Will N. & S. Korea Be Reunited in Our Lifetime?

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& would it be a good thing if they were?

(I guess the sensible answers to these questions are "maybe" and "it depends"... so anyway, ignore the dumb question if you want & just say what's on your mind about the Koreas)

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 16 February 2004 17:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Malkmus was right.

― ModJ (ModJ), Monday, 16 February 2004 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't cry for me S. Korea, the truth is I never left you.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 16 February 2004 17:42 (twenty-two years ago)

If you consider the massive expenditure that would be required to pay off NK's debts, modernize the entire country and solve the famine problem, and then consider the fact that SK's economy still isn't all that stable, and that the US is considering a massive drawdown of its military forces in the Pacific (massively reducing the probability that WE would forcibly remove KJI from power and take responsibility upon ourselves to fix up that hellish backwater), then I think the whole "maybe" and "it depends" reduces very quickly down to "snowball's chance in hell."

On the other hand stranger things have happened - history is all bizarro - and KJI doesn't have any heirs, plus he's old and a heavy alcoholic. So maybe we'll get a miracle. I hope so, and I hope the Chinese don't get any benefit from it, because I hate those motherfuckers too.

― TOMBOT, Monday, 16 February 2004 18:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Everyone should see the Korean film "Joint Security Area".

― Gear! (Gear!), Monday, 16 February 2004 18:29 (twenty-two years ago)

No, everybody should see "Shiri" and "Attack The Gas Station" and "Resurrection Of The Little Match Girl." JSA kind of sucks. Shiri is forty times better.

― TOMBOT, Monday, 16 February 2004 18:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Shiri is wicked... and that whole kidnapping-South Koreans and Japanese to turn them into spies thing is TRUE!

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 16 February 2004 18:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Shiri is good, but JSA rules man. Attack the Gas Station is hilarious.

― Gear! (Gear!), Monday, 16 February 2004 18:43 (twenty-two years ago)

There's that weird time travel movie where the guy has to go into the past to stop the Japanese Empire that's good too, just because it's SO INSANE from any other viewpoint - "You must ensure that MILLIONS DIE IN NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS and also that your homeland is DIVIDED IN TWO BY A HORRIBLE IDEOLOGICAL REVOLUTION that will leave half the peninsula STARVING TO DEATH because NOTHING IS WORSE THAN BEING OCCUPIED BY JAPAN"

― TOMBOT, Monday, 16 February 2004 19:07 (twenty-two years ago)

This one!!! 2009 Lost Memories, word up

This looks good too

― TOMBOT, Monday, 16 February 2004 21:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Korea will have to unify eventually. Too many starving people in the north, too few natural resources, too few allies. The south has too much money to be denied forever and badly wants unification.

It is another situation similar to Saddam Hussein, in that the whole edifice is built to sustain one man's power, but everyone is scared shitless of him and there's no safe way to combine against him. That means Kim will stay in power for the time being. It will take more than a decade to sort this one out, I think. There's no easy formula. The inner circle will need to be turned against Kim somehow.

― Aimless, Monday, 16 February 2004 21:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Unless Kim goes out in a blaze of glory...

― ModJ (ModJ), Monday, 16 February 2004 22:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, what will happen when he dies anyway? The whole country will still have his face peering at them from every statue and doorway and lapel and shit and I can just imagine everyone being all like "wait now why is a picture of this dead guy on my kimchi bottle!?"

― Dan I., Monday, 16 February 2004 22:52 (twenty-two years ago)

You have got to think that there are a few in the top in North Korea that realize the insanity of the situation.

With this realization, they perhaps know if they play things right after the old boy kicks off, they could get themselves a Mercedes and make some fat cash just like those Chinese party leaders are up to these days.

― earlnash, Monday, 16 February 2004 23:59 (twenty-two years ago)

It is another situation similar to Saddam Hussein, in that the whole edifice is built to sustain one man's power, but everyone is scared shitless of him and there's no safe way to combine against him.

