Today, I am going to discuss the system of government in my regime, North Korea. Our system of government is widely considered by the rest of the world to be an extreme dictatorship, is known as Juche within the country. This rejects ideas from elsewhere and focuses on using one’s own power and strength to form an opinion. The ideology of Juche is basically a rehash of previous communist ideas being presented in a new form, similar to Albania before 1992. It is considered by many commentators to be a country run by a “Cult of Personality” on a par with Stalinist Russia and Mao’s China (1). According to the Corruption Perceptions Index 2016, North Korea ranks 174 out of the 176 on corruption and inequality. To put this score in context, my country’s government is plagued by corrupt, untrustworthy, and badly functioning public institutions like the police and judiciary (2). Currently, …show more content…
There are numerous challenges citizens, like myself, deal with throughout our everyday lives. I feel the need to discuss the top 3 that affected me the most. First, there is no freedom of speech. Criticism of the regime or the leadership in North Korea, if reported, is enough to make you and your family “disappear” from society and end up in a political prison camp (4). Next, forced leadership adulation, the regime forces the people to participate in the maintenance of personality cults around the Kim leaders that have ruled the country for over 60 years. Propaganda starts in nursery school and a large proportion of the curriculum for all students- even at university- is dedicated to memorizing the “history” of the Kim family (4). Lastly, no freedom of movement, it is illegal for the North Korean citizens to leave the country without the regime’s permission (4). With this restriction, it is impossible for my family and to escape from this living
"North Korea: Human rights concerns." Amnesty Australia. Amnesty International, 28 Nov. 2006. Web. 2 May 2014. .
1984 demonstrates a dystopian society in Oceania by presenting a relentless dictator, Big Brother, who uses his power to control the minds of his people and to ensure that his power never exhausts. Aspects of 1984 are evidently established in components of society in North Korea. With both of these society’s under a dictator’s rule, there are many similarities that are distinguished between the two. Orwell’s 1984 becomes parallel to the world of dystopia in North Korea by illustrating a nation that remains isolated under an almighty ruler.
In my opinion North Korea's government is currently the most similar to the government portrayed in Orwell's novel. Just like Oceania, North Korea is run by a dictatorship that is cult like. Just like Big Brother in 1984, Kim Jong-un censors information and keeps most of it from his citizens. He punishes people for criticizing his government, and he constantly puts out propaganda pretending that North Korea is the best country in the world. The citizens of North Korea have no choice but to believe the information their leaders feed them, because they don't have access to any other news sources. The Big Brother of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, is the ultimate decider of what is real and what is fake in his country. It's as if he's erasing a part of his country's history by keeping so much information from his people. And in the other direction, he's keeping information about his country from the outside world.
In North Korea life was incredibly different, and is still different, from life in America. The residents of North Korea live in extreme poverty, while Kim Jong Il and any member of Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea live as if they were kings; their meals filled with delicacies the citizens of North Korea can only dream of. Although it’s found strange to most in "normal" society, Kim Jong Il is revered as a God, because it is he who gave them all the “luxuries” in North Korea. When in actuality, he is the sole culprit of North Korea’s extreme poverty.
Just how bad are pure socialist economies? North Korea is the most well known socialist nation. The government came to control all economic decisions in the country. Most of the country’s resources were sent to the military. The country also used its resources on developing a nuclear program. The military growth used up all of the country’s necessary resources. In the late 90s and early 2000s, the majority of the country was suffering from hunger and malnutrition because food was scarce. Millions ended up dead, and those who survived only did because of the aid from other countries (like South Korea and other capitalist countries). The failure to provide food foe the country was due to their flawed economy. North Korea began to produce less
This response will focus on the key issue of fragmentation. In his book Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey, Michael E. Robinson wrote “Multiple interest groups resided within the bureaucracy and even divided the royal house” (p. 16). Arguably, Korea’s sovereignty was lost in large part, due to the lack of unity among different groups and faction. It was clear from the readings that some Korean individuals and groups prioritized their self-interests above their own country’s benefit. Nowhere was this most evident then the issue of national security.
North Korea is notorious as the “Hermit Kingdom”. Defensive and secretive to the point of paranoia, its history as well as its present conditions remains shrouded in mystery. What little we do know can be murky at best. The central govern...
