Article

2009-06-10 China-Japan-Koreas

Kim Jong-un Unlikely Candidate for NK Leader

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Posted by Steve White 2009-06-10 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 Neither was his dad.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2009-06-10 06:49|| 2009-06-10 06:49|| Front Page Top

#2 The Kims' right to rule has always been justified by references to their superhuman wisdom, leadership qualities and other individual virtues, not to some special role of the family as such. When in the 1970s Kim Jong-il was appointed a successor to his father, it was never explained as because of their blood relations.

The propaganda machine insisted that Kim Jong-il's own unique virtues and his unprecedented popularity among the 'working masses' made him a successor.

The unstated assumption of the neo-confucianism of the Qing (and from what I can gather, the Kim) Dynasties is that it is the blood relative of the ruler who is going to be the person who is going to be that wise or that capable of going to the golf course and getting those nine holes-in-one the first time out.

They talk about how wise Kim Jong-Il is, not that he's a blood relative, but how come it's HIM they're talking about being all-wise and all-knowing and not some random peasant? Or the chief of staff of Kim Il Son's army?

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-06-10 09:01|| 2009-06-10 09:01|| Front Page Top

#3 This could work out to our, and the oppressed NKors, advantage. Since he spent his youth getting a western liberal education and got to know the lifestyle and people, he may be sympathetic to a "Glasnost" opening. Hopefully, he's compared the relative efficiency, prosperity and peace during his Swiss education with the starving concentration camp that is NKor and is young and idealistic enough to want to change the system.

Posted by ed 2009-06-10 09:33|| 2009-06-10 09:33|| Front Page Top

#4 I've been waiting for someone to say that.

You might want to stop and ask yourself why the Kim dynasty doesn't consider it threatening to send its potential successors to that sort of school.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-06-10 09:51|| 2009-06-10 09:51|| Front Page Top

#5 The lessons internalized and the motions one goes through to satisfy family/rise through the ranks are not the same. Do you speak or do everything on your mind at work or home? Once secure as the new ~~Great~~ ~~Dear~~ Spiffy Leader, he may decide to try a better way, even if only at the margins at first. It is a possibility, not a prophecy.

The Soviet leadership didn't know the extent Gorbachev would liberalize the USSR's oppressive machinery. When they finally decided to take action to remove him, it was too late. That little wedge of freedom brought down an empire.

Posted by ed 2009-06-10 10:43|| 2009-06-10 10:43|| Front Page Top

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