The Secret State

May I state that this is my first peice of writing here, I'm only 15 years old; English is NOT my native language, I've some background in politics but most things were self-learned from experience of a political game called NationStates, plus I bring up many things I've seen from the news; you may have come accross alot of these issues before as a result. Sorry if this seems to be a repitition of what everyone thinks, but I put some of my own input as well.

Korea, as many of us should know, was split up almost 50 years ago now during the Korean war, where the opposing sides included Russia & China, plus America. Once the two sides had split in 1948, the north was installed with a Communist regime, while the south was installed with what represented America's democratic/capitalist attitudes and ideals.

Kim Il-sung had ruled the North with an Iron fist, right up until his death in 1994. Kim Jong-il, Kim Il-sungs son, had then took over with the title 'Dear Leader', or 'the peerless leader', and there are other unofficial titles often used by the two only state media networks, as well the ordinary people. Kim Il-sung himself has been labeled as the 'Eternal Leader' ever since, so the previous leader of the regime has far from been forgotten by the populous of North Korea.

Economically, North Korea has been very dire as of late, but during the 1950's, 60's, and 70's, per-capita output and overall aggrigate output was much higher than that of South Korea's. The Juche ideology allowed for rapid industrialisation during the earlier years of the North Korean regime, but resources had soon dried up, as well as the accompanying corruption that normally follows most extreme-left nations. Output growth didn't crash entirely, but the state has been stagnating; South Korea has been given this oppurtunity to run ahead of North Korea, because its economic structure is much more stable. South Korea is currently 20 times more prosperus, and twice as populous, as North Korea. North Korea has a current per-capita output of $1,700, while for South Korea, this is in the mid-20 K's. South Korea is in the 'rich club' (trillion dollar league of nations, G8), while North Korea ranks for top 40 most impoverished nations. The economic situation in North Korea has only been made worse by the collapse of the Soviet Union (of which gave support to North Korea in the form of Aid, and quite alot of it), and intensifying negative relationships with the outside world; it has lost the majority of its Aid through trying to use such to invest in the development of Nuclear technologies, such as the recently spoken about 'Taepodong'-series of missiles.

Following on from that, as of the early-1990's much of the population have suffered from various malnutrition states and starvation, leading to many deaths around North Korean countryside; due to a great shortfall in food supplies and production, of which Aid has failed to account for due to the fact nations outside of NK are unwilling to deliver it. This is in an attempt to pressure North Korea to drop its nuclear weapons program. In larger cities, such as Pyongyang, food is in of no short supply, this problem seems to only affect the countryside. However, despite the lack of food around North Korea, there seems to be plenty for the leader Kim Jong-il; this has led to a negative portrayal of Kim Jong-il as a psychopathic murderer, he has been described as "just behind Mao and Stalin for most deaths through starvation".

Kim Jong-il would be highly more amusing if he weren't such a psychopath, cognac-guzzling, genocidal maniac and evil, autocratic dictator. Those are such words used by our own Western media to describe him, though a few Westeners who have met him, mostly leaders, have managed to see some rationality in him. Kim Jong-il himself enjoys alcohol, none of it produced in North Korea itself; expensive as it is, it is a must to get him cognac. In fact, Kim Jong-il has a personal net wealth of over $4 Billion, that's nearly 20% of the country's aggrigate output.

Kim Jong-il's origins are a very confused issue, there are several accounts; one side being that of North Korean propaganda and myth, the other beings findings from Western Media. The latter states that Kim Jong-il was actually born in the Soviet Union, when his father was exhiled and was a soldier in the Red Army's department for exhiles. The former has two sides, one more believable and the official account of North Korea which states that Kim Jong-il was born in his fathers guerella base, near Mt. Paektu, and another which is a myth conjured up by Kim Jong-il's own personality cult, in which Kim Jong-il was born amongst a double rainbow and an array of stars, on the top of Mt. Paektu. Clearly, it is uncertian whether any of those are true, though more evidence supports the first possibility than any of the others; it was on official Soviet Union records that Kim Jong-il was born there.

