North Korea’s Sham Succession
At The New Ledger, I offer my thoughts on Kim Jong-Eun as the genetic vessel for the perpetuation of a deiocracy. I would like to pause here to thank Dr. Atkins, without whom I could not have made all of those cheap fat jokes. Please take no offense unless you gorged yourself while others starved around you.
Joshua, you’ve used a word unfamiliar to me, “deiocracy”. Not even Google knows what it might be. The result of my query was, “Did you mean: idiocracy Top 2 results shown”. And those two results referred to a 2006 comedy. So I’m left to guess: deiocracy is rule by deists.
Rule by a god? An apt neologism, considering how Juche mythology has elevated the Dear Leader higher than his shoes ever could.
kushibo, there’s already a word for rule by a god: theocracy. Joshua knows that, of course. He chose deiocracy on purpose. But I can’t divine his purpose!
Glans,
Technically “theorcracy” is “rule by god,” but it also implies that god rules through intermediaries who recieve god’s will through divine guidence. In theocracy, god himself is not given an official title and is not actually considered to be in the government.
I think Joshua was going more for a type of government in which “god” quite literally rules directly without the aid of intermediaries; a form of governance pioneered by Imperial Japan, though it wasn’t called “deiocracy” at the time. The term is quite apt.
Deiocracy is a clever word — but I think the succession of Baby Kim indicates that the DPRK is a secular kingdom in the European feudal style.
In that system, the king is first among equals, and is accepted for his position by a group of barons. (There were, then and now, religious barons who specialised in civil administration, and military barons.) Primogeniture is not required, so that the new king is not necessarily the first son, and indeed can be any relative by blood with sufficient personality and power to enforce his claim to succession. (Baby Kim is a third son.) The magnates who elect or acquiesce in the succession thereby obtain certain privileges in advance for allowing the accession, or confirm their own traditional areas of control. (That seems to have been the reason why the Party Conference was delayed.) These magnates are themselves the top of a pyramid of direct loyalties, where their supporters may have multiple loyalties but can recognize a primary loyalty. (So one can be a military mining magnate with control over civilian labor camps, but one’s primary loyalty is within the military.)
Oftentimes, there was a founding myth that underlay the succession, and that myth could be incorporated into the national religion. (Juche.) The king, following election, is then given a formal position that is ratified by reference to an external religious concept, so that rebellion becomes heresy or apostasy against a power greater than the king, and so is punishable by death for the attempt to overthrow the established order.
In this system, the king’s power is not absolute, even after accession: loyalty can be renounced formally in consequence of a breach of promise upon accession, or because of general mismanagement. (So, if there were a colonel’s coup, they’d be public about it.) For many lesser feudal kingdoms, allegiance was owed to a larger foreign power, and the accession had to be accepted by a formal meeting where the new scion visted the larger power and was seen to be acceptable. (The recent visit to China.)
Europe operated under a system like this from about 950 to 1350. It produced some really horrible rulers — like Fulk III of Anjou the Cruel or Pedro the Cruel. But it had strange consequences –It was exactly this kind of feudal kingdom that, in England, produced Magna Carta, which we consider a foundation of popular liberty.
The point is of this exegesis is not history, but that North Korea operates in a recognisably historical fashion as a feudal lordship, so that there will undoubtedly have been agreements surrounding the raising up of Baby Kim, that those agreements are likely to be formal in form, and that a primary task of foreign espionage will be to read them or to discern their outlines from later actions and re-alliances.
Glans, a theocracy is a system in which clergy rule in the name of God or a god, it is not rule by God or a god It/Him/Herself, as North Korea purports to be.
When distinguishing between the Juche-steeped DPRK and, say, a country like the Islamic Republic of Iran, I would say there’s a difference.
Joshua wrote:
Ha ha.
I’m quite religious about lexical meanings.
Joshua and Kushibo, was the old Tibet a deiocracy?
david woolley’s comment makes sense. He begins “Deiocracy is a clever word — but I think the succession of Baby Kim indicates that the DPRK is a secular kingdom in the European feudal style.” The rest is clear, until we come to “those agreements are likely to be formal in form.” david might want to explain that.
I never heard of Fulk or Pedro, so I looked them up in Wikipedia. One learns so much reading top-tier K blogs!
They both inherited power while even younger than Kim Jong-Eun. It seems that Fulk III was an ancestor of the Plantagenet kings of England, and possibly of david woolley himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulk_III,_Count_of_Anjou
Some call Peter of Castile “the cruel”, but others call him “the lawful”. He fought against anti-semites, and Geoffrey Chaucer wrote favorably of him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_of_Castile
Interesting, you guys really seem to be out to denigrate North Korea.
No where has the DPRK, so far as I know, ever said Kim is a god. They attribute extra-ordinary feats to him, yes, but they don’t think he is a god.
