The images were released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency as Jong-Un's second-in-command has reappeared in official television footage, contradicting reports that the young dictator had ordered his execution
North Korea: The New Generation Losing Faith In The Regime -- The Guardian
After decades of absolute control, Pyongyang's iron grip on the lives of ordinary citizens is finally slipping. Tania Branigan meets the people who no longer believe the propaganda
If she is lucky - if her husband or children can slip away unnoticed to the riverside, nearer the Chinese phone masts - Chae Un-ee can talk to her family each day. “Talk” is perhaps an exaggeration; her loved ones end the call, made on a smuggled handset and SIM card, almost as soon as it begins.
“They have to be very quick because otherwise the phone can be tracked down,” she said. “It’s mainly just to hear their voice and know that they’re okay. If they don’t call me I worry, because the situation is very tense there.”
“There” is North Korea. Chae is not a dissident, not even a defector; only a mother working abroad in China to feed her family. Yet the North’s control of its citizens is such that even this work, in the country’s only significant ally, could result in harsh punishment.
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My Comment: The Soviet Union collapsed when even the elites and those who supported them no longer believed in the lies .... instead they became more focused on using the power of the state to maintain their lifestyles and their privileges. This is what is now happening in North Korea. With time .... the hope is that a new leader and his entourage will come to power with a certain desire for reform .... but that is not going to happen with Kim Jong-un, and it certainly is not going to happen in the next few years.
3 comments:
Kim Jong-Un is in a difficult position. I think a genuine popular revolution against him is unlikely. If he is overthrown, it will be by the small elite in the party and army that benefit from his terrible regime.
To keep the elite in line, Kim must complete two tasks. First, to instill absolute terror in the elite for what awaits them if they plot against Kim. He has completed this task with the barbaric slaughter of his uncle and the uncle's faction. Who wants to be devoured by starving dogs? Yikes!
The second task is harder: to convince that elite that, if Kim falls, they fall too. This is harder to do, and it is not clear that Kim can accomplish it. Publicity (i.e. pictures showing the elite around Kim helps; they are tarnished by their association). Better would be a crisis involving a small, but not total war in which South Korea and the USA threaten the regime, but don't actually overthrow it by force. The West's weakness in Ukraine makes such a crisis more likely in Korea.
It's doomed either way. The most dangerous time for a dictatorship is when it tries to reform itself.
There's a third possibility fellas, someone or someones will feel they have to get him before he gets them. Has happened a lot in history and the way Kim's been acting makes him a prime target.
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