Quote:
Originally Posted by icenine
In my own opinion North Koreans are not worshipping Kim so much as allowing the system to continue because as awful as it is they are afraid of an alternative. Kim is but the tip of a spear of military and government elites that want the status quo to continue.
Behind Kim there are probably thousands of families and businesses tied to his dictatorship either through the army or whatever.
I saw on an Al Jazeera documentary how in Pyongyang there are nice buildings and people live in nice apartments and they were interviewing a North Korean family and the mother started crying when she spoke of the great leader. Then they showed a secretly taken video of a train station in a rural area and it was a very poor and desolate place and the people were dressed in old clothes and a few had some farm animals but it looked like a video from a developing nation. Totally the opposite from the choreographed and gleaming capitol. Of course there is famine in Korea.
So I don't think they really worship Kim. I think the regime keeps everyone in line by punishing those who disobey by either sending them to a concentration camp or throwing them out of the city. Who knows. The reason he killed his uncle from what I understand is that it was a dispute over the control of a certain business sector of the economy, like a gangland or mob turf war.
The concentration camps from what I have seen on 60 minutes are really awful places that you would never ever want to end up in...captive children being told to murder their own parents, stuff like that. That is probably how Kim and his followers keep the nation in line. You would probably cry at the monument of his father and grandfather also if you had such an alternative in the back of your mind.
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I'm not so sure....... I just don't know enough yet to agree or disagree with you.
But, from what I've read.... The people, rich or poor, don't know any different (for the most part).
But, I will keep your words I mind as I continue to read and see where this knowledge takes me.