1984 and North Korea

The first six chapters of 1984 deal pack an enormous amount of detail about the world in which Winston Smith lives, from its global foreign relations to its extensive repression and cult of personality around its leader figure, Big Brother. For me, the most obvious parallel to a real world nation was with North Korea. In the second chapter, we find out that Winston has a neighbor with two children, both of whom are a part of the party's youth wing. They accuse Winston of committing seditious acts, which would get him tortured or killed. North Korea has a similar youth wing of its totalitarian political party, where children are ingrained with the party's principles of repression from a young age. 

Another similarity was the cult of personality around Big Brother compared to the cult of personality around Kim Il Sung and his descendants. Big Brother is likely not even a real person, and Winston notes that while he doesn't remember Big Brother existing before the 1960s, new records claim that he has been leading the nation since the 1930s. A common phrase in the novel is "Big Brother is Watching." Similarly, North Korea brainwashes its citizens into thinking the leader is virtually a god and censors history to outlandish degrees, such as altering his date of birth and saying that he was born on a sacred mountain and descended from the heavens to rule the nation. The government's also forces every single room and every single building to have pictures of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il hung on the wall, to symbolize that they are always watching. 

North Korea is obviously the most extreme dictatorship in the entire world as of right now, but could this happen in a developed nation if a totalitarian regime took power? In 1984, it happened to the United Kingdom after World War II, and if there is war and turmoil in the future, could a similar dictatorship rise in the United States or another currently democratic nation? Say your thoughts in the comments below.

Comments

  1. L. MoffittFebruary 8, 2021 at 7:36 AM

    While North Korea has a very specific history, culture, and so on, I do think we need to consider that what happens in one part of the world at one particular time could happen anywhere given that human nature connects us all.

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