Kim Jong-il is said to have a collection of 20,000 western films, of which he himself denies; his favorites of which are the 'Friday the Thirteenth' series and 'Daffy Duck'. He is said to be very insecure, at only 5 ft 2 in he often wears platform shoes to elevate himself, as well as a 1960's elvis-style hairdoo to make himself appear taller. He is also said to have a 'pleasure squad', an arrangement of Asian and European girls recruited at the High-school age to 'pleasure and relax' officials after a 'hard day of work'. There are achievements of himself, possibly made up facts by his personality cult or the propaganda department, that are highly overexaggerated: he is said to have played the greatest game of golf ever, at 39 under par. He also published over 1500 books during his College days; that's over 1 per day. It is also apparently the case where he was publishing 6 operas in less than 2 years, another thing deniable. His publishing abilities, golf-playing skills, and opera-composing is questionable, but it appears that he has successfully managed to mould a cult in his own image; and people are managing to fall for the majority of what could be deemed as lies.

North Korea itself appears to be a very different world from the hustle, bustle, and constant technological advancements in the western world. There are only two state run television networks, both filled with constant streams of propaganda; though due to the erratic electricity supply there are only certian times it is broadcast. The internet and other forms of telecommunication, except for Radio which has been of abundance in the countryside for some time now, are almost non-existent; this is with the exception of a government official room with a dozen or so computers connected to the internet, but it is highly censored and pretrolled; any chance of dissedence through 'blogging' is going to be unlikely, as opposed to the case in China. There is a fifty-times-life-size statues of Kim Il-sung in Pyongyang, as well as loads of other monuments dedicated to Communism, Juche, or other various leaders, the are posters display propaganda in great abundance, and the ordinary population often wear pins celeberating North Korean propaganda in some way or another. The road are empty, often without privately-owned cars except for a few older mercedes in the possession of middle and higher government officials. In stores, things are on display such as MP3 players that are in no question in the reach of the salary of an ordinary Northern Korean; either it is purely there for display purposes, or government officials do listen to music.

The military is one of few things that suggests North Korea has some strength, and is not quite on the verge of collapse yet. 1 million of the Korean population are active in the army, and there are an additional 4.7 million in reserves, this places 1 in 4 of the Korean populus within some militial power. It is quite a suprise that none of them have rebelled yet, and the country hasn't quite gone into turmoil and civil uproar. But, this is probably because the North Koreans are so hypnotised through propaganda, their ability to compute anything suggesting dissidence is non-existent. North Korea is in possesion of the 5th largest army force in the world, and as stated before, over 30% of the GDP goes into the military. North Korea has access to weapons and nuclear capabilities, as recently displayed with the launching of the Taepodong II bomb in Wednesday. It had failed after about 40 seconds of launch, however, and has not been talked about on the two state television networks; probably because of this failure. North Korea, despite being pushed into three sessions of six-way talks, is still unwilling to drop its nuclear program unless in possesion of Aid; however, the six parties are skeptical of this, because they know what has happened in the past when North Korea has been in possesion of Aid.

North Korea, I can conclude, is a very isolated nation; though not quite on the verge of collapse, due to military strength still existent, leading most of the economic growth. The starvation situation will sort itself out eventually, with the introduction of farmers markets, food should be distributed more efficiently. Enough people will eventually die off, and so the food production will meet the ability to feed the populus once again. As for Kim Jong-il, nothing can last forever. Though he has tried grooming his son's, alot of them have failed. Recently, one of them was detianed at an airport for having a fake forged Deminocan Republic passport. If Kim Jong-il dies, there may be a slight possibility of the regime dispersing, reunification could even be a possibility providing the succesor has some sense. Until then, North Korea is likely to remain impoverished, unpredictable, and threatening to most of the Asian region.