The government of a country dictates what kind of freedoms and allowances of the usage of basic human rights are accepted in its country. The United States of America has a democratic republic, meaning that the population vote on candidates that represent their ideas and opinions on a city, district, state, and national level. This means that the people have a major freedom of speech in what gets established in the laws and legislature. Britain has a constitutional monarchy, meaning that the power and influence the monarch has over his or her country is limited to a pre-written official document that strictly prohibits the monarch abusing his or her power. A country that has a dictatorship will strip away the rights of its nation, and that nation will suffer greatly.
To be politically correct, North Korea is officially the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. By its name, North Korea is a democratic republic, with the ruling party being the only party. North Korea is also a socialist state. Bruce Klingner, author of the academic literature North Korea Heading for the Abyss, explains that, if anything, the government of North Korea remained to be "identical to general secretary Kim Jong-Il in ideology, leadership, personality, and courage" (173). In other words, the North Korean regime introduced and implemented by Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il, the regime that restricted all rights of any kind, is still completely the same, meaning that the freedom of the North Korean people remain to be nonexistent. Klingner argues that the state remains to be "vigorously eliminating any alien ideology from abroad" (173). Alien ideologies include free trade, freedom of speech, and others.
As a result of the "democratic republic" type of government that North Korea maintains, basic human rights are stripped from the North Korean people. The country suffers because "the regime's resistance to economic reforms. . . [leads] to abysmal performance" (Klinger 178). The country suffers because the regime's inability to allow freedom in even their strict and controlled economic policies leads to a very inefficient economy. Every transaction is controlled, limited, and approved by the government, therefore, there is no tolerance for creativity or freedom of ideas to proactively improve the economy. With a poor economy comes a poor state, and with a poor state comes a poor people.
Every outcome of a socialist dictatorship remains the same: no progress, no change, and no rights. The state becomes stagnant and stale. The government becomes toxic. The people become victims. Joseph Kim, a refugee and author of an article adapted by his book Under the Same Sky, tells his heart-wrenching story of the painful famine he had endured in North Korea. During the famine in North Korea from 1994 to 1998, Joseph Kim writes that "there were days when all we had to eat was a handful of wild mushrooms in water" (Kim). Later, when he explains that his mother, his sister, and him all traveled to his maternal grandmother's house, Joseph Kim writes that his family ate at a restaurant where rumors teased that some travelers would be kidnapped by the owners of said restaurant and killed for their meat to be brewed in with their soups. He admits that, in North Korea, "there was no authority to consult if you'd consume a human being or not" (Kim). In a country where the people are not the priority, testimonies such as Joseph Kim's shed light on the realities of the tyrannical territory of North Korea.
In the end, a government that enforces a strict dictatorship results in a suffering people. North Korea, as a result of never-ending tyranny, remains to be a "train [that] could conceivably slow down (due to unforeseen factors) or it could derail, causing enormous damage to itself and its surroundings" (Klingner 180). Without a transformation, North Korea will suffer; the leaders, and the people.
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Works Cited:
1. Kim, Joseph. "Desperate times during the Famine in North Korea."Ideastedcom. N.p.,
03 June 2015. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
2. Klingner, Bruce. "North Korea Heading For The Abyss." Washington Quarterly 37.3
(2014): 169-182. Academic Search Complete. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
Peer Response from Yajarrah Paul
ReplyDeleteTo start, I appreciate all the time you spent to get all the information about the regime in North Korea. A lot of people do not know whats going on and you explained everything down to the specific definitions so that makes your blog's purpose more definite.You made your first blog really interesting and i am actually wanting to know what your next blog is going to be about. Regrading the first post:Do you think people know about this issue in North Korea and they don't say anything about it cause they feel as if they can't do anything about it? or Do you think United States as a whole ignores it?
Thanks for your concern.
DeleteThroughout history, if the people strongly despised the government, there would be a revolution, a coup d'etat! However, the people of North Korea aren't as privileged as those who rebelled. The Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, etc.: what did they have in common? They had weapons, a mean of communication, and unity. In North Korea, the citizens are split 50/50: those who truly and whole-heartedly believe that the Kim Dynasty are divine leaders sent to lead the country with absolute rule. No one can contest that. The other half are pessimists who believe that they can do nothing. The whole population, actually, have no weapons to form a militia, they have no ways to communicate, and there is no unity. The United States, as strongly as they may feel about the North Korean crisis, are forced to take a political approach to it to avoid any and all violence. North Korea is a thirteen year-old boy with anger management issues and an unknown amount of WMD's.
Peer Response from Kevin Pham
ReplyDeleteHello it's Kevin,
From reading your blog I have found that the information you use in the blog is accurate. I like how you mention that North Korea is refer to as the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, since many people doesn't know about this. You could have also mention that the people of North Korea are able to vote for the leader and how the current leader always ends up winning. As for my question, why is that the people of North Korea just follows what the government tells them and not start a revolt to change the current government to one where they no longer have to live in isolation from the rest of the world?
I simply act as a messenger. I take what I see as truths, and I summarize them, all the while, trying to give as much credit to the sources as possible. These are not my ideas, these are others' ideas that I agree with. Regarding your statement that the general population can vote, yes, they can; however, the Kim Dynasty, from the beginning of the separation of the Korean peninsula, established a one-party government where the ruling party is the only party allowed to be running as a candidate. The result being that the Kim Dynasty stays in power for as long as there is a North Korea. As for your question, I will refer back to the comment before yours:
Delete"Throughout history, if the people strongly despised the government, there would be a revolution, a coup d'etat! However, the people of North Korea aren't as privileged as those who rebelled. The Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, etc.: what did they have in common? They had weapons, a mean of communication, and unity. In North Korea, the citizens are split 50/50: those who truly and whole-heartedly believe that the Kim Dynasty are divine leaders sent to lead the country with absolute rule. No one can contest that. The other half are pessimists who believe that they can do nothing. The whole population, actually, have no weapons to form a militia, they have no ways to communicate, and there is no unity."
Simply put, they do not revolt because they cannot revolt.