All's Well That Ends ... Well ...
Any responsible administration can be forgiven for disposing of "factionalist filth", one might imagine. And this is precisely what Kim Jong Un set about doing, when he set in motion the events that surrounded the isolation of his favoured, trusted and indispensable uncle. Rumours first, then suspicion, followed by isolation and caution, and finally humiliation leading to arrest.And a fairly swift adjudication resulting in the ultimate discipline.
In North Korea, it is pro forma that one pays with one's life for insulting the Great Leader. No matter that no insults were intended, that a huge portion of one's life was spent in guiding and deftly teaching and mentoring and introducing the nephew to his destined place in life as leader of a great country, a precious, precocious leader whose value is indisputable.
And whose power is also beyond question.
A leader who dabbles in rocketry and nuclear explosions, who sends out his navy to destroy a neighbouring country's naval vessel, killing all sailors on board is no one whose authority is to be questioned, after all. Any leader of such supreme authority capable of gifting the most powerful countries in the world with giant headaches is one to be reckoned with, and so North Korea's Kim Jong Un has proven.
He is inscrutable, unpredictable, and given to confusing utterances; yet another sign of a great leader. On the one hand he warns of the possibility of a "nuclear catastrophe", which he will personally orchestrate. And on the other he hints that it is quite possible that he will also orchestrate an opportunity for more comfortable relations with neighbouring countries.
Which of the options will be chosen is, of course, a matter of conjecture.
On the basis of past confrontations and emotional outbursts it is unclear how the Great Leader will choose to present himself and his aspirations for the future. That he enjoys absolute power in his cowering nation is beyond dispute, however. Purges do appear to make him feel more confident, that much seems true enough.
His uncle, the late unlamented Jang Song Thaek, likely had no inkling that his nephew had been looking askance at his presence and presumed authority. In North Korea, never presume.
North Korea is restarting a mothballed reactor capable of producing plutonium for bombs. North Korea, after all, is somewhat twinned with the Islamic Republic of Iran in that regard. North Korea may be aiming for a fourth nuclear test; surprise, surprise, world!
North Korean scientists may have been sufficiently inspired by the quickie death sentence carried out on a once-trusted second-in-command, to work tirelessly on that nuclear miniaturization of a warhead capable of being mounted on a long-range missile to further surprise the world. A model for Iran to follow.
If 2013 presented the world with instability in various parts of the world, 2014 seems to be gearing up to present its own version of surprising advents. We can however, always indulge in hope-nots.
Labels: North Korea, Nuclear Technology, Societal Failures
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, January 04, 2014
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