Robert M. Collins (2)

A report on North Korea's social classification system, Songbun. This hierarchical system influences both the public and private lives of North Korean citizens. Everything is affected, from employment, criminal justice, military service, access to food, healthcare, education and housing. The chilling totalitarian ideology behind the system, where even third-degree relatives of alleged dissidents can be sent to labor camps for re-education, has several direct parallels to Orwell's dystopia. It also becomes clear how the classification system makes North Korean society so stable and immune to revolution: about 20-30% of the population enjoy high social status and a privileged lifestyle. Harsh and immediate downgrading for even the slightest suspicion of dissent ensures that the privileged classes stay loyal to the Party and the Great Leader. The lower classes are brutally suppressed to ensure that they remain powerless. Read this report together with Myers' "The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters".… (mehr)