North Korea, the world's most mysterious country

Hello everyone,

As I said in my last article, I am back regularly to jot down a few words on some (in my opinion) interesting topics. These past few days, I’ve been watching load of documentaries about North Korea. I have become so passionate about this subject that I wanted to write a blog post on it.

First things first, to write about a country, I had to do some researches about its history in order to have a better understanding of its current regime. So acording to my sources, Korea was in 1944 under Japenese authority. But when America sent two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the country had to forfeit and gave its territory to the allies. Korea was then divided in two parts : the north was controlled by the Soviet and the south given to americans. In 1947, the US wanted to organize democratic elections (the whole Korea, North and South united) while the USSR didn’t agree for their part of the country. This started to create tensions between North and South. South Korea at the end of this ballot gave birth to the Republic of Korea whereas in the North a young man convinced by the communist ideology, Kim Il Sung was put at the head of the region. According to the communist theory, this new leader redistributed lands and nationalized agriculture, industry and economy. At this time, tensions started to rise rapidly between North and South. The North Korean army supported by the USSR and China invided the south but the United Nations and US forces intervined to enray this invasion. This is how the Korean war started. After three years of conflict, the two factions came to an agreement and signed a non-agression pact, however it is not a peace treaty which could have marked the end of the war. In addition, the pact delimited a militarised area (a kind of border) between the two regions, which now has over one million soldiers. Swiftly, North Korea evolved its industry and agriculture in order to ensure self sufficiency. Nonetheless, one of the most closed countries of the world became quite alone diplomatically after the fall of the USSR and the way China opened its economy to the world. In addition to this, Kim Il Sung, its first leader died in 1994 and was replaced by his son Kim Jong Il. In the mean time, because of its agricultural system, North Korea had to overcome a great hunger between 1994 and 1997 doing one millions victims. In 2011, Kim Jong Un, after the death of his father, took the head of the country, when millions of his citizens thought he would open North Korea to the world, he just did the same as his foreheads governing with full powers. He even developed research for arm weapons and did plenty of nuclear testing. In 2017, the North korean government announced they had the nuclear weapon.

You might wonder why this country is so much criticized ?

To answer this question I did plenty of researches and I found on Human Rights Watch website that most of our common liberties are forbidden there. In this sovereign state, north korean have no civils and political rights, no freedom of expression, neither liberty of assembly nor of practicing a religion. As a matter of fact, the only person they can follow and listen to is their supreme guide : Kim Jong Un. Moreover, North Korea is governed by the leading party, WPK (Workers' Party of Korea) and every opposing parties are forbidden. Also citizens who are not following their rules are often arbitrary arrested and torture in custody in one of their numerous political prison camp. The authorities want to maintain fear among the population so that they can control them. Also, everything related to an ideology or belongings coming from the outside are strictly forbidden. Fun Fact, North Korean cannot wear every kind of hairstyle, they have to pick between 28 hairdos chosen by the regime.

At this point of my article, you might wonder, how their economy is working in one of the most shut country of the world ?

As you might know, North Korea is suffering sanctions applied by their “enemies” such as the United States and other occidental powers due to their nuclear ascension and their way of violating human rights. In fact, the government is gaining money from all the activities executed in the country, and according to my sources all the money created by the country is going on the account of the Kim family. Depending on their priorities, they will redistribute this money to their people and pay their wages and other fundamental incomes such as (aides sociales).

But from where is coming all their money, only from their nationalized economy ? Surely no. Actually, the party has earnings coming from all over the world and they try to bypass all the restrictions foisted on them. Moreover, they use unpaid workers to construct most of the buildings in their capital Pyongyang, some of them are women, children, detainees and prisoners and they are committed to the Workers’ Party of Korea.

On the other hand, North Korea is also a place in the world where human rights are violated. As a matter of fact, citizens cannot leave the country (and the ones who have the authorisation to are either highly privileged or workers who’ll work with a constant surveillance). According to Human Rights Watch, China and North Korea have signed an agreement on which each North Korean refugees captured by chinese authorities should be deported right away in their home country. The WPK, the leading party, is putting all its efforts in increasing security among the borders in order to avoid North Korean to flee, by multiplying the number of border guards, CCTV cameras, and installing barbed wire fences on its border with China. In this place, defection is considered as a crime of “treachery against the nation”. In addition to this lack of liberty, the government fail to protect numerous people at-risk such as women, children and disabled people. Again in accordance to Human Right Watch article, the authorities would also make gender-based discrimination for women especially and encourage rape, exploitation and abuses. Their article is also emphasizing the numerous forced marriage which are taking place each year in the country. But discrimination do not seems to be only based on the gender but on many other factors such as employment, residence. It seems also, that there is corruption among the government, which could be possible seeing the way the Kim Family is leading the country. What stunned me while I was doing some research for this article is that North Korean can’t decide what job they want to do, it is the WPK who is assigning a profession for every men and unmarried women from cities and local areas. Most of the time, their way of earning their living does not compensate them and they must find another job, except that it is strictly forbidden to work without permission and it can be reprimanded from three to six months in labor camps.

At last, this country is kind of violating most of the fundamental human rights such as liberty of expression, opinion, reunion and even of moving.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article, I took a lot of pleasure in writing it !

Have a nice day !

The French Art de Vivre

Here are my sources, if you want to know more about North Korea, you should check them :

Click here if you want to read Human Rights Watch article (english version)

North Korea, "Les hommes des Kim", youtube documentary (french version)

Envoyé Spécial, La Corée du Nord, youtube documentary (french version)