believed they were defending Islam. We failed to communicate that we were not there to change their religion, and that resulted in many casualties. Thank God for GEN Petraeus. He gets it, as do many others in uniform. But those lessons learned have come at a very dear price.
I’m not in Korea now, but I was there for a four-year period overlapping your first tour. I don’t live there, but I went back 2 years ago and have been following events there closely since my DEROS. We obviously have a difference of opinion. I think most South Koreans’ knowledge of the North then was superficial, prosaic, and grounded largely in a misplaced and obsolete tribalism. Still is, as far as I can see. No one illustrated more impenetrable ignorance of the North than South Koreans. Just ask a defector.
Maybe I’m not understanding the point you’re trying to make, but if it’s that Americans (except for you) are uniquely arrogant and ignorant, that conclusion sounds simplistic, cliche, and its own kind of arrogant.
As for the USFK, if you’ve been a semi-regular visitor here you know how frequently I call for the radical downsizing of the USFK, whose force structure is an anachronism. I knew plenty of people in the USFK who seemed just as aware of that as you. It’s the people here in Washington who don’t understand that, because the South Korean embassy has their ears and the soldiers don’t.
Hm.
Iraq = North Korea?
Juche in some way corresponds to Islam?
Americans having an intuitive understanding of ìƒí•˜ê´€ê³„ will somehow solve their problems in Korea?
I don’t think these assertions have been fully demonstrated to be true.
Also, I’d like to know if there really actually are more Juche kids in 2008 than there were in 1998 or 1988.
(note – this is a rhetorical question)
Well Josh, we seem to be jousting and not discussing. I can concede that the dearth of appreciation for conditions, currents and indicators in nK by the sK people is a concern. I can even concede that our politicians may be operating with a different set of priorities than our military when dealing security in this region and most certainly on the peninsula.
I can’t understand why you you don’t get my point. The Cold War, industrial age type state vs state conventioanl warfare model is obselete. The information age, cultural/tribal irregular warfare is the current and emerging security challenge. Yes, even in Korea. Regardless of the scenario (unforced collapse/major combat operation/coup de etat, _______________ ) there will be a stability operation to follow that will face a nasty insurgency and a cultural re-education challenge. While that is primarily the responsibility of the stability forces (presumably from ROK but will also include UN and USFK forces), the dynamics will be similar to Yugoslavia and Iraq when their despots were toppled.
Failure to grasp the religious nature of Juche, its icons, its mechanisms, its hatred of Christianity and its reliance on Korean folk culture will exacerbate what will already be a complex and dangerous counterinsurgency operation. Moreover, the sK Christian missionaries, first in the world for their deployment of evangelists have mature plans to surge into nK with humanitarian assistance and Gospel ministry. This will also create a dynamic tension as Juche ideology meets its archenemy head on. Military factions used to getting the lion’s share of all humanitarian assistance will seize the aid packages and abuse the missionaries. Out of work soldiers may join an insurgency (worst case) or form gangs and mafias to control aid materiel (best case). These same dynamics occurred in Yugoslavia and Iraq.
There are plans to transfer command and control to the sK forces. They must be implemented gradually and circumspectly as conditions warrant.
KJI’s stroke is not business as usual.
Rhesus:
I did not say “Iraq = North Korea?
Juche in some way corresponds to Islam?”
But here are some personal observations of someone who has been to Iraq in the invasion and as recently as FEB 2008 and who is in Korea now:
Both countries were/are ruled by ruthless totalitarian despots. There is no freedom of religion in nK; neither was there true freedom of religion in Baathist Iraq. Just ask the Christians and the Shia. Both states inherited ancient cultures that were adulterated to support the regimes. Upon removal of those despotic regimes, the vacuum must be filled with something substantive and that supports a new or recovered sense of identity. (SEE: former Yugoslavia).
Juche corresponds to Islam in 2 key ways:
1. As in Islam, Juche recognizes no separation between religious and political life. This is very important if a post-KJI nK will adopt self-government and basic human rights.
2. In Islam you have the sacred duty of Jihad (righteous struggle) and in Juche its (in English) “arduous struggle”. The arduous struggle is for the Juche religion its sacred duty to achieve reunification under Kim Il Sung’s eternal leadership.
