WEBVTT - The Screen 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.319 In the late eighteen hundreds, before anybody in rural East 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:15.000 Asia had ever heard the name Karl Marx. The Kim 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.720 family was like any other, a family of hard working 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:23.799 farmers living among a close neck clan of villagers. The 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:28.560 Kims were poor. Their dinners consisted of gruel, with meat 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.520 and fruit as rare luxuries. The family didn't even own 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:36.120 a clock. If anybody wanted to know the time, someone 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.199 would have to run over to the neighbor's house. The 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:44.239 kids found solace in Christianity and attended church every Sunday. 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:49.400 The family also prized education, and around the turn of 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:53.680 the century, Kim Il Sung's father, then just a small boy, 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:58.440 enrolled in class at a modest one room schoolhouse topped 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:02.840 with a thatched roof. The young Kim was the class monitor, 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:08.360 something of a teacher's pet. His lecturer, however, was a 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:14.120 notorious drunk. Each day, the teacher held court in front 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:18.080 of class, swaying back and forth as he drained the 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:22.720 bottles of wine. He'd frequently finished the glass and point 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:28.160 at the young Kim, sending him to fetch more. Kimil 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:33.880 Song's father meekly obliged, but one day after class, the 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:37.640 young boy spied his teacher walking down the street. The 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:41.880 man could barely stand, his legs wobbling as he tried 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:47.000 to maintain balance. Suddenly, the teacher swayed forward, his legs 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.280 unable to keep up, and he tumbled base first into 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:55.320 a muddy ditch. The boy blushed an embarrassment. A few 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:59.200 days later, as the young Kim sat in class, the 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:02.240 teacher point it in his direction and asked him to 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:06.760 make the familiar trip for wine. The customary filial piety 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:11.240 extended to teachers after all. Kim collected his instructor's money 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.239 and slipped out for the market. But Kim couldn't shake 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:20.240 the shameful image of his drunken teacher lying on the ground, 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:26.000 face soaked in mud, and then an idea. He gripped 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.840 his teacher's bottle and heaved it against the rock. Shards 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:34.119 of glass burst over the dirt. The boy returned to class, 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:38.440 broken bottle in hand, clothing stained with wine, gasping for air, 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:41.480 and told the teacher an elaborate story about how he 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.280 had been chased by a tiger. He had run for 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:49.400 his life and tripped, shattering the bottle who the teacher 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:55.400 listened with horror. This time, he turned red and shame. 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.440 Later that day, the young Kim returned home and told 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.720 his father what had happened. The family elder listened to 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:08.919 his son's story and nodded in pride. Then he leaned 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.240 forward and said something that would cement itself into North 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:21.400 Korean lore. If pupils peep into their teacher's private life frequently, 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.399 they lose their awe of him. The teacher must give 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:29.440 his pupils a firm belief that their teacher neither eats 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:35.280 nor urinates. Only then can he maintain his authority at school. 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:41.000 So teachers should set up a screen and live behind it. 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:47.440 Set up a screen and live behind it. Years later, 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.120 the young Kim would share that advice with his own son, 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.240 Kim il Sung, the future Supreme Leader, would find the 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:59.720 anecdote so stirring, so wise, that he had included in 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:04.360 his official memoirs. Its lessons would become central to his 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:10.400 philosophy on life and leadership. Today, the story of the 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.320 teacher still serves as a model for the Kim family. 