In July of this year, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom released a short report entitled “Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism and the Right to Freedom of Religion, Thought, and Conscience in North Korea” examining the state-supported ideology based on adherence to the teaching/worship of its two former leader – the Great and the Dear.
Following on from a 2021 report by the same group that North Korea continued to perpetrate systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations since 2014 when a UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea found “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations” being committed, which in many instances “entailed crimes against humanity based on State policies.”
Unsurprisingly, the report finds nothing new but offers insight into one aspect of the State sponsored ideological control – namely through the promotion of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism as the only allowable belief system through coercive state policies aimed at denying the right to religious belief.
Some will argue that the belief system is reminiscent of religious practices and in particular, Christianity, such as through its adherence to ‘Ten Principles’ and the repetition of quotes from books, early morning sessions of recitations etc. All true – since the North Korean regime ‘borrowed’ much of its imagery and mythology from its Christian heritage (such as its Dear Leader being born under a star…).
It is important to clarify one clear difference: the North Korean system is a state-run, state-sanctioned, state-controlled belief system, not reflective of a Church but of a theocracy of sorts. What is just as interesting is the similarity between the North Korean approach and modern movements in the West that, while primarily not state sanctioned, see much of the resources of the establishment directed at ensuring adherence to recently discovered belief systems.
If you are familiar with university level groupthink and bias, increasingly evident in Ireland, the statement from the report that
“Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism lectures are held in dedicated spaces known as “study centers.” They are ubiquitous and found in schools, workplaces, and geographical administrative units down to the level of ri or labor districts” would ring a bell. Students and academics who hold or argue unpopular perspectives would find resonance in the statement from the report that “Recognition of academic excellence is contingent on the student having sufficient songbun and good ideological performance”.
Familiar sounding rhetoric in relation to the RSE curriculum in schools:
Adherence to Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is a requirement for students in compulsory education. The content is taught in age-appropriate methods of delivery.
The report quotes a former agitation officer assigned to a factory as saying, “We had to look firmly to the monolithic ideology, in absolute terms. No alternatives to it could be allowed to exist in North Korea” reflecting the fear of organisations of allowing pluralistic positions to be entertained by their employees, out of fear bringing ‘controversy’ to their brand. Going further, the report notes: “Ideological assessments are also required for work in technocratic fields such as engineering and medicine. In fact, employment in all career tracks requires the individual to participate in Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism sessions at the workplace
Reflecting the concerns on this side of the world about people with wrongthink or unacceptable ideas – such as conservatism for example – in positions of influence, the report notes that it one interviewee explained that “as doctors are in a position to supervise and influence many people, they have to be people who are thoroughly ideologically aligned.”
As typical in modern conversations around identity politics, no brooking with the consensus is allowed – if you are not 100% on board, you are a heretic. The North Korea report states “Whether it is referred to as Juche or Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism, adherence to it entails and demands the renunciation of other systems of religion or belief.” Error has no rights.
As one defector notes:
They assess you by examining your participation in ideological meetings, your commitment to party organizational work, and your overall personal conduct. [You must demonstrate that] the values are habitually embedded in day-to-day activities. As with conversations around Black Lives Matters, or Trans rights, you cannot even abstain – silence is viewed with suspicion. Another interviewee stated: They would question your ideological level if you did not participate. People attended because everyone had to, not necessarily out of fervent ideological preparedness.
And typical of how religion is increasingly viewed in the public sphere, being forced into the private, another respondee states: You could say there might be religions [in North Korea], but you could never have a conversation like, ‘I believe in God. Do you believe in God?
Reminiscent of the coordinated public campaign against Kevin Myers it is hard to ignore the similarities between state sanctioned denunciations in North Korea with public cancellations here in Ireland:
After a public trial has been held for someone found to have committed superstitious acts … a directive might be issued nationwide to every organizational unit. The directive is followed by lecture materials on the prohibited behavior and becomes part of an operation to oppose un-socialist activities.
The argument will be that North Korea is different. It has human rights abuses. It has gulags. It has political prisons. You can be put in jail indefinitely for wrongthink. This is not the case in the west. And this is true. Yet, when the Department of Justice in Ireland follows the lead of other Western countries in creating law on hate-crimes (which they call ‘signal crimes’), making perceived offence an actual offence under the law, where (Orwellian) ‘non-crime hate incidents’ can effectively give you a criminal record in all but name (this means anything said or done by anyone which the victim (or anyone else) saw as being motivated by hostility or prejudice based on race or a protected characteristic, even if it didn’t amount to a crime), where you can get visited by the police and told to ‘check your thinking’ (as Harry Miller did in the UK) for tweeting about gender recognition, or you can be arrested for a post showing Progress Pride flags in the shape of a swastika.
So, of course, life here is in no ways comparable to North Korea. But it is not as different as we might like to think either. And let’s not forget that there are still some active politicians and activists who would be – or would have been – sympathetic to the North Korean way of life.
There are creeping dangers with the closing of the ideological space that may not lead directly to North Korea but can have devastating consequences, such as the ideological inertia that was created in relation to the Tavistock clinic as the dogma of gender identity and the crushing conformism meant that a dangerous health setting for children was able to operate far longer than should have been allowed.
And this author agrees that it is pithy to make such a comparison given the egregious human rights abuses in North Korea. But it is important to be vigilant in the defence of freedom, free speech, freedom of religion, as the space for these great things is increasingly and increasingly quickly, being eroded and while the consequences may not be outright purges, there are consequences that can destroy lives.
David Reynolds