These may seem like incidental or nuanced factors, but they are very important when dealing with predictive analysis of the enemy, and more importantly, understanding the population as a center of gravity in a stability/counterinsurgency fight.
“Most notably, the Kim regime has gone full bore in its cultural information operations (IO) war against the Americans.”
This and those other “discoveries” could have been written in 1949, dude. It would be downright scary if this is what passes as insight or cultural awareness in the USFK, but even a cursory glance of blogs like Kalani’s and GI Korea (and the lamented, former) Lost Nomad shows that is not the case.
There’s even a book about North Korea in “XXXX for Dummies” series.
Picking up on Slim’s point, the real rise of Korean anti-Americanism appears to have been in the late 1980’s. I’ve already chronicled this pretty extensively. Somewhere in my archives, there’s also a collection of poll and survey data I update periodically, which shows a generally consistent (and high) level of anti-Americanism in Korea. I have a half-finished post somewhere which cites old Time archives, showing that this trend picked right up where it left off when Syngman Rhee suppressed it in the 40’s. What’s amazing to me is how little the old anti-American canards have changed in so many decades.
If we want to be liked, we should withdraw. We might even be loved some day if the Chinese move in.
If the Chinese actually do move in, I suspect we’ll just get blamed for that, too.
I’d be interested in seeing stats on how many North Koreans actually believe in Juche in a religious sense. Not as a monolithic social theory or a system of political orthodoxy, but an actual religion in which Kim Il-sung exists in some afterlife.
I’ve read about many NK defectors, and met one, but I know of none who reported thinking or believing this way.
Mujahedeen fight because they genuinely believe God wants them to, and will reward them. Do many members of the NK army think that they will receive a reward from KIS in the afterlife for their service in uniting the peninsula? Why ask? Because this kind of thinking would be necessary for drawing any sort of meaningful correspondence between Juche and Islam. If it’s not there, then were is the comparison?
And I’m not even sure whether Juche itself has that big a place in NK politics anymore. Simple KJI-worship and maintenance of the enemy-America image seem more important.
If you ever meet another North Korean, ask them if they ever heard of the word Juche before they left NK. My understanding is that Juche, or at least the details and the so-called “philosophy” of it, is more an invention (PR) for the outside world, not something ingrained into every North Korean by the government. Your last bit seems about right — it’s a personality cult (with severe consequences if you don’t at least pretend to follow along) and external enemies, whether real or fabricated, are the excuse for the Kims to be needed at all.
I fully understand the skepticism – and the incongruent references to Islam that seem abrupt and forced.
The thing I am trying to draw attention to is post-KJI nKorea under sKorean control. What would be the challenges and difficulties militarily, socially, politically and spiritually?
I hear several references to the past, to 1949, to the 80s, etc… But why the radical shift away from materialist Marxism/Stalinism in favor of the Juche religion and Korean icons like Tangun and Mt. Paektu of late?
First of all, unless you have read Belke’s book on the Juche religion you really haven’t been led through Juche-as-theology and seen the depth of its application as a religious cosmology in nK. He brings out the following points:
1. Juche departs from Marx/Stalin materialism in the establishment of man as the center of the cosmos. Man can determine the course of history by his knowledge of Juche. The man with perfect understanding of Juche is Kim Il Sung. He is the ‘head’ of the proletariat (masses). The masses are dependent on the head for the fulfillment of the revolutionary vision. He is able to shape the destiny of the world (or at least Korea) by Juche. This is 180 degrees opposite of the darwinistic communisim that subscribes to dialectic materialism.
2. The Juche doctrine of the Su-ryong (great leader) requires a descendant of KIS to succeed him. The su-ryong has divine powers and transcendant wisdom.
3. The su-ryong is eternally present with the people through a distorted adaptation of the ancient Confucianist belief in ancestor worship. The dynamics and importance of ancestor worship is lost on most Americans. (perhaps not you, dear reader…).