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.120 If an authority wants to maintain his grip on power, 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:22.000 his divine god given right to rule over others, then 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:26.960 he must find a way to hide all faults. Anyone 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:33.120 who compromises or desecrates that carefully calibrated image, whether it's 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.480 a journalist or a movie made by Sony or even 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.680 your own son, is threatening to do more than merely 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:44.800 damage a man's ego. They challenge the very structure, the 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:51.000 very foundation of authority itself. The screen, in other words, 0:04:51.880 --> 0:05:01.159 must be protected at all costs. I'm eaten Lee, and 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:05.560 in this episode we explore the extreme lengths the North 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.479 Korean regime will go to to protect its image, and 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.039 how the country's obsession with that very image led not 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:17.000 only to its downfall but to Kim Jong nams as well. 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:19.599 But what the North Korean regime did is they really 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.520 emphasized Korean as. They said, we are going to be 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.440 the most Korean of the two Koreas. These people would 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.320 be publicly executed and their families sent to labor in 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:33.719 central political detention facilities. Many North Korean defectors say the leadership, 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:35.600 it's like the sun. You don't want to get too 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:37.920 close because you're room. You don't want to get too 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:41.600 far because you'll be freezing. And he was too close 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:54.080 and was scorched by it. This is big brother after 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:59.000 the Tokyo Disneyland incident, pundits and went wild with speculation 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.560 Kim Jong Nam, who was being groomed to inherit North 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:08.000 Korea's communist dynasty, was unceremoniously kicked out of Japan yesterday 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.520 after he tried to sneak into the country with his 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.840 family for a trip to Tokyo Disneyland. It was two 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.920 thousand and one. This was one of the first times 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:20.600 a member of North Korea's royal family had been seen 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:26.200 outside the country in public Journalists flocked to Tokyo and 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:31.400 analysts poured over images, searching for hidden meaning in everything 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:34.599 from Kim Jong Nam's goal to wristwatch to his trendy 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:39.440 around glasses. Years later, analysts would suggest that Kim Jong 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:41.919 Nam was kicked out of North Korea and sent to 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.440 the gambling mecca of Macau all because of the Tokyo 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:52.440 Disneyland incident. It was, after all, an international embarrassment. Here 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.480 was the son of the world's most famous living communist 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:59.159 dictator trying to cross international borders to visit what is 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:04.120 probably the most unabashedly capitalist organization on the planet. But 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:08.560 many experts we interviewed, including the North Korea watcher Michael Madden, 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:13.680 I think these pundits are wrong. You know, you know, 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.520 it's an easier narrative. I think for some people to 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.920 say that Kim jong nam was the successor and because 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.440 he happened to want to go to Tokyo Disney Resort 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.760 with his family in two thousand one, well, lo and 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:29.120 behold he got passed over for succession. Then that's just 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:36.240 not true. Why. Well, because the Kims are frankly hypocrites. 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:41.040 The royal family has been visiting disney resorts for decades. 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.680 Years before the incident, Kim Jong un and his mother 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.400 went to Tokyo to ride those same teacups. Nor was 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.720 Kim jong nam exiled for using a fake Dominican passport. 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.360 Kim Jong un and his immediate family routinely use fake 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.520 Brazilian passports to travel abroad all the time, so did 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:03.080 the rest of a family. Kim Jong Il wasn't angry 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:05.400 that his son went to Japan or that he wanted 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.520 to go to Disney. He was angry that his son 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:14.280 got caught. Kim Jong Il was obsessed with the family's privacy. 