There was a modest but interesting piece about North Korea on the news site Vox recently: https://www.vox.com/world/2018/1/12/16882574/north-korea-fire-fury-south-trump-war. In it is a quote attributed to a former South Korean general: “I have had the opportunity to speak to North Korean soldiers who have defected to South Korea — and you cannot imagine how indoctrinated they are...These are people who have defected, and yet there is still an innate belief in their system which is close to ridiculous.”
I’m no expert on brainwashing and its effects. But like everyone else in North Korea I was subjected to brainwashing. There are different ways an individual may acquire the ability to think critically and independently but they all require, among other things, a desire to pursue it. But desiring a certain outcome presupposes awareness. And I think this is where the regime is most deadly: Suppression of awareness. If a society has no “issue/problem” then there is nothing to analyze and evaluate. Brainwashing starts early there. I can still sing the very first song I learned in kindergarten: “…Our father is Marshall Kim Il Sung and our home is the Party’s bosom…And there is nothing to envy.” Add adults who are too scared to tell you the truth if they are not themselves thoroughly brainwashed then you are in for a treat. A Neverland!
Cracks have appeared however. Illicit South Korean/American movies and TV dramas have been reaching many North Koreans. No doubt they (or any outside information) can be powerful in a country so deprived of everything but Rambo has limits in undoing decades of brainwashing. And I think the South Korean general is alluding to those limits in the Vox piece.
Oh, the guards of this Neverland did teach me to be critical of certain things: Shortcomings of mine and my fellow Neverland creatures in following the teachings of the Great Leader.
