The most recent incident involving the so-called controversial movie the Interview brought to mind the whole business of the totally unpredictable and dangerous mindset of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un. However, I believe that this whole business runs something like: 1. It was a publicity stunt, perpetrated by Sony Pictures to gain publicity for an otherwise crummy movie. 2. It was a scam by some hackers, possibly for financial reasons. After all, there was a monetary demand in the beginning! Despite what FBI says, it just didn't seem like something that was worth all that much effort for North Korea over a silly movie. But that is just my opinion, nothing more.
On the other hand, the entire ruling Kim family of North Korea is completely unpredictable, and as loony as anyone can get! I believe most Americans do not realize just how unbalanced and crazy that family is, beginning with the grandfather who started it all, Kim Il Sung! Most people outside of that crazy world known as North Korea know only bits and pieces about this family. Mostly stuff that they release for propaganda purposes and to perpetuate their own family"myth." What is really scary is that in the time that Kim Il Sung and his progeny have ruled North Korea, they have managed to actually make some of their citizenry believe in the "myth" that they created.
The former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was known for his rather unusual commentary about other countries. However, what he said about North Korea was right on! He said that the Arab world will always be a mess, more or less conceding that there will never be real peace in that region. And although it could bring danger to us (terrorist attacks, etc.) it was nothing compared to what would happen if we went to war against North Korea. Perhaps Rumsfeld was not completely on target, but he got the gist of it right. North Korea is no Middle East! If there should ever be a "hot" war with North Korea, it is unlikely that North Korea would win, but the casualty rate for us would be very high, much higher than when fighting in the Arab world! Remember my earlier blog on Egypt? The one about North Korean instructors taking to the air to defend the skies over Cairo when the Egyptian pilots refused to go? That incident, I think, clearly demonstrates the difference between the North Koreans and the Arabs.
How did it all begin? How did we end up with one half of a small peninsula populated by a fanatical people ruled by a crazy? It all goes back to what happened after World War Two when Korea was split in half and the north was taken over by the Soviets. I have already talked about this in several of the earlier blogs, so I won't repeat it. But what bears repeating is information about the first leader of North Korea, Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader Kim Jong Un.
Kim Il Sung was appointed a lifetime leader for North Korea by the Soviet Union. He was their man, they trusted him, and he was also liked by the Chinese, for he had fought against the Japanese on the Chinese side. Kim Il Sung was born Kim Song Ju in 1912 in Japanese occupied North Korea.
His parents, ironically, were deeply religious Christians, his grandfather was a minister in a Presbyterian Church! Japanese persecuted Christians as well as Korean nationalists, so the Kim family fled to Manchuria where the young Kim Song Ju grew up. At about age 17 he joined the Korean freedom fighters and fought the Japanese along the Korean/Manchurian border. These freedom fighters were supported by the Chinese communists and the Soviet Union. Since Kim never really received any formal Korean education, he became fluent both in Chinese and Russian during his time in Manchuria.
When the Japanese Kwantung Army began to really press the Korean guerrillas, Kim fled to China and joined the Chinese communist guerrilla forces fighting the Japanese. He ended up being a commander of a guerrilla army. When World War Two broke out, Kim left China along with a contingent of other Korean communist guerrillas and went to Russia where they were organized into a Soviet Red Army Infantry unit. He became a Battalion Commander in the 88th Infantry Brigade. He married Kim Jong Suk while in Russia and she gave birth to two sons, Yuri Irsenievich Kim (Kim Jong Il) "Yura" and Alexander Iresenievich Kim (Kim Man Il) "Sasha". It was while he was in Russia that he changed his name from Kim Song Ju to Kim Il Sung. He took the name of a former Korean Freedom Fighter that he had served under and admired. The original Kim Il Sung was somewhat of a folk hero, so the "new" Kim Il Sung reinvented himself completely. He served in Stalingrad with the 88th and at the conclusion of the World War Two was said to have become the commander of the 88th Brigade.
When the war ended, the new Kim Il Sung, along with thousands of other Soviet Red Army veterans were sent to North Korea to create a new state. Kim was appointed the head of state and others were tasked with raising a new army and organizing a communist government. In 1947 when the so called nationwide elections were called off, Kim Il Sung became the leader of the new country, the Chosun Inmin Kong Wha Gook, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and the myth of Kim Il Sung began! Stories began to be circulated in North Korea that he was born on Paektu-san, the mountain range along Manchurian border. In Korean mythology, gods are said to have originated on Paektu-san, sort of like Mount Olympus in Greek mythology. In short, he was creating a god-like persona and his personality cult began. This fictionalized biographic information was put in text books so children began to be indoctrinated with the myth as soon as they entered school.
Shortly after he took over North Korea, his wife Kim Jong Suk, who was only 31 years old, died unexpectedly. The official announcement was that she died in difficult childbirth, but in fact, there were reports that she died of a gunshot wound! That wasn't the only death in the family. Shortly before his first wife's death, his youngest son "Sasha" drowned in a mysterious swimming pool accident at their house. The only witness was the older brother "Yura" whose Korean name was Kim Jong Il! It is said that the mother favored the younger "Sasha" who was an attractive little boy, always cheerful and bright. The older boy is said to have been sullen and showed a nasty cruel streak at a young age. Anyway, the young son died in a drowning "accident" and the wife also died mysteriously shortly after. A few weeks after the wife's death, Kim Il Sung introduced a new wife, Kim Song Ae, who had actually been his mistress for the last couple of years.
Upon becoming the ruler of North Korea, Kim Il Sung immediately launched into making some changes. For one thing, he eliminated the use of Chinese characters in North Korea. There were several reasons for that. Kim wanted his population to be able to read propaganda material, but the vast majority of the population was illiterate. The Korean written system called hangul is very easy to learn. Kim mandated that henceforth, beginning in 1947, only the native Korean alphabet would be used, and rather than calling it hangul, which is what it was called from its inception in the 1400s, he called it chosungul.
It was indeed a good way to get people to read propaganda, but it also served another purpose. Kim, along with many of his generals and officers who came from Russia, were not fluent in Korean! In fact, until his dying day, his spoken Korean is said to have sounded like that of a Chinese at times, and other times Russian! So he wanted to make sure that he and his men would be able to read anything that was printed in North Korea! Actually, he took a page out of Mao Tse Tung's tactics. Mao insisted on using a simplified version of Chinese so it would be easier for most illiterate peasants to learn to read. Again, it was self serving for the purpose of making the population read propaganda. Mao started the simplified Chinese campaign when he was up in the mountain caves in Yenan. Kim Il Sung spent some time there before he went to Russia and he got the idea of a simplified language system from Mao!
In the next blog I will continue with Kim Il Sung and his legacy. After all, his son Kim Jong Il and the present leader the grandson Kim Jong Un are carrying on what he started!
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