4. Manipulation of the Tan Gun/Paektu iconography is critical to the Koreanization of the KIS Juche religion. The alleged finding of Tan Gun’s remains in 2002 is obviously an article of faith – not an archeological discovery.
5. Over 50,000 locations in nK host weekly “self-criticism” sessions where the 10-point plan for reunification and consolidation into the Confederal Republic of Korgoryo is studied and applied to the daily lives of nKoreans. Every home must prominently display the images of the Kims, and these are inspectable items.
There are many, many more indicators of Juche-as-religion available from the burgeoning collections of anecdotal evidence from defectors. Obviously, the sampling of defectors will not reveal the testimonies of true Juche believers who are not trying to escape.
Brother Andrew’s Open Door organization ranks the most hostile regimes towards Christianity every year. This year nK was named most hostile regime on earth for the 6th straight year. Why such virulent fear of the Christian religion? Because it would reveal the Juche religion as false, contrived, manipulated and as murderously coercive at it actually is.
The post-KJI Korea will require a massive IO/PSYPOs campaign to convince people to trust in themselves, in their own choices, in their new local expressions of free government, and ultimately in their new national government and eventually their regional and global neighbors. That will take a generation.
In the meantime, some will resist occupation for a variety of reasons, and Juche will be one of them. The military establishment will most certainly be the biggest stakeholders in a resistance movement, or an insurgency against the new government.
If we plan for current and future operations based on an ENDSTATE, we need to include in the ENDSTATE the spiritual, psychological and social healing and liberation of the nK people. Right now and for years to come, Juche is between the nK people and that ENDSTATE.
Again, who actually believes in Juche as a religion? The points you bring up (1 ~ 5) have almost nothing to do with Juche being “practiced” in a genuine religious sense, only as national/ideological symbolism and reinforcement.
There are lots of defectors and refugees from NK. Some of them have professed to feeling or having felt great love and/or or fear of KIS/KJI. I’ve never read or heard about any having a spiritual belief in a transcendent Juche at any time.
Look, I don’t think anyone will disagree that a post-collapse NK will present a very complex and dangerous situation. It’s already dangerous and complex, and it hasn’t even collapsed yet! There are surely many, many ways in which the U.S. needs to be ready, including an understanding of Korean (and NK) culture. But that shouldn’t include inventing a mystical version of Juche and basing policy on that invention.
I think the current NK system has elements of theocracy — official myth-making about magical nativities on Paektusan being just one example. The North Korean concept of spirituality and thus of afterlife, which some would call a sine-qua-non of a religion, may differ slightly from our own. In their system, a revolutionary martyr “lives forever” through propaganda accounts and bennies for family members. These certainly aren’t uniquely Marxist or juche ideals, as anyone who has seen South Korea’s glorification of the “ten human bombs” at the War Memorial can attest.
I often suspect that many of the spiritual elements of North Korean ideology are borrowed from Shintoism, with which the Japanese tried to indoctrinate Koreans until 1945. More broadly, Eric Hoffer explained that people who see themselves as part of some fantastic and eternal dramatic spectacle can be motivated to sacrifice themselves.
All of that analysis, however, worked a lot better 20 years ago than it does in today’s starving and disillusioned North Korea. I agree with KCJ that post-KJI North Korea will be chaotic, but not for the most part because of residual belief in a Juche religion.* I believe that only one element of the current ideology will have much staying power, and that element is racism / nationalism. That’s why I believe that post-KJI North Korea should be occupied by South Koreans, not Americans or Chinese.
(I wonder if China isn’t already quietly organizing ethnic Koreans to occupy parts of the North. It wouldn’t surprise me.).
Otherwise, however, I think the North Koreans are a pretty disillusioned lot, and what will characterize the North more than anything else is “collapse” — not just economic, but also moral, spiritual, and psychological. I expect there will be some violence and instability even after the final cataclysm, but mostly from marauding gangs of thieves and bandits. Some of them may be remnants of old North Korean SF or secret police — especially if other North Koreans try to hold them accountable for the crimes they’re committing today. Some may even claim some ideological cohesion of sorts, but it will be exaggerated.
