Kim Jong-un has declared war on K-pop, calling it “vicious cancer” and saying it “corrupts” young North Koreans

The dictator Kim jong un decided to declare war on a musical genre which is enjoying increasing success with the youth of North Korea: the K-pop. The head of the regime Pyongyang Monday described the South Korean musical genre as a “vicious cancer“And stressed that he” corrupts “young North Koreans, as well as their”speeches, behaviors and hairstyles”.

the K-pop, which has gained in influence in recent years, has led to the heir to the dynastic dictatorship open a new cultural war to try to slow it down. In order to Pyongyang, this genre is a danger to try to expand ideas “anti-socialistsWho controls the regime.

Jung Gwang-il, a North Korean defector who runs a drug trafficking ring K-pop, said in statements to the agency Yonhap than “Young North Koreans think they owe Kim Jong-un nothing”. “He must redefine his ideological control over the young if he does not want to lose the base to achieve the continuity of his ruling dynastic lineage.“Said the opponent.

The family of Kim jong un reigned with an iron fist North Korea for three generations, even if the fidelity of the youngest has had to be tested on several occasions. Many of them came of age during the famine of the late 1990s, while the dictatorship could not provide rations to the entire population.

Families then survived by purchasing food from unofficial markets filled with contraband goods from China. State propaganda of North Korea had long described South Korea like a “living hell full of beggars”.

Thanks to the South Korean television series titled K-dramas, many of them got information about South Korean reality. Now, North Korea he imposed sentences of up to 15 years of forced labor for those who watch or own South Korean entertainment, as reported by several South Korean MPs.

Those who traffic in this type of material could face stiffer penalties. “For Kim Jong-un, South Korea’s cultural invasion has gone beyond tolerable“, expressed Jiro Ishimaru, Director of Asia International Press. “He fears that if the situation is not resolved, people will start to see South Korea as a place to replace North Korea.“, added.

In an article published in the South Korean newspaper Korea’s time, reporter Yoon Ja-young noted that according to an investigation by the Seoul National University Institute for Peace and Unification Studies “41.4% said they frequently consumed South Korean TV shows, movies, dramas and songs, while 40.2% said they only used them once or twice. Only 18.4 percent said they had no experience using them. Oh Chong-song, a North Korean soldier who fled south across the border via the Joint Security Zone (JSA) in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in November 2017, also said he had stored some 500 South Korean pop songs on a USB and had heard them”.

“It’s ironic that the North Korean leader himself, as well as his late father, Kim Jong-il, were consumers of South Korean pop culture.“, He said Yoon in his article published this Monday. “Young Kim would have asked ‘Late regret‘, a South Korean ballad released by brothers Hyeoni and Deoki duo in 1985, when South Korean musicians were performing in Pyongyang in 2018.

(With information from Europa Press and local media) .-

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