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.640 He sincerely felt that his legitimacy depended on maintaining the 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:23.480 so called screen. In fact, most North Koreans didn't even 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:27.400 know that dear Leader had children at all. The fact 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:30.480 that Kim jong Nam attracted so much attention to himself 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:35.160 did more than puncture the all powerful, very private world 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:39.640 of Kim Jong Il. It had broken precedent. Kim children 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:45.199 historically were neither seen nor heard, but Kim jong Nam 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:50.640 had drawn attention to himself and had essentially snubbed the leader. 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:55.880 This put the entire system at risk, and that's because 0:08:56.240 --> 0:09:01.400 the Kim regime controls the flow of information. Every radio, 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.959 every television must be registered with the police and can 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:10.640 only pick up domestics state sponsored channels. Loudspeakers are sprinkled 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:14.640 across cities and towns, playing patriotic Kim's every morning and 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:19.880 relaying public service announcements. Of course, activists outside of the 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:23.320 country try to break through this wall of propaganda. That's 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.760 why the thirty parallel the line separating North and South 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:30.679 Korea see some of the most intense radio jamming activity 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:36.040 in the world. In two thousand one, as news agencies 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:40.040 buzzed about Kim Jong Nam's deportation, Kim Jong Il could 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.880 do little more than cross his fingers and hope this 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:47.960 barricade of propaganda would hold. In other words, the Tokyo 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:52.480 Disneyland incident created a lot of unnecessary stress for Kim 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.880 Jong NAMA's father. But was that the reason he was 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.480 passed over as successor? Was that why he was kicked 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:05.760 out of the country. Maybe, But there's another theory, because 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.080 a few years earlier, the people who had raised Kim 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:14.160 jong nam had done the unthinkable, and then he began 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.720 having ideas that not only threatened the stability of the regime, 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:24.360 it threatened the life of his father. In the early 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:28.400 nineteen nineties, just as Kim jong Nam was gaining prominence 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:34.319 in the regime, Residence Number fifteen was in turmoil. All over. 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:39.680 Members of Cheng Nam's family were defecting at an alarming rate. 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:46.040 The exodus started in two when Kim's cousin I Hanyon 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:50.160 had been studying in Switzerland. One day, the cousin made 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.640 a fateful call to the South Korean embassy and asked 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:58.240 for asylum. According to Dr Sung Yun Lee, he would 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:02.439 do everything to hide from the game. This person changed 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:07.080 his name, underwent cosmetic surgery so that he would not 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.880 be recognized by North Korean spies and the North Korean state. 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.840 Back in Kiongyang, news of ease defection became a closely 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.000 guarded secret. A member of the royal family defecting to 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:24.079 the South. It was an embarrassing disgrace, the kind that 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:28.800 could stay Kim Jong Il's reputation. The problem was he 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:33.600 did not keep a low profile. By the nineties, he 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:37.600 was struggling to make money, so he began leaking news 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:41.120 to the press, earning an income by telling stories about 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.960 the regime. He often talked about Kim Jong Nam's mother, 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.480 who had been exiled to Russia. He was also making 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:53.840 regular calls to his mother, Kim Jong Nam's aunt, and 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:58.640 after just two months of conversations, he convinced her to 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:03.960 defect as well. And then sometime in the mid ninety nineties, 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:08.480 this nephew of Kim Jong wrote an expose a book 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:13.880 on the royal family, which embarrassed Kim Jong. He published 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:18.199 a tell all book about life behind the palace walls, 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.079 a book you should know that became the source for 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.240 a lot of palace intrigue you've heard in this podcast. 