* The translation of “juche” as “self-reliance” is too simplistic for a concept that translates poorly. I once heard Hwang Jang Yop try to explain what Juche really means and was struck by how much it really sounded like warmed-over furherprinzip.
Joshua strikes chords that resonate with my research in his excellent post. My reserach is being conducted with my Korean staff members with tools that I acquired while working in lessons learned/doctrinal development for the US military. Particularly poignant was this statement:
“I often suspect that many of the spiritual elements of North Korean ideology are borrowed from Shintoism, with which the Japanese tried to indoctrinate Koreans until 1945. More broadly, Eric Hoffer explained that people who see themselves as part of some fantastic and eternal dramatic spectacle can be motivated to sacrifice themselves.”
The connection between coereced Shinto worship of Hirohito and the KimIlSungism of Juche is instructive. As in Orwell’s classic Animal Farm, the pigs have become the thing they most hated. Rhesus’ incredulity and western skepticism does not take into account the pragmatism of oriental ideological development. In the east it is common for societies to syncretize many divergent faiths and traditions to cope and get along even when those ideologies may seem inherently incompatible.
The other thing is that there hasn’t been any freedom to dissent in nk – none, about anything. So even if nK people hate or repudiate Juche, they know nothing else other than the vestiges of Korean culture that remain in the Juche narrative. The regime has even gone as far as relocating millions of nK people so that they could plow the ancestral graveyards in quest of arable land. It is nearly impossible to estimate how completely Juche has been forced into every aspect of nK life and thought.
Again, I must point to the fall of Baghdad as an example. Of course I am biased, as this experience will remain very deeply ingrained in my imagination. What I would have the readers of this blog to consider is how unprepared Coalition Forces were for the aftermath – especially the cultural landscape. As I look at analysis of nK and the range of possible scenarios, I find little indication that we have learned much from Iraq. To that end I thank the participants in this discussion for a spirited and informative engagement.
Let us know when you run into an actual Juche-religious believer.
The position of Eternal President of the Republic (공화êµì˜ ì˜ì›í•œ 주ì„) is established by a line in the preface to the North Korean constitution. It reads:
“Under the leadership of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Korean people will hold the great leader Comrade Kim Il-sung in high esteem as the eternal President of the Republic” [1] Thus, it will only ever be held by him.
The line “eternal President of the Republic” only appears in the preface, not in the functional text of the constitution and it is not associated with any government office with particular responsibilities, powers, privileges, etc. Furthermore, the only person to have ever been referred to this way was dead at the time, so this reference does not constitute an actual office.
Link
“Leading Juche theorist Hwang Jang-yop has joined these criticisms since defecting to South Korea, although he maintains his belief in the Juche Idea as he understands it. Political scientist Han S. Park in his book Juche: The Politics of Unconventional Wisdom (2002) and theologian Thomas J. Belke in Juche: A Christian Study of North Korea’s State Religion (1999) liken Juche to a religious movement.[4]”
link
Wikipedia? Come one!
Anyway, no believers there, sorry. Show us someone who actually believes in Juche as a religion. I don’t mean an ideology, or an ethno-nationalist movement, or “something like a religion.” No, I mean belief that can be compared to Islam, which was your original assertion.
Also, I’m still interested in finding out if the actual word “Juche” shows up much inside NK these days. I just did a cursory search for 주체 in some ë¡œë‘¥ì‹ ë¬¸ articles here:
http://www.kcna.co.jp/today-rodong/rodong.htm
I found two incidental uses in one article, and one use marking the date in another (it’s evidently Juche 97), and nothing in the other articles I searched, though I haven’t searched that much yet. I’d hope an all-encompassing state religion would have a bit more presence in NK state media, at any rate.
Mr. Rhesus,
Not sure why you are resisting the obvious – there is no other religion, philosophy, belief or doctrine tolerated in nK. What is that other than religion? We have demonstrated the deification of the Kims as a blatant appeal to worship. You dismiss titles such as “Eternal President of the Republic” and the literal and actual usages of Korean words that translate sacred, divine, heavenly, etc… but I wonder what it is you are resisting?
I went to extensive pains to demonstrate the similarities between Islam and Juche and will not repeat myself – except to say that dogmatic intolerance of dissidents, dissent or heterodoxy is a common trait between puritanical Islam and Juche.
