Exit Emperor Kim Jong-il

I have the dubious honor of having lived under North Korean rule for three months in 1950 during the Korean War. I was four years and seven months old at the time, and the North Korean soldiers, then occupiers of Seoul, taught me a song praising “the Great General Kim Il-sung.” I used to run around and sing it all the time, much to my mother’s consternation. When she tried to get me to stop it, I would sing louder and longer, obstinate and persistent, especially when she scolded me for my performance. Apparently, it was a catchy tune. I don't remember the words or the melody to the song now. Sometimes I wonder how my life would have turned out had the North Korean forces succeeded in overtaking the southern half of the peninsula. There would be just one Korea now, not two, and I would most likely still be singing Kim Il-sung’s praises today, even sixteen years after his death. This leads to the debated and controversial question of whether Kim Il-sung was truly a great leader? Twenty-three million North Koreans seem to believe that he was and, if just numbers count, twenty-three million people cannot be wrong. But, I suspect that the North Korean people have been bamboozled over the years. As great as Kim Il-sung is believed to be in the minds of the North Korean people, they have not been told everything. In my interviews with former residents of North Korea, I am continually surprised how little they know about the Kim family or world affairs.
When one man rules a nation of people for 46 years, there is bound to be corruption of power, as Lord Acton (1834-1902), British historian and moralist, said “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men   are almost always bad men.”Lord Acton was referring to the myriad despotic kings, rulers, conquerors, and corrupt popes that had preceded him. He wasn’t referring to Kim Il-sung, who emerged ten years after Acton’s death, but he does seem to fit his profile. Born in 1912, Kim Il-sung took control of North Korea in 1948 and held power until he died in 1994. This means that, according to Lord Acton’s premise, Kim Il-sung had more than enough of an opportunity to become corrupt. Moreover, he passed his power onto his son, Kim Jong-il, who in turn has selected his third son, Kim Jong-un, to succeed him. They are transferring power as if they were passing on a family emblem from one generation to the next. There is something seedy and unholy about this practice, especially when you consider how far less than spectacular the first two Kim’s have performed in terms of ensuring any quality of life for North Korean people. Enter Hwang Jang-yop, a man who witnessed the Kim family’s corruption of power firsthand. As a young man full of ideals, Hwang was swept up by the fervor to build a Utopia in North Korea. He went on to become a member of the elite circle of power as the General Secretariat of the Workers Party of North Korea, until he defected to South Korea in 1997. Born in 1923, Hwang Jang-yop attended Pyongyang Commerce School. Upon graduating, he went to Japan and studied law. In 1946, he joined the Workers Party, taking his first step toward becoming a part of the ruling class of North Korea. He studied philosophy at Moscow University from 1949 to 1953, and upon his return, taught philosophy at Kim Il-sung University. He became the President of Kim Il-sung University in 1965, and then, in 1972, the Chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly.
Of all his accomplishments in North Korea, he is most noted for being the architect of JuChe (literally translated as "self-reliance") philosophy, which defines the guiding principles for North Korean society as a whole. By design, JuChe was a Utopian endeavor, a map for building an ideal society; but his lifetime work was bastardized into an instrument for what he feared the most, a totalitarian dictatorship. I met Hwang Jang-yop for the first time in Seoul in the fall of 2003. K.J. Sohn, my coauthor and former research fellow at the National Intelligence Service (NIS) of Korea, took me to Hwang's office, where I was first greeted by several NIS agents. They asked me to hold my arms out and then patted me down. Sohn had forewarned me about the security check required by the NIS, so I went along with the process. One of the agents asked me for identification, and I gave him my passport, which he photocopied. Another agent asked me about my occupation and the purpose of my visit. I replied that I was there to give Mr. Hwang copies of my books and conduct an interview. He took some notes and let me go inside.
Sohn and I sat down in the reception area, and shortly afterwards, Hwang walked in from an adjoining room. Wearing a plain suit and a tie, he stood about five feet seven. I stood up and shook his hand, bowing at the same time. There was a certain aura about him in a genuine, dignified way. It is not often that I feel so drawn to a person whom I meet for the first time, but I felt a charismatic energy emanating from him. His eyes were steady and unassuming, a bit sad perhaps, yet he made me feel welcome without saying a word. The initial silence that usually comes with a first meeting didn't feel awkward at all. It helped to have a mutual acquaintance by the name of Young Paik, a gentleman I had written about in a book entitled, The Do or Die Entrepreneur: A Korean American Businessman's Journey. Young Paik was involved in facilitating Mr. Hwang's defection from North Korea in 1997, and Hwang regarded Paik as his younger brother."How is Mr. Young Paik?" he asked."He is fine. He sends you his regards," I replied.He smiled and said, "He escaped in 1951. I left forty-six years later. We are fellow defectors."   Sohn and I smiled and nodded. I asked, "How is your health?" He replied with a sigh, "My health is excellent. But I feel stifled. I can't go anywhere freely on my own. It's like I'm locked up in a prison." He finished and glanced at the agent who was seated by the door. I followed Hwang's eyes to the agent, who didn't show any reaction to Hwang's plaintive remark that was directed toward the agency. The agent was just doing his job, and he didn't appear too interested in our conversation. He was one of many South Korean agents who were there to protect Hwang from possible attacks by North Korean agents. Kim Jong-il had publicly called for Hwang’s assassination when he defected to the South Korean Embassy in Beijing. Hwang's defection was widely reported in the press, especially in East Asia. Headline after headline heralded the story of Hwang, the highest-ranking official to defect North Korea to date, an elite among the elite. The international community was abuzz because he turned his back on the ruling elite.What I was most curious about along with millions of people in Korea and abroad – was his motivation for turning his back on the ruling elite that he had served for so many decades. His decision to defect must not have been an easy one. By defecting, he knew that he was putting his family, friends, and colleagues in jeopardy. Yet, he had carried out the unthinkable because he believed it was the right thing to do. I wanted to know what led him to his decision. Understanding Hwang, however, required considerable effort on my part. First, I had to read all the books he had written in order to come up with any sort of intelligent questions for him. His frequent references to dialectic materialism, Marxism, and Stalinism also added more volumes of books to my reading list. Thanks to Sohn, the foremost expert on Hwang's philosophy (Hwang has said so himself in public), and his guidance, I managed to navigate through these uncharted waters.  I don't pretend to understand enough to write treatises on Hwang's philosophy. I will leave that task for Sohn and other scholars to bear.