The Hidden People of North Korea Read Online Free PDF Page B

experience, our description is accurate in regard to not only the main themes but the details as well. We have done our best with what is at hand, and we encourage interested readers to consult other sources as well, because no two views of North Korea are identical. For a start, a short list of readings for further study may be found at the end of the book.

CHAPTER TWO

The Life of the Leader
    To understand why the North Korean people live the way they do, it is necessary to understand the thinking and personality of their supreme leader, Kim Jong-il, who, along with his father, has shaped their lives and limited their chances. And just as the son continued his father’s work, there is every reason to believe that whoever takes over for Kim Jong-il—most likely one of his sons—will govern in the style of the first two Kims.
    The North Korean people are accustomed to being ruled by autocratic leaders. Since the end of World War II, the North Korean dictators have been Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il. Before that, it was the Japanese emperor and his colonial administrators, and before that, an assortment of Korean kings and queens stretching back for millennia. Almost inevitably, dictators use their powers to serve their own personal interests before those of their people, and this is certainly the case in North Korea, which is run for the benefit of Kim and his elite supporters.
    Kim Jong-il is, by occupation, a dictator, and that job description limits his choices—and also the choices of his successor. It is no coincidence that his policies strikingly resemble those of other dictators, past and present. Thus, Kim is neither crazy nor strange; he is just doing his job. Ronald Winetrobe provides a good general description of dictators based on numerous case studies (not including North Korea) that fits Kim like a glove:
Such leaders tend to be paranoid, because they lack reliable information about what their people are really thinking about them. One of their chief concerns is staying in office, and to this end, they are engaged with more or less frequency (depending on the type of dictatorship) in buying loyalty and implementing repressive measures in order to do so. We know less about their subjects, but we do know that as long as they are at all numerous—and especially if they are unorganized—the benefits to each one of overthrowing the dictator will be small compared with the potential costs. This free-rider problem helps dictators immensely in the task of staying in office, but it doesn’t solve it completely, and under the right circumstances, they can be deposed, as dictators often are. 1
    Winetrobe would likely place Kim Jong-il in the category of most dangerous dictators: “Of all of the systems examined, dictatorship approaches the purest form in the role of a single individual, someone who is beholden to no interest group and who is not motivated by economic concerns. And as a dictatorship approaches this form, it becomes progressively more dangerous and more interested in controlling a wider fraction of the economy and society.” 2
    Kim Il-sung’s Legacy
    When Kim Jong-il took over after his father’s death, his official slogan was “Expect no change from me.” From his father he inherited not only a country but a system of governance. Whether the son would like to make substantial changes is a moot question. Over a decade later, the only changes that have come to North Korea have occurred in spite of Kim.
    By the time he died, the man known to North Koreans as the suryong (“great leader”), or more reverentially as oboi suryongnim (“fatherly great leader”), had taken his people down a dead-end road—although it would be equally true to say that the road led directly to the Kim family estate. Beginning life as a wandering young man with a limited education and no profession other than guerrilla fighter, he ended up virtually owning a country of twenty-two million people. Although he was