But I guess right wingers never were too concerned about the facts, just stoking up justifications for another war.
Bruce, you must be new to the DPRK’s Kremlinology. The Kims are most certainly revered as deities in the prison known as North Korea.
The cost of maintaining the cult is nearly 40% of the DPRK’s GDP. the cult: http://www.rickross.com/reference/nkorea/nkorea47
Juche is ranked the world’s tenth largest religion.
“With the Great Leader we are dealing with a religious cult. Rather than implode, or even less likely, surrender to outside pressure, the Kim cult is more likely to be apocalyptic. Try to break it by force and Kim will try to blow everyone to kingdom come.”
“South Korean specialists don’t see North Korea as a real communist country.
The country is a theocracy centered on a being endowed with supposed supernatural gifts who is worshipped with religious fervor.
The leader and Juche, his ideology, are ‘biblical truth’ and unchallenged.â€
– Yu Suk-Ryul, a professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, affiliated with South Korea’s Foreign Ministry
Bruce, my man! Have you explained anarcho-syndicalism to the North Korean authorities?
We are all of us correct, of course, even Bruce. A ruler who is omniscient, omnipotent and infallible is akin to a God; on a lesser level, Juche is a religion, and the Kim family are bodhisattvas in a pantheon of self-abnegating godlike freedom fighters, while on another view, they are merely its High Priests, — and on the final level, Little Kim’s imminent death indicates mortality and humanity, and everyone in North Korea realizes that.
The issue raised by “deiocracy” isn’t reality itself, but our perception of it… and “deiocracy” is as good as any other word for a very weird system, so long as the word doesn’t prevent examination of the reality.
My view of the reality is that, in the last month, there will have been meetings, with minutes and memoranda of understandings coming from those meetings, in which the Kim faction will have given formal assurances to the various other State bodies as to the method of governing the State in the next few years, in order that it may maintain its hereditary powers — such as, “the rocket forces will continue to be funded solely by the receipts from external sales, all of which shall be delivered to such-and-such section.” This is not theocracy but sausage making.
I also think that giving Baby Kim a generalship is an ambiguous act, since it puts him under both Party discipline and military discipline.
Finally, Korean history is a useful guide — as I understand matters, in the Choson period, the king was arbitrator between powerful noble factions, each of which had a military powerbase, and each of which maintained solvency through the widespread use of agricultural and industrial slave labor. How different is that from today?
david woolley and Han Kim, how well is Korean history known? Lots of documents? Corroborating archeology? Conetemporaneous references in foreign sources? Can we be confident in conventional narratives of Korea’s past?
U.S. and South Korea reaffirm ties, prepare for contingencies in the North.
The New York Times reports that Robert Gates and Kim Tae-young “reaffirmed the close partnership of the two nations,” and that Mr. Kim said, “When Kim Jong-il’s health may deteriorate, of if there is a movement of public opinion in North Korea, we cannot eliminate the possibility of there being an instability situation in North Korea.” The story closed with this: [Mr. Kim] said the alliance would “prepare for all possible contingencies in North Korea.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/world/asia/09military.html?ref=world
Oh, bless little Bruce. Whenever I see comments like that, I think of Malcolm Caldwell going to Cambodia.
David Wooley is nuancing something that is blatantly evident: the DPRK is run as the Japanese occupation with emperor worship of Kil Il-sung as the new “son of god” in place of Hirohito. KJI and KJU are simply heirs in the order of Juche’s su-ryong doctrine and the obvious (NOT nuanced) conclusion is that North Korea is a religious state like Iran that is ruled by religious leaders with coercive power. Those that reject this are complicit in sustaining the Juche regime’s crimes against humanity and sins against the one true God who rules over all nations.
KCJ, what is this ‘one true God’ nonsense inserted there at the end? Seems totally inappropriate for this discussion.
Regardless, North Korea is about to receive their new “godly” being in full force, and I believe David Woolley is on to something about the emergence of liberty-seeking among the people of a controlled-life state. My naivety may show, but I’d say that this will be the last Kim to Kim transfer of power in the North. But what does the world do when an old-world feudal theocracy of sorts insists on existing forever? I often wonder if their experiment should be allowed or not, if their complete control over the people is merited in any way, citing the importance of (but not the right to) retaining a pure and isolated group of people. 99% of me says no, the system should be abolished ASAP, but the other 1% wonders about the DPRK’s significance among the history of world powers and its astounding accomplishments in interesting, smaller areas of the scope of human existence. Forced solidarity dressed up as an elephant large enough for all 24 million people to stand on is in my opinion one of the most infatuating examples of human accomplishment in the last century. On the other hand, I watch these videos of the mass dances in Pyongyang from this week and think to myself, if only these people had the right to spend their evenings doing anything they wanted.