The point is (again) that any post-KJI Korea will be dealing with all the re-education requirements for any semblance of self-government or free economies as a member of the family of nations. And the time to deal with that is before the regime collapses and thousands of sKorean Christian missionaries surge into nKorea which has been indoctrinated for 2 generations to believe that Christianity is evil.
Josh made a corrollary above between the coerced Shinto emperor worship on the peninsula 1910-1945 and the current forced adulation of the Kims. I think that is a useful model for understanding what KJI expects from the people of Korea. Juche is unique and all models will break down ultimately when looking for corrollaries to explain the injustices of the KJI regime. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to get a handle on what a post-KJI Korea might look like. In my line of work, its mission-essential.
Happy Chusok,
KCJ
“Today, Juche is no longer just an ideology, but a full-fledged religion that worships Kim Il Sung as god, and his son, Kim Jong Il as the son of god. In 2005, a human rights investigator named David Hawke interviewed 40 North Korean escapees about religion in North Korea. Here are some of their responses:
“Juche is the only religion North Korean people can have.”
“We learned that there were two lives: one is the physical life and the other is the political life. We were taught that political life was forever along with the leaders and the Party. Therefore, I believed that my political life was more important than my physical life.”
“According to party covenant, Article 1, section 1, all North Koreas are required to worship Kim Il Sung with all our heart and might, even after his death. We have to venerate the pictures and status of Kim Il Sung.”
“We must hang [Kim Il Sung’s] pictures. The pictures indicate that Kim Il Sung is god, as we hang the pictures for the purpose of reminding ourselves that we depend on him.”
“Hanging portraits of Kim’s family is compulsory for every household. The portraits must be hung on the best wall of every home, and nothing else can be hung under the portraits. Families with high loyalty to the Party bow down under the portraits even when nobody is watching.”
“Religious freedom is not allowed in North Korea because it will ruin the deification of Kim Il Sung.”
“Having faith in God is an act of espionage. Only Kim Il Sung is a god in North Korea.”
“Juche itself is a religion, therefore they worry that people may forsake Juche for another religion.”
Link
This should put all doubts to rest as to what is going on in nKorea:
“”The cult of personality campaign is more extensive today than in 1985,” says former South Korean foreign minister Han Sung Joo, who visited Pyongyang this past October, and in 1985. “Unlike the Stalin and Mao personality cults, there is a deification and a religious emotional element in the North. The twinned photos of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are everywhere. Every speech says Kim Il Sung is still alive. I think if I stayed another two weeks, I might even see Kim Il Sung. The country worships someone who is deceased, as if he is alive.”
Kim Jong Il has upgraded his deification strategies to strengthen the family cult system. Western reports often detail Korea’s unique “juche ideology” – a theology of Kim worship, repeated hourly and daily, reminding Koreans they are insolubly bound to the Kim family and must erase foreign influence from their minds.”
Full article here
Oh, this will leave no doubt. I gauruntee you.
Just for you, Rhesus:
This is a National Geographic documentary about an opthamology surgeoun allowed in to nKorea to perform optical surgery for nKorean patience. This is part 7 when the patients have the eye patch bandages removed. The documentary crew are astonished to see all thanks, praise and worship immediately given to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il as this video demonstrates.
Warning: this video is bizarre and very disturbing.
For the record, I would agree that the Cult of the Kims (hereinafter the Cult) is at least as much a religion as any number of Asian belief systems — shinto, Confucianism, and Taoism — that are as much philosophical as spiritual, as the West defines that word. In one way, the Cult is more a religion than other Eastern religions whose gods are not as jealous. Most Japanese are both Shinto and Buddhist, and some also practice Christianity. The Cult enforces a more monotheistic ethic.
I think the posts documenting the regime’s Cult indoctrination, however, miss the point. I don’t think anyone is questioning that the regime is trying its damnedest to keep the iron boot on everyone’s head, and the increased emphasis on Cult probably reflects the regime’s recognition that economic and social control are dissolving. The fact that the regime is desperate to enforce the Cult doesn’t mean that people will believe in it. It’s probably a reflection of the opposite. For example, the myth of North Korean prosperity was a cornerstone of the Cult. North Koreans know a lot more about life in South Korea and China now than they did even five years ago, and they’re comparing what they see to their own lives.
