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No Discrimination in Education |
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Why the North Koreans Behave as They do? |
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Why the North Koreans Behave As They Do by Thomas Hosuck Kang, Ph.D. © 1994
(Compare two extremely different cultural genes, North Koreans and Americans. These two extreme poles of cultural genes are both dangerous and not desirable to a new healthy cultural gene for the world in the coming 21st century. See the Cultural Gene Section.)
Since the beginning of the fall of the Stalinist states, "The Stalinist state, North Korea," it has been saying for seven years, "will fall soon, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow," but is still there. How long it has to be repeated the outdated cliché "Stalinist" regime for North Korea? What a nonsense! If it is a "Stalinist" state, it would not be exceptional. The reason to send this message to your office again (My book was sent to your office three years ago, there was not a response) is: The observation of The Washington Post is lately very closer to North Korea's reality. The editorial of October 13 described North Korea as a "Dynasty", but more accurately the Kim Family Dynasty. The article by Keith B. Richburg in North Korea on October 19 reported North Korean society as (quoted below), which is exactly the heart of the content analyzed in my book. This book may be a bible of the North Korean behavior. We cannot judge North Korea from appearance, but we have to look deep into the heart of the North Koreans. In short, North Korea in the beginning was "the Japanese Confucianism (outward aggressive) wrapped with communism," later it has been gradually changed to "the Koreanized Confucianism" (inward competitive) wrapped with communism.
No one is predicting that the hardships will lead to any kind of popular disaffection with the regime -- and in fact, many here believe attitudes will only harden. The personality cult built up around Kim Il Sung remains deep and pervasive, and now officials seem to be trying to transfer some of the popular affection from father to his son. (Quoted from the Washington Post, 10/19/97 p.23.)
At the end of the World War II, when Korea was emancipated from Japanese rule, the Korean personality which was exposed to the Japanese indoctrination was dual: the Korean Confucian familialism for the elder and the Japanese Confucian nationalism for the younger. Kim Il-sung backed by Stalin returned to North Korea from outside with an ambition to establish a communist state in the North. The North Korean people quickly offered him the ready made Japanese emperor's mask by transforming themselves to his subjects, but faced a strong resistance to communism from the Korean familial nationalism, and found an exit to the Korean War to strengthen his position.
PART ONE, 1956-1967 handles North Korea's survival during Sino-Soviet ideological dispute. Kim Il Sung established his one-man rule in the beginning with the help of the Soviets and China's Stalinism. After Stalin's death, his regime sandwiched between the Leninist Soviets and Stalinist China dispute, the battle of two giant whales fortunately not only escaped from the breaking of its back but survived to get a freedom from them, Kim declared the church's ideology (self-reliance, neither relying on Stalinism nor Leninism!), succeeded in building the nation-state, but completely isolated North Korea from, and closed to the outside world.
PART TWO, 1945-1980 analyzes the process of North Korean mind in the making. The Korean traditional cultural gene was Confucian family oriented. Under Japanese rule, it became dual: filial to family at home, and loyal (forced to be nationalistic) to Japanese emperor in the organizations outside home. After the liberation, Kim took over the Japanese emperor's position, but failed in converting Northern society to communism, because of the strong familial national climate among the people. During the Koran War families in North Korea dispersed. At the end of the war, while Kim mobilized on the spot to the national reconstruction works all the people who were searching for their home in the ashes, children were deposited at state nurseries which is the factory to produce human dollies, where all the children were growing with food, clothes, toys, music, language given by their 'great, generous father and leader Kim Il-sung'. Thus the traditional Confucian five relationships in the North were procrustean bed to make into one relationship, Kim, as Confucian father-ruler exemplar at the top and the people as children loyal to him at the bottom. Through this human engineering Kimilsungism became Kim's family dynasty cult. Everybody in the north was supposed to fight and die for him to the last man. This mentality was indoctrinated by Japanese and further Koreanized by Kim.
If the atom bombs were not used in Japan from outside at the end of the War, Japanese were assumed to fight and die to the last man. If the North Koreans have the same mentality as the Japanese, they might fight and die to the last man. Even without Kim Il-sung, are they ready to starve to death to the last? The best to handle North Korea is to find whether the North Koreans are as loyal to the young Kim as to his father even after Kim's three year mourning period in 1997. To understand 90% of the North Koreans' sub consciousness analyzed in this book is more useful than the superficial observation of a few percents of the ruling class.
The United States perhaps can solve this problem to open up the closed Kim family dynasty by means of the humanitarian sock by mobilizing the world opinions.
This small book may help the serious scholars and policy makers of the United States to understand North Korea. This was prepared while the author, Korean specialist was working at the Korean Section, Library of Congress. |