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:30.440 But despite changing his name and his appearance, he could 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:36.040 not escape the regime's wrath. He was standing outside his 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:41.520 home when gunshots reign. He was assassinated by North Korean 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:46.720 agents in Seoul, just one day before Kim Jong his birthday, 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.760 which is a major national holiday. News of his murder 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:54.600 shocked everybody who had once lived in Residence Number fifteen. 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.280 He's mother, who had defected while visiting Geneva a year earlier, 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.880 went into hiding in the European countryside. Like her son, 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.360 she too would write a book that embarrassed the regime. 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:12.439 In it, she compared palace life to jail. Even if 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.080 there were plenty of books and I could take twelve 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:21.160 baths a day and eat all kinds of delicacies, the 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:28.720 residents was a prison to me. To this day, nobody 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.120 knows where she is or if she's dead or alive. 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.719 But the most shocking defection was the escape of Kim 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:45.560 Jong Nam's childhood playmate Inamo. She fled the country and 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.480 in a great risk to her own life, she too 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:52.280 wrote a memoir detailing the ins and outs of palace life. 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:56.920 I was terrified of being found and taken back to 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:02.360 North Korea, of being taken home in the bag. I 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.960 would have preferred to be killed on the spot rather 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:09.439 than suffer alife in the minds or the countryside. By 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:14.760 the countryside, she means a prison camp. As far as 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:19.400 we know, Ena Walk remains in hiding, probably somewhere in France. 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:24.680 Even sleuthing journalists like Na Fifield have had trouble reaching her. 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.440 I was not able to speak with Na Mock. She 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.320 declined to talk to me. I did speak to her 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:35.560 husband several times, who said to me, you know, she 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:40.680 fears for her life. Her half or her cousin, who 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.080 was really like her brother, has been assassinated. Her own 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.760 brother had been assassinated in South Korea, so she did 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:52.160 not see any benefit to speaking about the North Korean 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:55.600 regime in public. As Ena Walk put in her last 0:14:55.680 --> 0:15:00.840 public interview, being exposed means death to our family way, 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:05.560 and she's right. In North Korea, having a single defector 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:09.320 in your family can leave a deadly stain one your 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:14.000 family cannot escape, and by the late nineties, Kim Jong 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:18.240 Nam had at least three. If you do something that's wrong, 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:22.040 your entire family will also pay the price. That's Dr 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:27.440 Sandra Fahey, I'm an associate professor at Carlton University. She's 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:31.880 been studying North Korea's human rights abuses for decades, and 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.960 as she explains, it punishes and prevents defectors in a 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:43.240 unique way. North Korea operates something that others produous love abuse. 