No one would ever think that a small country could create a controversy known the world over, but North Korea has achieved this goal. The North Korean genocide has claimed 2000 people a day before and these killings are from starvation and beating. Many people think communism is better than a democracy but it has its faults. For example, North Korea is Communist and whatever the leader’s beliefs the Communist citizen has to believe. What is happening and happened is genocide.
Italo Calvino was an Italian author who wrote a wide variety of stories, such as The Nonexistent Knight and many more. He was a master of postmodern literature which can be seen throughout all his stories, including The Nonexistent Knight. This novella follows Agilulf, a “perfect” yet nonexistent knight, and his acquaintances on quests to seek out their true identity and reveals to us that “where other people exist genuine individuality is never possible.” Through Calvino’s perspective, the perfect individual cannot exist in a world where there is greed, gluttony, lust, and other inimical qualities around him, which ultimately led Agilulf to his doom. Characters in the story cannot achieve that “perfect individuality” that everyone desires, simply because perfection is unattainable, which is depicted through Calvino’s use of satire and postmodern elements. In The Nonexistent Knight, Italo Calvino creates a parodic satire on medieval romances where genuine individuality is not possible, making us question the verisimilitude of the characters in the story through the use of different types of satire, character development, and postmodern themes.
Rogue states under dictatorial rule threaten the fragile peace, which exists in our modern world. Constantly as a society Americans have always fought against these said foes. However all too often we pass a blind eye to the humanity of the enemies’ civilian populations. For more often than not, those who live within these systems are chronically oppressed. The nation of North Korea is no exception, with “Bing-brother always watching.” The government in North Korea pervades all aspects of life.
Meetings were held with North Korea and the U.S. would always demand that North Korea remove those nuclear weapons, but every time they would decline. Kim Jong-Il’s health started to descend and that left him to give his power to his son, Kim Jong-Un. After his father’s death in 2011, Kim Jong-Un continued doing nuclear tests, even if that meant that North Korea wouldn’t be accepted into the international community. In conclusion, it can be said that dictatorship still exists to this day and that still many people aren’t free.
If the nation can, “eliminate almost all pre-existing political, economic, and social pluralism, and [have] a unified, articulated, guiding, utopian ideology,” then the strong, established totalitarian regime is likely to be stable (Linz-Steppan 40). Like North Korea, all culture, "’must not depart from the party line and its purpose of benefiting the revolution,’", thereby adopting the North Korean attitude to culture dictating that, “a North Korean could read anything he or she wished as long as it glorified Kim Il-sung,” (Martin 7-8). This will be done to maintain order and the people’s love for the Glorious Leader. There will also be a form of the Indian caste system. There will be classes of people, by which according to the state religion, will cosmically and religiously justify the subjugation of certain people (Moore 55-56).
Throughout the global media North Korea’s isolation and Harsh rule has become increasingly secretive, although some facts have been detected (“North Korea Profile”, 1). According to data collected from The Guardian, eighty-one out of one-hundred people in South Korea have access to the internet, yet in North Korea around .1 out of one-hundred people have access to the internet . Not only is the greater population of North Korea disconnected from outside sources, yet leaders in North Korea are also isolated from outside sources; putting themselves at a disadvantage. North Korea may launch a war, but they are unaware as to what they are up against because of its secrecy . Around one million are serving in the North Korean Army, but when South Korea’s army; combined with the U.S’s army (their ally), the ratio of the North Korean Army is signi...
Even some of the most authoritarian regimes around today allude to the fact that democracy is desirable. In the 2012 EIU's Index of Democracy, North Korea is ranked 167th in terms of level of democracy (the lowest ranked country on the index). Yet they mention democracy in their countries official name, “Democratic People's Republic of Korea”. Those outside of North Korea might look at this as some sort of sick joke, but it highlights peoples desire for fair and democratic process across the world. North Korea is an extreme case for lack of democracy, as well as an extreme case of government mandated censorship, but censorship is not limited to the low end of the democratic spectrum. It comes many shapes and forms and exists in some level in the majority of nations across the globe. This paper will outline and analyze ...
A nation’s innovation system is shaped by how the nation leverages its endowments—natural resources, culture, history, geography, and demographics—through policies that create a thriving market-oriented economy and accelerate the transition of new technologies, processes, and services to the market (Branscomb and Auerswald 2002). The aim of this assignment is to evaluate South Korea’s innovation policies, in light of its latest ranking as the second most innovative country in the world.