Kim Il Sung, Juche and the society
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Kim Il Sung, Juche and the society
Kim Il Sung
Each journal on North Korea should start with the adoration of the Great Leader: Kim Il Sung. Kim Il Sung (April 15, 1912 - July 8, 1994) was the leader of North Korea since the beginning of 1948 till his death. He was prime minister since 1948 and became president in 1972 till he died in 1994. Until today, the lives of all North Koreans turn on this man. It is mandatory to wear a badge depicting his face and everywhere you go you see his portrait, the one even more beautiful than the other. Everything he touched became sacred and is stored in musea... everything he said is written down and published in numerous books. Nobody doubts his words, what he says is the truth. Our crucial question on this tour is:
Is the adoration of Kim Il Sung and the execution of his filosophy casued by a true belief in his ideas and/or are the people brainwashed (see education) and/or is this caused by the fear for reprisals?
We have to explain the latter: based on the status of your family, your good acts and you educational level you are assigned a job by the gouvernement. When you do not perform well, you (and your family) descend in rank...
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 The straw mat Kim Il Sung sat on |
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 The shovel Kim Il Sung held |
The highlight of the adoration of Kim Il Sung can be found in the mausoleum. The great leader lies in state in a glass coffin. When you want to visit the mausoleum, you are desinfected and literally blown clean. After passing half an hour in corridors of miles and miles, you reach the room where he can be visited. You are allowed to walk around his body if you bend threee times and of course you have to wear a tie...
 The immense mausoleum |
 Neatly dressed, including the guides |
Kim Il Sung's filosophy: Juche
The Juche idea can be devided into three main ideas that are interconnected: consciousness, creativity and independency. Consciousness means that you know the goal of all that you do. Kim Il Sung is known for the fact that he visited the people of his country and explained to them what their part was in the bigger goal of the society. The human is the only creature that is conscious of its existence and because of that the only creature that can control the environement... For this, you need creativity so that you can adapt the environment in many ways to the needs of mankind. According to Kim Il Sing, the human beings are the only creature that can return the environment in its orginal state. For example: we were shocked in the circus of North Korea where two bears functional als men (this would never be possible in The Netherlands!), but this fits in the filosophy.
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Independency relates the individuals as well as the politics. Every human being can think for himself and make choices (from our point of view this is not visible at all in the daily life, in contrary). In politics you see that the North Korean people should not depend on foreign countries, the country has to be made self-sufficient using its internal force.
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 The Juche obelisk |
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Society
The 'people' are central, not the individual person like in Western states. One should not trust on individual power, but on the people as a whole. The people shapes the body where the Great Leader is the head ("the brain", according to the original Juche idea). The people consists of three layers: the intellectuals, the workers and the farmers. They all have their own task in society. Everybody wordt for the gouvernement wthout having commercial goals (socialism/communism). The intellectuals guard the progression by studying the Juch idea and spreading it. The workers can be found in factories or construction and farmers of course cultivate the land.
 Layes 1: the intellectuals |
 Layer 2: the workers |
 Layer 3: the farmers |
To motivate (push?) the people to work hard the idea of competitions is created. The layers are split into cells (for example small villages) that battle each other to be the best cell. Once you made a good job, this is rewarded and the cell gains more respect: a beautiful flag, higher salary and you get famous in the country. We as tourists (who are only visiting the best places) of course visited places that all had a big collection of flags!
Communism & socialism
North Korea call itself a communist society (according the scientists the country is nothing more but communist). Communism is not layered, having an economical system that is based on joint property, where individuals produces to its best extent and consumes to its needs. In practice, communism is based on the ideas of Marx and Lenin. According to Marx the communism had to pass two phases, where the first one is called 'socialism'. One society where each individual "produces where possible and consumes where needed" is an utopia that assumes the goodness in men. Since mankind does not yet conform to this ideal, 'socialism' is intruduced as an intermediate state in communist countrues, that has to adapt people to real communists. Only then the coutry can really be called communist. In our opinion, communism/ socialism can hardly be found in North Korea if you base it on this idea since a class free society can definately not be found in North Korea!
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