US often weighed NKorea `nuke option’
By CHARLES J. HANLEY and RANDY HERSCHAFT Associated Press Writers The Associated Presshttp://www.charter.net/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CD9IOCC680%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=1012&page=1
Tangentally related; one of the biggest critics of the third (and second) generation successions, Hwang Jang Yop, is gone. Love him or hate him, he was a thorn in the side of the North Korean regime, and for that we should be grateful.
Ah, chris, you beat me to it.
Requiescant in pace, Mr Hwang and all your victims.
Uh, Jason? Surely you have heard of God, as in God Almighty? Even the Koreans have two different words for gods (hanunim) and THE one true God (Hananim).
Chris – are you saying that Hwang Jang Yop has died, or just that he has defected? I have not seen any news here in Korea that he is gone.
Glans, I think Anarcho-syndicalism would be a good system for North Korea. Unfortunately I don’t think the neo-liberal consensus will allow such a system to be implemented there.
Also KJC I think the talk of God is offensive to atheists such as myself, and might be to others as well.
Oh Bruce, you’ve joined the Wobblies! That’s not inconsistent with being hostile to Marxism — in the Spanish Civil War, there are some really horrible tales of the smaller war between the Marxist-Stalinist POUM and the CGT, both Republicans but enemies forever.
Like the Devil, the IWW had some good tunes. And as for God, there is little doubt that Korean Christians have done wonderful work…but the underlying problem with Christianity, like all religions, is that it tends to oligarchy. Remember, Kim Il Sung was probably raised Christian. And he could easily have modelled himself on Pope Julius II, (murderer, warrior, father, megalomaniac, patron of Michaelangelo, and temporal ruler) or his predecessor the Borgia pope Alexander.
They represented, as their titles show, mainstream Christianity. That doesn’t mean Christianity is bad, but it’s nuanced.
I think atheists suggesting to people of faith that they should dispense with “the talk of God” because it’s “offensive” is itself pretty offensive.
“Also KJC I think the talk of God is offensive to atheists such as myself, and might be to others as well.”
I am a born again Christian who grew up in the Bay Area and I spend a great deal of my time in Berkeley and let me tell you that some of the atheists (and those of other faiths) have no problem offending me. They assume when they talk about their opinions, that I “think like them”.
So if I can handle being “offended” in the political climate where I live, you can handle this blog forum.
A belated reply to Glans regarding Korean history documentation:
hi Glans,
Korea’s historic documentation is actually very good. Official archives and state-funded written history goes back to at least the 10th century. Documented history goes back further.
The Chosun dynasty (from 1392-1910) the kept meticulous records and the court historian and archivist was an independent office. The record keeping and the regime’s appreciation of media and propaganda and legitimacy was the driving force behind the advances in printing technology in Korea.
The Koryo dynasty (918-1392) which preceded Chosun wasn’t as meticulous because printing technology was not as refined (although in Korea the printing press had been invented around the 1200’s). Still, since 950 a.d it had a functioning civil service corps where nobles had to pass a competitive written exam to join, so the official record keeping was present and Korea has been blessed (or cursed depending on your POV) with a functioning bureaucracy (hence paper pushers) for ages.
Prior to Koryo, the Shilla dynasty was a bit more feudal and less centralized. Buddhist monasteries were quite powerful and wealthy and did alot of their own publishing. As in the West, learned monks wrote much of Korea’s history prior before the 10th century.
Bruce, the neo-liberal consensus couldn’t stop juche or songun in North Korea. How could it possibly stop anarcho-syndicalism? A dark suspicion crosses my mind. If you entered that country with the intent to persuade them to change their system, they’d punish you as a criminal. We’ll know this suspicion is wrong when we see anarcho-syndicalism widely discussed there, and I hope you’ll do your bit to make it happen.
It is always entertaining to watch nonChristians postulate on the meaning of Christianity. Theresa, Kushibo: nice responses, proportionate and polite. As Christ Himself taught, the message of the cross is offensive to those who reject the divine mercy.
Shalom all,
KCJ
BBC: North Korea leader’s eldest son ‘opposes dynasty’
North Korea Threatens to Attack if South Resumes Propaganda
by Mark McDonald in the New York Times
The usual. But there’s this: “With the youngest son of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, now officially in line to succeed him, …”
I don’t think Mark McDonald visits Kushobo’s blog too often.
http://www.monster-island.net/2010/10/take-your-successor-to-work-day.html
Glans wrote:
Thanks for the shout-out, especially for that post, which took a lot of time when I didn’t really have the time but needed to get that out anyway.
As for Mark McDonald (or any Western media figure), I’d be happy if they just paid more attention to Barbara Demick.