Book Review: The Great Successor. The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong Un

At what extent personal/private information about a political leader - like, for instance, his eating and health habits in general, the number of his illegitimate children and sport hobbies, to mention only a couple of details - that might pertain to the domain of the gossip are relevant for building up reliable political projections and analysis?

In the case of transparent political systems, probably not too much, but when, for instance, when the population of a specific country is coping with famine and eating rats or locusts while their leaders are enjoying lavish dinners prepared by chefs brought from outside, then there is an important element to consider in evaluating the political system. The specific country I am referring to is the secretive North Korea.

The Great Successor. The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong Un by Anna Fifield is a lecture that seems appropriate especially those days when rumors are spreading in the international media regarding the health status of the current leader in Pyongyang.

Kim Jong Un, the third in a communist genealogy of North Korean leaders based on traditional elements assigning divine provenance, both common to the Korean and Christian mythology and religious practice, was assigned by his ailing father as the leader of the 25 million people when he was in his 20s. Educated in Switzerland and a friend of the American basketball player Denis Rodman, the third Kim was the surprise candidate. Everything about his was ´cloaked in mystery, be it his photo, birth date or job title´. He and his ´royal family´ are extensively using fake passports and identities when abroad, the media is state-controlled and everyone, including close relatives are at the mercy of the supreme leader. 

Promoted to power by his very ambitious mother, born in Japan and never married with Kim Jong Il, he was easily labelled as a millenial that can for ever challenge the most secretive and repressive dictatorship on Earth. What he did was to create his own system of trust, promote the usual protection system common to many communist countries, where a thick layer of money elites are allowed to operate according to capitalist rules as long as they fill the state accounts - symbolically, as the country is completely lacking a proper banking system. He allowed a market-driven, yet controlled, economy, which also covers the sale and distribution of meth for a variety of clients - police officers, security agents, party members, teachers or doctors. There are the ´masters of the money´ who are working hard in the country and abroad to pay for the expensive cars the leader loves to be driven in, among other luxury weaknesses. 

´There is nothing the Brilliant Comrade does not know, according to the universal fiction of North Korea. He dispenses advice on catfish farming and livestock building, at green houses and tree nurseries, at construction sites and shipyards. He inspects production lines for shoes, face cream and bean paste and has wise instructions to impart at every turn. He has thoughts on music, architecture and sport. He is a military genius who has guided the progress in the nuclear and missile programs as well as commanding conventional drills at sea and on land´. A typical dictator on the likes of Stalin and his Soviet followers, but with a millenial touch.

North Korea is a country where people live ´in a system where every aspect of their lives is monitored, where every infraction is recorded, where the smallest deviation from the system will result in punishment. It is ubiquitous, and it keeps many people from even raising an eyebrow at the regime´.  Typical description of the relationship between a totalitarian state and its rightless citizens.

In order to research the book, journalist Anna Fifield extensively travelled to North Korea, and the region, connected with family members, some of them very close, and North Korean that escaped the country, as well as teachers and former colleagues from Switzerland. A very complex reconstruction work, during which the identities and information often were not supposed to be revealed fully.

Being focused exclusively on the leader´s personality, it does not dedicate too much space to the geopolitical survival of North Korean elites, a mixture of Chinese and Russian conjectures, or Pyongyang´s more or less discrete exchange of information on nuclear technology with Iran, among others. I would have been curious about an in-depth analysis regarding the dynamics of the North-South relations and why exactly Kim Jong Un would have a relevant stake in the process - does he has any dream that his dictatorship will ever survive in an unified context?

As for the current media interest regarding the health situation of Kim Jong Un the author already stated that health is his biggest risk: ´The young leader looks like a heart attacj waiting to happen and has clearly had health problems´.

What the future can bring to North Korea is hard to estimate, because the flow of information remain problematic and not always unreliable. But as long as the young Kim Jong Un - in his mid 30s - stays in power he will play his own game.

Rating: 4 stars

Researching the Roots of Intolerance in America

´Through greater insight into the variety of religion, the dynamics of prejudice, and gthe complexities of national life, Americans can better avoid the biases, stereotypes and provications that betray their own ideals yet have too frequently appeared on the country´s political and social landscape´.

This is the main conclusion of a book which explores the roots of intolerance into the American public culture. Religious intolerance, to be more specific. 

We are familiar nowadays with the Muslim ban and the alt-right aggressive - and sometimes deadly - public appearances, but before, in the 17th-18th and onwards, there were the Catholics and the Jews and the Native Americans. In American Heretics, Peter Gottschalk traces patterns and trends, public statements and perceptions based on fear, anger, indignation or religious panic.

It does not creates and build models per se though, but offers enough information to further explore patterns and further investigate public statements and positions. 

At what extent the religious allegiances can endanger the universal ideas the American Constitution relies upon? What are the public ´dangers´ of organised religions, other than the Protestant, in the opinion of political pundits and public opinion makers? What are the cultural basis and are those universal or rather applies on a case by case basis?

I personally expected the research to be more specific and more comprehensive for the variety of cases analysed. Obviously, it offers interesting lines of research but it obliterates relevant nuances which are by far more important in understandining the phenomenon in all its acceptions.

Academic Book Review: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the 40-Year Rivalry...

Kim Ghattas insider´s account of Hilary Clinton´s projects within the State Department, published under the title of The Secretary were a valuable investigation that goes beyond the usual mandate of a politically designated person. It revealed institutional mechanisms and behaviors that are there to maintain the continuity of an institution, the diplomacy, aimed to serve the national interests of a country no matter who is heading the country or the institution. 

Black Wave. Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Forty-Year Rivalry that Unraveled Culture, Religion and Collective Memory in the Middle East is an elaborated cultural and journalistic investigation that goes far beyong what we usually consume in the media nowadays. The book is based on a variety of sources, from history books to interviews with main players in the region or media in seven countries with the aim to give voice to the ´silent majority´ of people who are unable to have their say, caught in the terrible fight for geopolitical survival of their countries.

For someone like me, relatively familiar with the area and its players, but far from being an expert, Black Wave reads almost like a thriller where the roles between criminal and victims are free to switch. 

The starting point is the year 1979, where three important events took place in the region, whose reverberations continue to complicate the mental and geographical map of the region: the Iranian revolution, the siege of the Holy Mosque in Mecca by Saudi zealots and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (´the first battleground for jihad in modern times´). 40 years is 10 years over a generation and caught between religious fervors and cynical realpolitik games, those born after this year in the region are asking ´What Happened to Us?´. I would rather ask: ´What they did to us?´

The book evolves in waves, waves of an earthquake with movable epicenter, shaken by the permanent rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. A rivalry with many collateral victims and which viciously self-reproduces with no chance of end in sight. The identities those two countries created for themselves and the ways in which influenced the neighbouring countries are a fact. How many generations will be needed to challenge those structures, that in the case of Lebanon, for instance, are rotting the state from within, it´s a very sad and complex question.

Black Wave is a heavy read and definitely will need more than once to browse a couple of times more my notes before heading to other resources, particularly about religious differences within Islam and intellectual elites. The book creates a solid basis to build on further knowledge about specificities not necessarily within the research range of this terrible - and sometimes horrible - rivalry. 

As for the question of what the future has in store for the people living - and refusing the option of leaving - here, it is largely unknown. A new alignment of events like in 1979 might change everything, but predictions are neither the work of the historian nor the journalist. For sure, the Middle East will remain a valuable source for creating historical encounters, we are far from writing a final/conclusion chapter.