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.440 They will take the fact that you care for others 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.480 and they will use that against you. So you care 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:55.800 for your family, and that is a great way to 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.080 control what you do. So you might want to leave 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.880 North Korea, but you can't do that because if you do, 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:08.920 your freedom comes at the cost of the life sometimes 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:13.320 of others. In other words, if you defect, your loved 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.640 ones will get sent to a prison camp. It will 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:21.080 also tarnish your entire bloodline. Thanks to a cast system 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:25.640 invented by Kim Il sung. This houngboon system I translated 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:30.160 to mean like political ingredients, as if your politics is 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:33.240 in your DNA and it's something that you inherit. This 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:38.080 Houngboon is a system of classification. Rather than separating people 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:42.400 by economic class, it separates citizens by their loyalty to 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:46.720 the regime, and it's treated as natural as if it's 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:50.560 ingrained in your DNA. This DNA cannot be altered, no 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:55.600 amount of bribing, no amount of connections. Today, a computer 0:16:55.680 --> 0:17:00.320 database tracks every single person in North Korea, classifying them 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:06.119 into fifty one different categories which determine whether they are loyal, wavering, 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:12.640 or hostile. You're a place within this hungboun determines everything. 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.560 This sung bun system determines what type of job you 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:22.560 can get, what individuals you can marry, where you can live, 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.359 and the worst part is people can do little to 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:31.320 change their Basically, if your family had any connections with 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:36.639 the South Koreans um or with the Japanese the Americans 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.760 during the Korean War, then you are considered a collaborator, 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:46.800 a trader, suspicious and of course your children would inherit 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:52.720 this classification too. Today, most North Koreans live in the 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:59.840 terrifying middle zone. Classified as wavering, who are considered hostile 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.959 are sent straight to re education camps or to prison camps. 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:09.560 Kim jong Nam was lucky. He was born to the 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:16.040 strongest hungband possible. But after three close family members, especially 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.119 those who had raised him as a child, had defected, 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:24.400 his hungband status was permanently marked by an asterisk if 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:28.560 loyalty was ingrained in DNA. What did that say about 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:32.520 Kim Jong Nam? If his family could not be trusted. 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:37.359 Could anybody trust the prince himself? It appears that in 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:42.320 the upper echelons of North Korean society the answer was no. 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:44.880 I've been trying. I've been trying to get this out 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:49.840 for years. That again is Michael Madden, the North Korea Watcher, 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:54.439 and he claims that in the early two thousand's rumor 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:58.480 spread that somebody in the regime was out to get 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:03.159 Kim Jong nams first assassination plot against Kim Jong nab 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:07.440 the first credible threat on his life was in two 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:11.560 thousand four, okay, And so that basically tells us that 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.960 there were other North Korean elites that were a threat. 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:20.080 But here's the question. Who were these elites trying to 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:25.000 kill Kim Jong nam? And why? Was it because his 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:30.000 trip to Disneyland had jeopardized the so called screen? Was 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:34.480 it because of his family's history of defecting, or was 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:38.920 there another reason one that might put the whole regime 0:19:39.359 --> 0:20:01.280 at risk. Kiml Song never intended it to be this way, 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:05.320 at least not in the beginning. There was never supposed 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:09.040 to be a cast system in North Korea. The DPRK, 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:14.000 after all, was supposed to be a class free utopia. 