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  • Essay / The Facts of Life in North Korea

    Since the dawn of time, many kingdoms and empires have risen and fallen. The most resilient ones were able to transform themselves into countries, whether autocratic nations/states. In history, we have seen many cases of autocratic leaders such as the Nazi Party and the Soviet Union. Most autocratic countries have managed to transform into democracies or have mitigated human rights violations and extreme autocracy. In the modern era, a few countries are autocratic or dictatorships, such as Saudi Arabia, Belarus, United Arab Emirates, Brunei, Turkmenistan, and Eritrea. All listed countries have managed to make living conditions reasonable and significantly eliminate the extremist way of running a country in accordance with UN human rights guidelines. However, North Korea has not renounced its extreme autocratic views and human rights violations. I will discuss in more detail the origin of the Kim dynasty, its philosophical belief known as Juche, and the atrocities that resulted from it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayThe country's first leader after the end of Japanese rule, in 1948, Kim Il-Sung came to power and led with him the state philosophy known as Juche which would later be adapted by his successors, his son Kim Jong Il and his grandson Kim Jong Un. Juche is Kim Il-Sung's self-proclaimed contribution to the nation as being “original, brilliant and revolutionary”. It states that “man is the master of his own identity” and focuses on becoming self-reliant and strong to achieve true socialism. Juche is very similar to Marxism in that it emphasizes man (the individual), the nation and its sovereignty. The Kim dynasty used Juche to justify its cruel and inhumane government policies. The Juche ideology highlights the notion of agricultural independence and lack of dependence on the outside world. This ideology was passed on to the current third generation of leaders of North Korea, Kim Jong Un. The state controls everything and effectively monitors its people using an extensive reconnaissance and informant network. The economy is also carefully controlled and the government spends large sums of money on its nuclear program despite significant shortages of food, fuel and other basic necessities. North Korean media are the most controlled on the planet. Their citizens receive all their news, information and entertainment from the state media, which unerringly presents the ruler as supreme via the propaganda tools of its media, education system and cultural beliefs. Nowadays, cell phones in North Korea are more common than before, but they are limited to local calls only, and making an international call is very expensive. Internet access is only available to a small number of individuals in Pyongyang who make up what the rest of the world calls "the 1%." Individuals charged with political violations are routinely sent to labor camps, which include extremely arduous work in mines and forests. Amnesty International has called the labor camps “harsh beyond endurance.” Prisoners are tortured and beaten by guards, and women are left defenseless against sexual abuse and rape. One of North Korea's harshest policies involves collective punishment, meaning that if one family member commits a crime, the entire family or other family membersmay be imprisoned or sent to labor camps. When government policies are not followed, punishments are brutal, the death penalty is meted out very casually to all prisoners, and executions are public in order to deter anyone else who might commit crimes. North Korea also arrests foreign nationals it suspects of being spies for other countries and very often mistakes a real tourist for a spy chasing tourism to the country. North Korea has also wrongly imprisoned American tourists in an attempt to use them as political pawns against sanctions and other political gains. For example, in 2018, before the US-North Korea summit, 3 American prisoners who had been imprisoned in labor camps for "anti-state activities" were released as a gesture of goodwill. The close-knit communities only believe the propaganda released by the government, which largely depicts an external evil enemy trying to encroach on North Korea and that its supreme leader is keeping them at bay, which in my opinion , is absolutely illusory and constitutes clear proof of his being a megalomaniac. Women's rights are widely violated, with many stories describing the immeasurable inequalities in North Korea, even though it presents itself as an egalitarian society among its citizens. Women face torture, rape and other sexual abuse in labor camps and prisons. Furthermore, culturally, women are not considered equals and their oppression is therefore widespread. Because of sexual abuse and rape, many children are forced to live in poverty. Although education is provided, the curriculum consists of state propaganda and disinformation about the world. From a very young age, the state restricts knowledge of the outside world to better manipulate and control the masses. Kim Jong Un's father, Kim Jong Il, led the most repressive government ever, ruling through fear and privileging power above all else. Kim Jong Un is following in his father's footsteps as he grew up watching his father Kim Jong Il oversee a mass famine, entrenched abuse, a cult of personality and mass starvation. However, under Kim Jong Un's rule, North Korea is no longer as isolated from the outside world as it once was. In recent decades, many North Koreans have left the state and traveled to China and South Korea, and then around the world. These defectors exposed the reality of life in North Korea even more deeply with difficult early experiences and eyewitness accounts of the regime's extremism. Additionally, many news and investigative journalism outlets have managed to obtain permission to film in North Korea. Journalists are always escorted, monitored and restricted by a government liaison officer. “It seems like they only want you to see limited parts of their world while the rest might be unbearable to see,” says a deputy journalist who officially obtained government permission for this “controlled” tour of parts limited to the capital. Every year, thousands of North Korean defectors manage to reach South Korea, where global broadcast networks have established contacts in South Korea to be able to obtain first-hand accounts of those who suffered the atrocities. Faced with the growing spread of information, the world has decided to take a stand and fight back. There is only one way to inform the North Korean population without government censorship controls: via shortwave radio stations run by foreign NGOs. The flow..