Kim Jong-Il: the Reign of Terror
English 205
20 May 2013
Kim Jong-Il’s Reign There is little known about the true inside of North Korea, but what we do know is that yields a powerful dictatorship across its people. This dictatorship all began less than 100 years ago and has a very short history. A brief description of Korea’s history, from History.com, shows how the country split into two completely different countries: Japan annexed the Korean peninsula in 1910, and the country spent the next 35 years under Japanese military rule. With Japan’s defeat in World War II in 1945, American troops landed in the southern part of the peninsula, while Soviet troops secured the area north of latitude 38˚ N (or the 38th parallel). In this way, communism took firm hold in the north, culminating in the emergence of Kim Il-Sung, who in 1948 would become the first premier of the newly established Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. (Pruitt) The communistic reign on Korea can be traced back through one family, the Kim family. Kim Il-Sung was appointed by the Soviet leader of Russian in 1948 and served as North Korea’s dictator for almost 50 years until he died in 1994. Kim Il-Sung was worshipped like a god in North Korea and even referred to as “Great Leader, Heavenly Leader and even the Sun” (Pruitt). The love and respect that Kim Il-Sung received, was immediately transferred to Kim Jong-Il when he came to power in 1994. Kim Jong-Il’s reign was one that scared the whole world and involved much terror and abuse of power towards many countries and towards the whole North Korean population. Throughout the rest of this essay I will refer to Kim Jong-Il as Kim and anyone else by their full name. Kim was more than a dictator of North Korea but a tyrant of the world and with use of his power he abused the use of nuclear weapons, worker camps and deprived his country of food and medical attention. Kim was Korea’s idol and though upon as highly as God to Americans, Allah to Muslims and Buddha to
20 May 2013
Kim Jong-Il’s Reign There is little known about the true inside of North Korea, but what we do know is that yields a powerful dictatorship across its people. This dictatorship all began less than 100 years ago and has a very short history. A brief description of Korea’s history, from History.com, shows how the country split into two completely different countries: Japan annexed the Korean peninsula in 1910, and the country spent the next 35 years under Japanese military rule. With Japan’s defeat in World War II in 1945, American troops landed in the southern part of the peninsula, while Soviet troops secured the area north of latitude 38˚ N (or the 38th parallel). In this way, communism took firm hold in the north, culminating in the emergence of Kim Il-Sung, who in 1948 would become the first premier of the newly established Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. (Pruitt) The communistic reign on Korea can be traced back through one family, the Kim family. Kim Il-Sung was appointed by the Soviet leader of Russian in 1948 and served as North Korea’s dictator for almost 50 years until he died in 1994. Kim Il-Sung was worshipped like a god in North Korea and even referred to as “Great Leader, Heavenly Leader and even the Sun” (Pruitt). The love and respect that Kim Il-Sung received, was immediately transferred to Kim Jong-Il when he came to power in 1994. Kim Jong-Il’s reign was one that scared the whole world and involved much terror and abuse of power towards many countries and towards the whole North Korean population. Throughout the rest of this essay I will refer to Kim Jong-Il as Kim and anyone else by their full name. Kim was more than a dictator of North Korea but a tyrant of the world and with use of his power he abused the use of nuclear weapons, worker camps and deprived his country of food and medical attention. Kim was Korea’s idol and though upon as highly as God to Americans, Allah to Muslims and Buddha to
Cited: 1. Limerick, Patricia Nelson. “Haunted America.” Ways of Reading. Eds David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. Boston: Bedford’s, 2008. 409-447. Print.