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:17.879 And there was a reason communism was such an attractive 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:22.200 option to Koreans in the early nine hundreds. For centuries, 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:26.320 the peninsula was arguably the most class divided region on 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:31.119 the planet. The entire society was divided into hereditary ranks, 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:35.199 the land owning aristocrats or young bun on top, the 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:39.280 white collar bureaucrats or tongueing in the middle, the peasants 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.520 and so called commoners or tongue men, and chung men 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:47.280 near the bottom. And below all that the pick jung, 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:53.679 the untouchables thrust into this hierarchy where the Doobe people 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:56.240 stuck in what was the world's longest running system of 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:01.560 chattel slavery in Korea, slavery acid for more than one thousand, 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:06.600 five hundred uninterrupted years. By its height in the sixteen hundreds, 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.560 slaves were estimated to make up thirty percent of the 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:16.320 peninsula's population. In Slavery was legally abolished and the class 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:24.239 system in eighteen nine, but culturally little changed. So you 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.000 can probably understand why in the early twentieth century the 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.840 promise of a classless communist society held such a lure. 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:36.320 These socialist sympathies were only heightened by a rising tide 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:40.440 of nationalism. By the time Cameo Song came around, the 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:45.919 Korean Peninsula had been colonized and brutalized by Japanese settlers 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:49.720 for decades leading up to World War Two. The Japanese 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:54.959 occupation still stirs resentment in both the North and south. 0:21:55.680 --> 0:22:01.280 The Japanese were horrific to Koreans. That again is Dr 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:07.200 Benjamin Young. They had made Koreans learn their non native language, 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:10.919 They made them adopt Japanese name, They made them basically 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:15.080 kind of get rid of their Korean nous. Koreans were 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:19.359 forced to worship at Shinto shrines and watched helplessly as 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:24.040 the Japanese destroyed thousands of cultural artifacts and historical documents. 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.480 Native trees and plants were leveled to make room for 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:33.120 non native species. The Royal Palace In's home, which had 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:38.119 been erected in the thirteen hundreds, was partially destroyed. The 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:42.920 human cost was jarring. Nearly a million Koreans were sent 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:48.600 to Japan and forced into labor. Resistors were executed back home. 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:54.760 Taxas skyrocketed, forcing Korean landowners to give up ancestral land. 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:59.920 Japanese settlers swooped in and by the nineteen thirties controlled 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:04.840 majority of the country's farmland. Millions of Koreans would be 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:10.600 denied basic rights from rations to meal delivery simply because 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:16.040 they had the wrong names. Untold numbers would starve. During 0:23:16.040 --> 0:23:19.399 World War Two, the Imperial Japanese Army would force up 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:23.320 to four hundred thousand Korean girls and women into sex 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:31.639 slavery as so called comfort women. In nineteen when Kimio 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:34.960 Song was just six years old, he saw the brutality 0:23:35.040 --> 0:23:40.040 of the Japanese occupation first hand. His father had been 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:45.439 arrested and imprisoned for joining a pro Korean organization. On 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:49.000 the day of his father's release, the young Kim waited 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:53.960 anxiously outside the prison. His father emerged from the seal gates, 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:59.240 his body covered in wounds and bruises. He could barely walk. 0:24:00.520 --> 0:24:05.159 According to Chimio Sung's official memoirs, his father vowed to 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:12.040 take revenge. The enemy must be made to pay for 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:20.880 our blood, even if we must die. Kimilsung's father wouldn't 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:24.920 be the first or last family member abused in prison. 0:24:26.000 --> 0:24:30.119 In one of Kimil Song's uncles joined three men and 0:24:30.240 --> 0:24:36.040 ambushed a Japanese police officer, shooting and killing him. After 0:24:36.119 --> 0:24:38.280 the murder, the men ran to a family friend in 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:42.719 desperation for a place to hide. The friend graciously offered 0:24:42.720 --> 0:24:46.040 the fugitives a place to lie low as the Japanese searched, 0:24:46.840 --> 0:24:50.800 but it didn't take much time before the authority showed 0:24:50.880 --> 0:24:55.160 up at the door and put the assailants in handcuffs. 