When I met a young south Korean guy in Bangkok the other night we started to exchange our travel plans. As it turned out South Korean citizens are denied entry to the DPRK.
A question I was asked to think about
However this interesting human asked me a very thought provoking question:
Do you think Kim Jong-Un is pure evil? Speaking in images. Is he the guy going to bed at night in a silky wardrobe expecting his croissants to be fresh and crisp the next morning? If the croissants are not living up to his expectations will he send the kitchen staff to forced labor camps because they failed to deliver?
Or will he be siting down with his mates cheering happily with another bottle of that delicious brew and wrap his head around how to move his country out of the dilemma that the socialist reign created in the last centuries? Like we do in that certain nights with a good bottle of wine or beer when we discuss life and future in general?
If you would be the head of a family run country with a personal cult projected to yourself and a horde of generals, even more than you can count on a whole day. What would YOU do?
I personally like the latter image much more. Because it contains a lot of hope. And it allows to explain the problems that go with it. Is there something like pure evil. And is this man an unpredictable lunatic like the media wants us westerners to believe?
A good answer this young south Korean had for me was as easy and simple as the question: The one thing he (Kim Jong-Un) is afraid about the most is not being able to control the pace of change. This is basically what a leader of any country wants to be: In charge of the speed that things develop. Once you would loose track of that things could get out of hand pretty quickly. And not always to your own interest. And of course he will be thinking about this issue ever so often. Because this is the silver bullet that keeps him in charge.
This is of course highly subjective and over-simplified. But I like to approach things naively and see where this leads. It often worked in the past.