Finally?! Is it ok to be happy about someone's death? Anyway, at least now I feel like there is an evil person less on our planet. But there is his son, hm...
I try not to get emotional about politics, but as a half-Korean whose ancestors came from Hamgyong province in the North I have a soft spot for North Korea (the region, nor the regime) and "the Supreme Leader"'s very existence always felt almost like a personal insult to me. I have been taught not to express joy at a person's death, so all I can express is a sincere wish that his death was excruciating and that his life has been sad and ronery 
As for the regime's future, nothing is clear at this point. Looks like the old geezer's death caught everyone by surprise and the factions did not have enough time to work out a balance of power. In the USSR you could always tell who the successor is when they announced the predecessor's funeral - the chairman of the state funeral's organizing committee was always the successor. Naturally, Kim Jong-un, the designated successor, has already been appointed to that position, but it seems like the most likely person to hold real power is Chang Sung-taek, Kim Jong-Il's brother-in-law and "grey eminence", as well as, allegedly, Kim Jong-un's political mentor. I guess the thing to hope for in the immediate future is that nobody gets any funny ideas about "rallying the nation" with a "fresh and jolly war".
Last edited by vonPeterhof (2011 December 19, 11:13 am)
prink
Member
From: Minneapolis
Registered: 2010-11-02
Posts: 200
Kim Jong-il was a figurehead, and his son will act as one as well. The military runs that country, and I think it's naive to believe that any serious change will come from this. The difference we see between the two regimes will probably be even less significant than the Bush-Obama transition.
Last edited by prink (2011 December 19, 4:44 pm)
Jarvik7
Member
From: 名古屋
Registered: 2007-03-05
Posts: 3946
vonPeterhof wrote:
Looks like the old geezer's death caught everyone by surprise and the factions did not have enough time to work out a balance of power.
Actually, he has been expected to be dead for some time since he didn't appear well and then wasn't seen at all in public for some time (what pictures of him did appear seemed photoshopped or were old pictures offered up as new).
It is a definite possibility that he died months ago and it was just made public with a suitably heroic cover story now (as in, didn't die slowly in a hospital wasting away from a disease, which is probably what actually happened).
That happens quite a lot with dictators to maintain the cult of personality and ease the transfer of power (real or imagined).
Last edited by Jarvik7 (2011 December 20, 3:14 am)
Jarvik7 wrote:
vonPeterhof wrote:
Looks like the old geezer's death caught everyone by surprise and the factions did not have enough time to work out a balance of power.
Actually, he has been expected to be dead for some time since he didn't appear well and then wasn't seen at all in public for some time (what pictures of him did appear seemed photoshopped or were old pictures offered up as new).
It is a definite possibility that he died months ago and it was just made public with a suitably heroic cover story now (as in, didn't die slowly in a hospital wasting away from a disease, which is probably what actually happened).
That happens quite a lot with dictators to maintain the cult of personality and ease the transfer of power (real or imagined).
Yeah, I guess "caught by surprise" isn't the right expression.. What I meant is that the new power structure had not been fully planned while he was alive and now the negotiations/power struggle have to continue without him. I mean, Kim Jong-il himself had been groomed to succeed Kim Il-Sung for years, if not decades, and it still took him about three years to fully consolidate his power after the latter kicked the bucket. With the youngest Kim so inexperienced, I wonder if the regime will move to a more post-Stalinist model of collective Politburo leadership, which wouldn't necessarily be less oppressive, but definitely less dependent on the personality quirks of one man.
Zgarbas wrote:
Have you ever seen a dictatorship which WASN'T dependent on the personality quirks of that one man?
I said "less dependent", not "independent". And the reason I used the words "post-Stalinist" and "Politburo" is because that's what essentially happened in the USSR after Stalin's death - a transition from a personal dictatorship (what Khrushchev called "cult of personality") to a collective one. Khrushchev's quirks (shoe-thumping and corn-hyping come to mind first) were well known and definitely affected government policy, but he was never worshipped by the official media and his word was never treated as the law of the land. He was notorious for his reactionary views on art, but the sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, whose art he famously described as "degenerate", was not prevented from making more sculptures, let alone put into prison for daring to respond to Khrushchev's criticism. Khrushchev didn't even manage to prevent a coup from happening. And even though his successor Brezhnev wasn't opposed to the whole "cult of personality" thing, he was still pretty much a figurehead with people like Suslov and Chernenko coordinating state affairs and others like Andropov, Kosygin and Shchelokov exerting considerable influence on policy.
Generally, a mature totalitarian regime would try to prevent someone as crazy and megalomaniac as Stalin, Hitler, Niyazov or Gadhafi from coming to power. To be honest, I am still puzzled as to how Kim Jong-il managed to out-smart the party and out-crazy his father, but I haven't really read much about his transition to power.
Last edited by vonPeterhof (2011 December 20, 10:18 am)
Jarvik7
Member
From: 名古屋
Registered: 2007-03-05
Posts: 3946
To be a buffer they would need to be preventing the US from exerting influence in a region through threat of retaliation or by exerting a greater influence, or physically isolating them from an enemy they'd otherwise be fighting border skirmishes with. Neither of those apply to North Korea. China and Russia are buffers. Canada is a buffer.
Suggesting they buffer (America's interest in) South Korea from China is kind of silly when relations with China are much better than with Nork. They might be opposed to US power, but they are also insignificant in the big picture. The most they could ever do is cause an incident by shelling Seoul, but they are no threat to sovereignty when they are armed with cold war hand me downs and cannot even feed their soldiers.
Also, China at present is no more communist than Canada was in the 60s. Lack of certain freedoms/rights or equality are not defining characteristics of communism.
Last edited by Jarvik7 (2011 December 28, 6:59 am)