I saw the NGEO show of which you speak and think that’s quite easily explained in one word: fear. The minders showed up in advance and choreographed the appropriate Cult of Kim adorations, and stuck around to make sure all was as ordered.
I still believe that most of the people have quit believing in most of the Cult. Sure, the amount of discontent and disbelief probably vary with region, social status, and demographics like age and gender. I also think that most North Koreans cling to selected elements of the Cult — nationalism and racism are persistent things in all societies — but not the divinity or nativity nonsense, or the prosperity nonsense. I think Kim Il Sung still has significant but unquantifiable residual popularity. I also think Kim Jong Il is deeply unpopular, and everyone in North Korea correlates his ascendancy to hard times that have stayed hard. No doubt, there’s a lot we don’t know and won’t know until the collapse. I’m sure there are some things they still believe or don’t know that would surprise us, but inside, I think most of them privately doubt most elements of the Cult and survive with doublethink.
Then there are the deeper ways of thinking. We will find plenty to surprise us in how such an unprecedented and sustained mass-mindfuck affects the way people think. I’m betting on an epidemic of madness and crime — prostitution, drugs, gambling, scams, banditry, gangs.
And then we will have our first images of the camps, the famine, the mass migrations, and the epidemics of disease they will spread. The West and South Korea will feel overwhelming pressure to solve grave humanitarian crises have been neglected for decades. (China will find ways to take advantage of this). Southern carpetbagging, much of it exploitive, will generate resentment and impede economic reconstruction.
New cults will spring up to supplant the vacuum left by the old Cult. The climate will be right for the rapid spread of fanatical religious and political movements that promise hope through a combination of social cohesion and some sort of “afterlife,” either secular or spiritual. Of all of the likely alternatives, I see Christianity as being the most socially beneficial.
In the longer term — 20-50 years — North Korea will start to emerge from its despair and regenerate, based primarily on the determination and intelligence of its people, but also on the technological advancement and capital of the South. Peoples who survive hard times have a tendency to produce a higher-than-average number of extraordinary individuals, and it’s extraordinary individuals in business, science, and government who organize nations into great economies and world powers.
It will be interesting to see how close that prediction comes 5-10 years from now.
One final note, KCJ: play on the level with us here. You can’t simultaneously boost your cred with cryptic references to your occupation without actually opening that topic up for discussion and questions about the basis of your knowledge. If it’s a big secret, then I’d prefer you just didn’t refer to it. If it’s not a big secret, then share what you can and claim your cred honestly.
I, for one, think this disagreement would be better solved with fisticuffs.
Have at you!
lunge
Play nice, now. We’ve turned this into a pretty good discussion. You need a few points of disagreement for that.
Joshua:
I found thepoints absolutely salient and corroborate my research with my Korean staffers:
“Then there are the deeper ways of thinking. We will find plenty to surprise us in how such an unprecedented and sustained mass-mindfuck affects the way people think. I’m betting on an epidemic of madness and crime — prostitution, drugs, gambling, scams, banditry, gangs.
And then we will have our first images of the camps, the famine, the mass migrations, and the epidemics of disease they will spread. The West and South Korea will feel overwhelming pressure to solve grave humanitarian crises have been neglected for decades. (China will find ways to take advantage of this). Southern carpetbagging, much of it exploitive, will generate resentment and impede economic reconstruction.
New cults will spring up to supplant the vacuum left by the old Cult. The climate will be right for the rapid spread of fanatical religious and political movements that promise hope through a combination of social cohesion and some sort of “afterlife,†either secular or spiritual. Of all of the likely alternatives, I see Christianity as being the most socially beneficial.”
This is right on target: “The West and South Korea will feel overwhelming pressure to solve grave humanitarian crises have been neglected for decades.” And there is the connection to Iraq and Afghanistan as well – two nations in miserable disrepair that the western political constituencies impatiently demanded immediate results for – and nearly got it.
