Salon.com > Bradley K. Martin

We could be wrong about North Korea

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:21:00 +0000

The notion seems preposterous on its face. Taking over a benighted communist country upon the death of his father, a youthful dictator manages a picture-perfect imitation of his founding grandfather — jowls, funny haircut, Mao suit-covered big belly, characteristic walk and gestures.

The young man cracks down on the dissemination of South Korean songs, and purges prospective rivals in the tradition of both the grandfather and the father while surrounding himself with some of the same close advisors who had served his forebears.

And he does all that so that he can lead the economic opening and reform that both progenitors resisted for most of their careers.

Does that make sense? Well, maybe it does. Maybe Kim Jong Un really has a cunning plan to make good on his promise in his first public speech that North Korea’s long-suffering hungry people “don't have to tighten their belt again.”

A history of threats fulfilled

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:15:00 +0000

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — History offers some guidance on what to expect as North Korea threatens to ”wage a sacred war” against the South Korean government and its supporters. In all the decades since the June 25, 1950, start of the Korean War, the North has not repeated its all-out invasion of the South.

That would be more reassuring if the regime had not repeatedly shown its determination to avoid coming across as a habitual bluffer, a paper tiger.

In separate incidents in 2010, after issuing dire threats of “revenge,” it did indeed sink the South Korean naval ship Cheonan and shell the South’s Yeonpyeong Island.

Although short of all-out war, both of those attacks — like others earlier such as the 1968 capture of the U.S. Navy spy ship Pueblo — were major and deadly provocations.

Behind North Korea’s tears

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:51:00 +0000

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — North Koreans videotaped after hearing the news of ruler Kim Jong Il’s death appeared to go berserk with grief. There are several explanations for this — by no means all of them involving sincere love for the notoriously self-centered dictator.

First there’s Korean culture. Koreans are noted for being emotionally demonstrative at such times. It’s the thing to do.

Take the case of South Korean President Park Chung Hee, who resisted intense popular pressure that he step down after 18 years as military-backed dictator. In 1979, his intelligence chief shot him to death.

Although Park had drastically overstayed his welcome with the South Korean people, he got a noisy, tearful sendoff. Along the route of his Seoul funeral procession women, especially, outdid themselves in screaming, wailing and shaking their fists at heaven.

What’s next for North Korea?

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:39:00 +0000

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — What’s next now that Kim Jong Il is dead?

Kim, whose official age was 69 but who actually was 70, died Saturday of a heart attack, according to North Korean state media.

He leaves behind a pretty much officially designated heir, his son Kim Jong Un, whose age is about 29. The young man has been given exalted titles including full general but has little experience compared with what his father had under his belt when Kim Jong Il’s own father and predecessor, Kim Il Sung, died in 1994.

The regime appears to have tried to position Kim Jong Un as a sort of reincarnation of Kim Il Sung, whom the young man greatly resembles physically. Barbers have given him the same haircut his grandfather sported when he took over the country in 1945 with Soviet sponsorship. There are rumors in South Korea that the young man has had plastic surgery to accentuate the resemblance. He wears the same “people’s clothing” — Mao suits — that his grandfather wore, not the zippered jumpsuits favored by Kim Jong Il.