You don’t even have to do anything but look at their own propaganda to realize something is up. the way they praise Kim jong un is creepy
In the cartoon squirrel and hedgehog they portray one of the characters being a child soldier as a good thing the overall message of the show is that you should always be willing to sacrifice yourself for your country (despite this cartoon being propaganda it’s pretty good give it a watch)
I don’t disagree that the personality cult around the Kim’s is a troubling part of the DPRK’s political culture, I don’t think that kind of thing is necessarily conducive to a healthy democracy. But, this is a country that has been forcibly chopped in half, bombed so much that people were forced to live in caves, and has been cut off from the global economy by US sanctions.
If you expect a country to endure that without issues, then you’re crazy. If you want to end that cult of personality, you should be advocating for an end to sanctions, and end to the Korean War, the removal of US military bases and an internationally mediated settlement between North and South Korea about what the peninsula’s future might look like.
The Kim family does have outsized influence, but the DPRK is not a hereditary monarchy. For example, the position of President, held by Kim Il-Sung, was abolished and split into multiple positions upon his death. This is why he is remembered as the “Eternal President.” As such, both Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-Un have held different positions. Both have held high positions, for example Kim Jong-Il had the title of General Secretary of the Worker’s Party of Korea, a position held by Kim Jong-Un presently. However, this is not the whole story.
The DPRK has a much more distributed level of power, and the Kim family is both widely supported due to its influence, and yet is not the undisputed top-dog, so to speak. What’s more, the Kim family is so venerated precisely because the legacy of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il is lived memory, imagine if Lenin had survived and raised his children as successors. It would be no wonder that the soviets would have elected his children, but it would not be a monarchy either.
Overall, people support the DPRK in its struggle for similar reasons people support Cuba: they are socialist countries that have achieved remarkable results despite intense sanctions thanks to their systems. It has nothing to do with “stanning,” and everything to do with supporting their struggle for independence from the US Empire.
You don’t even have to do anything but look at their own propaganda to realize something is up. the way they praise Kim jong un is creepy
In the cartoon squirrel and hedgehog they portray one of the characters being a child soldier as a good thing the overall message of the show is that you should always be willing to sacrifice yourself for your country (despite this cartoon being propaganda it’s pretty good give it a watch)
I don’t understand DPRK Stans.
I don’t disagree that the personality cult around the Kim’s is a troubling part of the DPRK’s political culture, I don’t think that kind of thing is necessarily conducive to a healthy democracy. But, this is a country that has been forcibly chopped in half, bombed so much that people were forced to live in caves, and has been cut off from the global economy by US sanctions.
If you expect a country to endure that without issues, then you’re crazy. If you want to end that cult of personality, you should be advocating for an end to sanctions, and end to the Korean War, the removal of US military bases and an internationally mediated settlement between North and South Korea about what the peninsula’s future might look like.
The Kim family does have outsized influence, but the DPRK is not a hereditary monarchy. For example, the position of President, held by Kim Il-Sung, was abolished and split into multiple positions upon his death. This is why he is remembered as the “Eternal President.” As such, both Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-Un have held different positions. Both have held high positions, for example Kim Jong-Il had the title of General Secretary of the Worker’s Party of Korea, a position held by Kim Jong-Un presently. However, this is not the whole story.
The DPRK has a much more distributed level of power, and the Kim family is both widely supported due to its influence, and yet is not the undisputed top-dog, so to speak. What’s more, the Kim family is so venerated precisely because the legacy of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il is lived memory, imagine if Lenin had survived and raised his children as successors. It would be no wonder that the soviets would have elected his children, but it would not be a monarchy either.
Overall, people support the DPRK in its struggle for similar reasons people support Cuba: they are socialist countries that have achieved remarkable results despite intense sanctions thanks to their systems. It has nothing to do with “stanning,” and everything to do with supporting their struggle for independence from the US Empire.