My analysis leads me to believe that the remarkable zeal of the Christian missionaries and evangelists from sK will cause a powerful surge of activity in nK the moment conditions are even semi-permissive. This will itself create short term problems (security/rejection by some) and long term solutions (as Josh alludes to above) in institutions and social healing.
As to my cred, I am active duty and work in the field of religion – I’ll stop there, as this is an unclassified website and there are only so many possibilities should the enemy want to actually locate me. I have worked extensively in the field of counterinsurgency the past 3 years including a year in Iraq. I also worked at the US Army Combined Arms Center during the draft of FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency and FM 3-0 Operations.
My boss is a doctrine expert from the same HQs.
Unfortunately in my research, I have not uncovered much in the way of predictive analysis on post-KJI conditions on the pen. Most everything here is geared for the big 5027 fight, and not much else. I can say with some certainty that no one on the military side of the house seems to be taking religion int consideration at all. After the dramatic failures in OIF regarding Islam and the clerics and the bloody ramifications of proceding without the prerequistite religious and cultural knowledge, I am erring on the side of a robust religious analysis for the Korean Theater of Operations (KTO). Should our analysis turn out to be unneccessary, so be it. But in the event that some type of cultural intelligence is needed, and none is available in deliverable format, we may cause more problems than we solve at the beginning.
The sK Forces will be the main effort in stabilizing a post-KJI Korea. But even they need deliberate application of all means of cultural, social and religious analysis to that daunting task. As partners, USFK need to understand both Koreas – as an ally fighting side by side and a stability force among a people who have been taught to hate America, Christianity and capitalism for 60 years.
I hope all the readers had a chance to open the links provided above. As to KJI’s popularity, this CSM article seems to believe that KJI is quite the populist – which concerns me.
Joshua, your analysis is incredible. I just reread it for like the 5th time. Thank you for sharing that analysis – it is by far the best, most comprehensive vision I have encountered in my research so far. I hope to be a frequent participant in discussions here – and I am learning a lot. Thank you!
KCJ
KCJ, I’d beware of falling into the “fighting the last war” trap. Learning from our mistakes in Iraq is a good thing for Iraq, but you can’t fit Korea into an Iraq template. We underestimated religion’s impact on our political struggle in Iraq because in the Middle East, the impact of religion is nearly impossible to understate. Korea isn’t Iraq, and in Korea, religion is much easier to overstate. As devout as some individual Koreans are, religion simply hasn’t shaped the direction of Korean society and culture to anything close to the degree that Islam has shaped Middle Eastern ways of thinking. Consider that Koreans fight with each over almost everything — region, class, politics, and clan. Religion is one thing they almost never actually fight over.
In Korea, it’s the impact of nationalism, race, and han that you can’t overstate. And if you even understand what han is — that’s one concept that probably translates better into Arabic than English — you’re already halfway there.
Josha,
Once again, thanks for the spot-on analysis and continuing education. I will do some research on han and add it to our analysis.
Korea is not Iraq, granted. But its a no-brainer that the Juche regime has studied US difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan and realizes that cultural exploitation is an effective strategy for weakening the US position on the pen.
Arabs tend toward dogmatism and a static culture. Asians seem much more pragmatic and syncretist. The big picture for me as a Soldier is that (a) culture and religion matter in warfare; and (b) our government, DoD and military institutions do a poor job of operationalizing culture.
The tensions between antiChristian nK and zealously missionary sK Churches will be a factor in nK sooner or later.
Lastly, the main similarity to Iraq is that our cultural necessity is both with combined operations with our allies (RoK) and understanding our enemy (DPRK). As an OIF vet, my strongly held position is that the DoD is struggling with the new post-Cold war paradigms of 21st century conflict in which people are part of the battle field. So its not that I am looking to superimpose an OIF template on the KTO, but rather anticipate the same cultural achilles we experienced in OIF and OEF and try to develop predictive analysis for this theater that informs our operations adequately.
Your blog has been a super-educational and informative source in my research, and I commend you for your astute analysis and friendly demeanor.
Many thanks for the stimulating dialogue!
KCJ