Inside North Korea Part 2

The songbun system: Every N. Korean belongs to one of three strata: “loyal,” “wavering,” or “hostile.” In most cases people are classified in accordance to what the person or his/her direct male ancestors did in the 1940s and early 1950s. Children and grandchildren of former landlords, Christian and Buddhist priests, private entrepreneurs, and clerks in the Japanese colonial administration, as well as descendants of other “suspicious elements” (like say, courtesans or female shamans) are classified as part of the “hostile” strata. People, whose direct male ancestors greatly contributed to the establishment or defense of the Kim family regime are considered members of the “loyal” stratum. As a rule, only members of this stratum are eligible for the most prestigious jobs. Another rule is that one cannot change not only one’s own place in this hierarchical system but also the place of one’s children. Only in exceptional cases can a humble “bad sonbuner” be reclassified and promoted—for example, it would help if she or he saves a portrait of Kim II Sung from a flooded house or does something equally heroic. Songbun is inherited through the male line.

In the enforcement of the domestic travel control, as well as in the the general surveillance, a special role was played by a peculiar N. Korean institution known as an inminban or “people’s group.” These groups still exist, even though their efficiency as surveillance institutions has declined since the early 1990s. A typical inminban includes 20 to 40 families. In neighborhoods consisting of detached houses, that is in the majority of N. Korean neighborhoods, once inminban includes all inhabinants of a block, while in apartment buildings an inminban includes all families sharing a common staircase (or 2 or three adjacent staircases if the building is not so large). Every N. Korean of any age or sex belongs to an inminban. The inminbans heads (always a woman, usually middle-aged) are required to learn about the incomes, assets, and spending habits of all of their charges in their respective inminbans. The police supervise the inminban’s activities. Every inminban is assigned to a “resident police officer” who regularly meets its head (actually, her appointment must be confirmed by this officer). During such meetings an inminban head must report suspicious activities that have come to her attention.

North Korea was the only country that banned the use of tunable radios in peacetime. From around 1960 onward, all radios officially sold in N. Korea had fixed tuning, so that only a small number of official N. Korean channels could be listened to. If one bought a radio in a hard-currency shop or bought it from overseas (which was legal), the owner had to immediately submit the radio to police, where a technician would permanently disable its tuning mechanism. Since a technically savvy person can easily repair a radio that has been set to one station, all privately owned radio sets had to be sealed. During the above-mentioned random household checks, the inminban heads and police were required to make sure these seals remained unbroken.

The N. Korean authorities took care to isolate the populace not only from from the foreign media but also from the official publications of early years. All N. Korean periodicals and a significant number of publications on social and political topics were regularly removed from common access libraries and could only be perused by people with special permissions. With periodicals the removal was done automatically, with all newspapers published more than 10 to 15 years ago being made inaccessible for the laity. This rule was obviously introduced to ensure that the changes in the policy line of the regime would remain unnoticeable to the populace.

20% of questions like these are in math books: ” During the Fatherland Liberation War [N. Korea’s official name for the Korean War] the brave uncles of Korean People’s Army killed 265 American Imperial bastards in the first battle. In the second battle they killed 70 more bastards than they had in the first battle. How many bastards did they kill in the second battle? How many bastards did they kill all together?” “South Korean boys, who are fighting against the American imperialist wolves and their henchmen, handed out 45 bundles of leaflets with 150 leaflets in each bundle. They also stuck 50 bundles with 50 leaflets in each bundle. How many leaflets were used?”

Source: The Real North Korea. Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia (2013) by Andrei Lankov.

News about N. Korea from Blaze.com:

March 7, 2013: North Korea Vows to Nuke U.S.

Apr. 5, 2013: 6 Things You Need to Know About North Korea This Friday

Jul. 19, 2013: North Korean Anti-U.S. Propaganda Is About as Unsettling as You’d Expect

Nov. 12, 2013: Reports: North Korea Executed 80 People for Watching TV and Owning Bibles

Jan. 3, 2014: North Korean Dictator Rumored to Have Used One of the Most Grotesque Ways to Execute His Uncle

Jan. 16, 2014: Human Rights Activists Are Combatting the North Korean Gov’t in One of the Most Innovative Ways Imaginable