0:24:55.359 --> 0:24:59.800 The men had been duped. The family friend, it turns out, 0:25:00.280 --> 0:25:05.240 was an informant, a secret agent for the Japanese. As 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:09.280 a result, Chimiel Sung's uncle would die in prison at 0:25:09.320 --> 0:25:13.720 the age of thirty one. The memory of that one 0:25:13.800 --> 0:25:17.920 man's betrayal would bake into a young Chimiel Sung's consciousness, 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:22.480 and the resulting paranoia, the idea that nobody, not even 0:25:22.480 --> 0:25:26.439 your closest friends, could ever be trusted, would become a 0:25:26.520 --> 0:25:30.679 hallmark of the North Korean state. Chimiel Song put it 0:25:30.720 --> 0:25:33.840 this way. Even now, I say that it is good 0:25:33.880 --> 0:25:37.760 to believe in people, but that it is mistaken to 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:42.480 harbor illusions about them, and that would become the other 0:25:42.720 --> 0:25:46.920 central part of the Kim family, so called screen. Chimiel 0:25:46.920 --> 0:25:50.880 Song realized that good pr was not enough. He would 0:25:50.920 --> 0:25:55.560 have to exterminate every untrustworthy element of society. From root 0:25:56.160 --> 0:26:00.440 to branch, even if that meant his own close friends 0:26:01.359 --> 0:26:10.919 and family in Kim jong Nam was rising through the 0:26:11.000 --> 0:26:14.480 ranks of the North Korean regime. Many of his family 0:26:14.520 --> 0:26:18.400 members had defected to Europe and South Korea, but he 0:26:18.800 --> 0:26:27.040 stayed home, ever loyal to his father. And then the 0:26:27.240 --> 0:26:34.440 rains came. The downpour was relentless. One area saw eighteen 0:26:34.480 --> 0:26:37.960 inches of rain in a single day, the equivalent of 0:26:38.080 --> 0:26:45.160 three Hurricane Katrina's. Coal mines flooded, water crushed hydro electric plants. 0:26:46.000 --> 0:26:50.359 Flooding wiped out nearly a million acres of farmland, causing 0:26:50.480 --> 0:26:55.399 fifteen billion dollars in damage nearly two million tons of 0:26:55.440 --> 0:27:07.159 grain gone. The next year, the rains fell again, and 0:27:07.240 --> 0:27:11.679 the year after that, like a cruel joke, there was 0:27:11.720 --> 0:27:19.320 a hellish drought. The result famine mass famine. The nineties 0:27:19.440 --> 0:27:23.840 exacerbated UH many of these chronic instability issues. Around six 0:27:24.640 --> 0:27:28.520 people die, Others put the number as high as two 0:27:28.600 --> 0:27:34.040 million people or of the population. By the late nineties, 0:27:34.560 --> 0:27:39.560 North Korea plunged into an epic humanitarian crisis. By the 0:27:39.600 --> 0:27:43.680 famine's peak, the country's gross national product would be cut 0:27:43.720 --> 0:27:48.240 almost in half. This was not the North Korea Kim 0:27:48.320 --> 0:27:53.520 Jong Nam's grandfather had imagined decades earlier. Kim Il sung 0:27:53.600 --> 0:27:56.120 had built up North Korea by riding on a deep 0:27:56.160 --> 0:28:01.000 resentment of the Japanese and a rising tide of nationalism. 0:28:01.040 --> 0:28:05.480 He painted his Korea as the real Korea. But what 0:28:05.560 --> 0:28:09.080 the North Korean regime did is they really emphasized Korean as. 0:28:09.080 --> 0:28:11.960 They said, we are going to actually be the legitimate 0:28:12.080 --> 0:28:14.959 Korean state. We are going to be the most Korean 0:28:14.960 --> 0:28:18.080 of the two Koreas. It helped that Kim Il sung 0:28:18.280 --> 0:28:22.879 was a bona fide folk hero Korean Davy Crockett. He 0:28:22.960 --> 0:28:26.920 was born in poverty, a humble church organist who bravely 0:28:27.000 --> 0:28:29.679 fought the Japanese and climbed the ranks to become one 0:28:29.720 --> 0:28:33.359 of the fiercest fighters in the rebellion. And the truth 0:28:33.480 --> 0:28:39.520 is it made Kim Il sung immediately popular. Better Yet, Kim, 0:28:39.560 --> 0:28:43.160 being a good communist, promised to give the oppressed Korean 0:28:43.280 --> 0:28:48.160 underclass land. At the time of his installment, low class 0:28:48.200 --> 0:28:53.080 peasants made up sev of North Korea's population. He gave 0:28:53.120 --> 0:28:57.880 them land in just three weeks. The reform was one 0:28:57.880 --> 0:29:02.240 of the most abrupt surges of upward mobility in human history, 0:29:02.640 --> 0:29:08.800 health care and schooling became free, and universal literacy practically vanished. 0:29:09.240 --> 0:29:13.800 A law upholding the quote triple subordination of women was repealed, 0:29:14.120 --> 0:29:18.560 allowing people to marry outside their traditional class. The centrally 0:29:18.600 --> 0:29:21.680 planned economy. It worked for quite a long period of 0:29:21.680 --> 0:29:25.480 time in North Korea. When the German American journalists Bernard 0:29:25.560 --> 0:29:29.240 Krisher visited North Korea, he was shocked to find well 0:29:29.320 --> 0:29:34.600 supported citizens living lives of happy simplicity. He described it 0:29:34.640 --> 0:29:38.120 as quote one big kibbutz. This is a period that 0:29:38.160 --> 0:29:41.480 was looked upon quite finally by many North Koreans because 0:29:41.520 --> 0:29:44.040 they had their three bowls of rice a day, and 0:29:44.120 --> 0:29:49.720 they had a roof to live under. After decades of 0:29:49.760 --> 0:29:54.400 oppression from a foreign power, many North Koreans had experienced 0:29:54.480 --> 0:30:00.560 a genuine uplift. The economy was roaring too. In um 0:30:00.880 --> 0:30:04.200 the nineteen sixties, you could say that North Korea's economic 0:30:04.280 --> 0:30:07.880 output was ahead of South Korea. North Korea's standard of 0:30:07.920 --> 0:30:12.320 living would beat South Korea and China for decades. North 0:30:12.400 --> 0:30:16.040 Korea's gross national product would continue to wallop South Korea 0:30:16.120 --> 0:30:21.440 until the country used twice as much energy per capita 0:30:21.520 --> 0:30:26.040 in the South. It's citizens even consumed more calories per 0:30:26.120 --> 0:30:29.160 day than those in the South. It helped that North 0:30:29.240 --> 0:30:34.640 Korea sat on a pile of natural resources gold, tungsten, iron, 0:30:34.800 --> 0:30:38.160 and anthra site It's heavy industry could build top of 0:30:38.200 --> 0:30:42.640 the line hydroelectric and manufacturing plants. If you could look 0:30:42.720 --> 0:30:48.760 past the cartoonish propaganda and psychotically sycophantic leader worship, North 0:30:48.840 --> 0:30:52.000 Korea looked like one of the fastest, growing, most advanced 0:30:52.040 --> 0:30:56.200 countries in East Asia. But Kim Il sung, so called screen, 0:30:56.960 --> 0:31:00.800