When you talk about social class or songbun, it can be divided into three groups. The first is considered the good songbun. These are people who are loyal to the leaders Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un.
The second are people who are in the middle. The kind of people, under songbun, that the regime would watch and then decide whether to classify them as good or bad.
Lastly, you have people who are labeled as having bad songbun. For these people, the future is bleak and the regime will always keep a close watch on them.
[Three generations of the Kim family have ruled North Korea since 1948. Kim Il Sung (1912 – 1994) was the founder and leader of the North Korean state from 1948 until his death in 1994. Kim Jong Il (1941 – 2011) succeeded his father and led North Korea from 1994 until his death in 2011. Kim Jong Un (1983 – ) assumed power on his father’s death in 2011. Songbun is a system used by the North Korean regime to classify citizens’ attitudes toward the regime as core, wavering, or hostile. An individual’s songbun status is influenced by his family’s status and helps determine career prospects, housing and even access to food.]
This is why North Koreans often say, “This person has good or bad songbun.” If you have good songbun then you have a bright future ahead of you. If you don’t, your future is dismal.
So who made this system? Of course it was the North Korean regime. They started to classify residents according to their own criteria which is why this kind of social class or songbun still exists to this day.
Han Nam-su was destined for a life among North Korea’s elite. The son of a military officer, Han and his family were afforded privileges that ordinary North Koreans didn’t have.
Things changed after Han’s father commented on the country’s need for economic reform; he was instantly branded a traitor, tried in a military court, and executed. Han was subsequently expelled from his university and exiled to a remote corner of the country with his family.
On Christmas Eve, 1998, Han decided to leave North Korea and pursue a better life elsewhere. He crossed the frozen Tumen River into China and remained there for the next six years working various odd jobs. In 2004, Han escaped to South Korea where he started a new life in a free society.
Attending Sogang University, Han majored in Diplomacy and Political Science. While there, he decided to raise awareness of the human rights abuses happening in North Korea and founded the Young Defectors’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights. As the organization’s leader, Han works to empower North Korean defectors through trainings, seminars, forums, and various campaigns on democratic governance.
North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) is a country of 23 million people in northeast Asia, ruled by Communist dictator Kim Jong-Un. His deceased predecessors—father, Kim Jong-Il, and grandfather, Kim Il-Sung – respectively retain the titles of “Eternal President” and “The Great Leader.”
The Korean War began in 1950, when Kim Il-Sung, backed by the Soviet Union and China, attacked South Korea. The conflict ended in a cease-fire rather than a peace treaty, and the border between the two Koreas remains tense and heavily militarized.
Kim Il-Sung employed harsh tactics to consolidate his power and propagated an extreme personality cult that has been continued by his successors. A blend of communist doctrine, state terror, xenophobia and hyper-nationalism has given North Korea its unique ideology. Despite some recent openings, North Korea remains largely isolated from the rest of the world.
With the end of Soviet communism and withdrawal of economic support, North Korea’s economy collapsed in the 1990s. A massive famine, aggravated by the regime’s indifference, killed as many as 2 million people between 1994 and 1998. While conditions have improved, even today, North Korea faces problems of malnutrition and insufficient access to food.
Tensions between North and South Korea remain high. In 2010, North Korea sank a South Korean naval vessel, killing 46 sailors and attacked a South Korean island, killing four civilians. North Korea has developed and tested nuclear weapons in contravention of several international agreements. The country withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 in order to test ballistic missiles and eventually a nuclear device. Multilateral negotiations have so far failed to constrain North Korea’s arms buildup and nuclear program.
North Korea is among the world’s most repressive states, engaging in widespread and systematic human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions, torture, forced abortion, arbitrary detention, and denial of the rights of expression, association, assembly, and religion. The government pervasively regulates all aspects of the lives of its citizens, each of whom is categorized as “core,” “wavering,” or “hostile,” according to the history of his or her family’s relationship with the regime. Access to housing, employment, education, and other social and economic goods depend heavily on these security classifications. The government determines where each citizen will live, and travel within the country is strictly limited.
Emigration is prohibited. Refugees who have escaped to China have frequently been forcibly returned to North Korea where they are imprisoned, subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, and sometimes executed. The government operates a network of forced labor camps for an estimated 120,000 political prisoners. While persons convicted of ordinary crimes serve fixed sentences, those convicted of political crimes are confined indefinitely. Punishment is extended to three generations – the offender’s parents, siblings, and children are also incarcerated, as a way to pressure North Koreans to conform. Political offenders are often denied food, clothing, and medical care, and many die in prison.
Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report classifies North Korea as “not free” and as one of nine nations whose lack of political rights and civil liberties are considered the “worst of the worst.”
See all North Korea videos