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North Korean defector: 80% of young people in NK have no loyalty to Kim Jong Un.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/19/north-korea-defector-next-generation-have-no-loyalty-to-kim-jong-un-reportThe North Korean soldier who defected to the South in a hail of bullets last year is a general’s son but says most Northerners of his age have no loyalty to Kim Jong-un, according to a Japanese newspaper.
Oh Chong Song’s dramatic dash across the border at the Panmunjom truce village in the Demilitarized Zone – under fire from his comrades – made global headlines last year, and saw him hospitalised with serious injuries.
...
But despite his privileged birth – he described himself as “upper class” – he felt no allegiance to the North’s leadership.
“Inside the North, people, and especially the younger generation, are indifferent to each other, politics, and their leaders, and there is no sense of loyalty.”
He was “indifferent” to the rule of Kim Jong Un, the third generation of the Kim family to lead the North, and had no interest in how his friends felt about it.
“Probably 80 percent of my generation is indifferent and has no loyalty,” he was quoted as saying.
“It is natural to have no interest nor loyalty since the hereditary system is taken as a given, regardless of its inability to feed people.”
Oh Chong Song’s dramatic dash across the border at the Panmunjom truce village in the Demilitarized Zone – under fire from his comrades – made global headlines last year, and saw him hospitalised with serious injuries.
...
But despite his privileged birth – he described himself as “upper class” – he felt no allegiance to the North’s leadership.
“Inside the North, people, and especially the younger generation, are indifferent to each other, politics, and their leaders, and there is no sense of loyalty.”
He was “indifferent” to the rule of Kim Jong Un, the third generation of the Kim family to lead the North, and had no interest in how his friends felt about it.
“Probably 80 percent of my generation is indifferent and has no loyalty,” he was quoted as saying.
“It is natural to have no interest nor loyalty since the hereditary system is taken as a given, regardless of its inability to feed people.”
It was the same in East-Germany. The people lived in a socialist dictatorship, but the vast majority didn't really care about politics, because the elections were manipulated anyways and nothing ever changed anyways.
In the end, it was the lack of civil-rights (especially the freedom to travel abroad) that drove the East-Germans to the protests that eventually toppled the regime.
Nowadays, some Germans still miss the feeling of simplicity, community and comradeship of life in East-Germany, but nobody misses the socialist regime.
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