This is the Big Lie -- none of these dictatorships can go on without a level of assent. NK is a hellhole, but not because of this one man!! It's yet another cold war hangover, and there isn't any pressing need for the two countries to reunite. What would be better is a democratic North, and a democratic, non-US-satellite South. The interests of China and the US make this... unlikely.

― NRQ (Enrique), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 09:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Where does Japan come into all this?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 09:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm pretty certain that Korea will be reunited in the next twenty years or so. This will be a great development for North Koreans, less so in the short term for their southern friends.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 13:14 (twenty-two years ago)

NRQ, please stop and consider a moment the sort of system that exists in North Korea and how it conmtributes to the "level of assent" you cite.

For the ordinary citizen the whole means of his own and his family's continued existance (food, shelter, fuel, income) are conspicuously controlled by the party apparatchiks, who also have extensive power over his freedom of movement and plenty of guns and prisons to back them up. Spies are common and the climate of fear is like a fog. Escape appears impossible. Compliance seems the only acceptable alternative.

The local party functionaries are nearly as constrained. They haven't the power to act beyond their limited sphere. Inside their sphere they have power and privilege, but it could all be taken away at the merest hint of independence from the party line. They live in fear, too.

The same apparatus of spies and fear applies all up the line. Those who appear to have the most power and independence also have the most to gain from compliance and the most to lose from revolt. Any attempt to form a conspiracy could be instantly lethal, if your chosen co-conspirator decides to cash you in for the reward.

The real trick is installing the system and working out the initial kinks and flaws. Once it is up and running smoothly, it is amazingly efficient. In this respect, North Korea runs like a top. It's what Idi Amin aspired to but couldn't quite duplicate.

If you believe this is a Big Lie, read up some on similar systems that were up and running recently, but are now broken, so that those who lived in them can speak freely: for example, Albania. The USSR in the 1930s is also a prime example, but not so efficient as NK today.

― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 18:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Aimless is the Milan Kundera of Ilx < / zizek>

― Dave B (daveb), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 18:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Isn't it a mistake to just assume things work in one place the same as others, which makes this:

If you believe this is a Big Lie, read up some on similar systems that were up and running recently

seem a kind of weak argument?

(N.B. this is not supposed to be sticking up for the North Korean regime)

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 18:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I suppose you could call it a weak argument, if you like. It rests purely on analogy. If the two parts of the analogy do not seem very similar to you, then the analogy is correspondingly weak. But one should not expect that the two parts could be identical.

There are certain clues I have learned to associate with such regimes. The first and foremost is the facade of unanimity. The leader is uniformly praised in terms that would be more appropriate for a god. No hint of blame or imperfection is imputed. Every decision is cause for rejoicing, whether or not a million people die.

George Orwell originally titled his book 1948 and maintained that, except for a bit of the technology (such as televisions that watched you), he had personally observed all of the political techniques he described. From this vantage point, North Korea's regime has all the tell-tales Orwell identified. So did Albania.

But, if you don't see it, you don't. We are both lucky enough not to live in that hellhole, as you put it, so our opinions about it are not critical either way. I think we could agree that the world would be better off if Kim choked on a fish bone and died, whatever "level of assent" he has acheived.

― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 19:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Has anyone here actually been to North Korea? (this isn't intended as a rhetorical device)

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 19:47 (twenty-two years ago)

guess not.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 15:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I know someone who went there in the 1980s as a political fellow traveller. He came back unconvinced by the desirability of the NK road to socialism.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 15:42 (twenty-two years ago)

http://1stopkorea.com/index.htm?nk-trip1.htm~mainframe

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 15:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, Kim Jong Il has a livejournal, which is mainly comprised of some great IM convos with other world leaders:

License2KimJongIll: I sent you a hurricane
License2KimJongIll: Did you get it?
Bush43: SHUT UP KIM

(from last year when a hurricane hit DC)

― Kingfish Beatbox (Kingfish), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

apparently when the NKs are negotiating with people, they always ask where the negotiators are from, and then threaten to turn their place of origin into a sea of fire.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 18:50 (twenty-two years ago)

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