Is it permissible to take pleasure and hope in the misfortune of others? Because I'm very pleased indeed at the news that the evil Kim Jong Il may have had a stroke. He truly is one of the most wicked and dangerous men on the planet, and we will all be better off when he is dead and buried. I say this having finished last night an essay in the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine (subscription only) written by a defector who was one of Kim's teachers. The evil -- really, there is no other word for it -- of Kim beggars belief.
One story stood out. The professor, who now lives in the US (and whose defection caused his entire family to be slaughtered by the Pyongyang regime), tells of how Kim wanted to get rid of people Kim thought were too short. So he dispatched representatives to villages, gathered up all the people who didn't meet Kim's height requirements, and told them the government had invented a special pill that would make them taller. But the pill would only work under certain environmental conditions. So all the short people gathered their things and got on buses and went off to ... special islands, where they were left behind to fend for themselves for the rest of their lives, never seeing their families again.
There's a special condo in hell for that cretin. Kim Hyun Sik, the professor who wrote the piece, paints a picture of a man who impressed his father, the dictator Kim Il Sung, by saying that he would rather destroy the world than lose North Korea, because a world without North Korea is not worth living in. Yet the professor also says that the North Korean people "offer their loyalty not to him but to the power that he holds. And that power could vanish in an instant."
I hope to God that's what's happening now, and the tyrant will go to his grave without a shot being fired. And that North Korea can join the international community as a normal nation, not a pariah state.
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Paul the Apostle wrote in Romans 12: "Do not repay evil for evil. . . do not take revenge. . . leave room for God's wrath, for it is written, 'It is mine to avenge, I will repay.' On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink . . . DO NOT BE OVERCOME BY EVIL, BUT OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD.'"
However you choose to interpret this, I don't think it condones rejoicing over the suffering of even one as evil as the North Korean dictator--and there's no question that he is evil and the world will be better off without him.
Still, I find your tone to be all about rejoice at the evil one's suffering, contrary to what Jesus and the apostles taught.
Someone, by the way, referenced Bonhoeffer. It's true that he joined in the plot to assassinate Hitler. It's also true that he took no joy whatsoever in it, and felt that he was throwing himself at the mercy of God for participating in the plot to kill another human.
Shame on you, Rod. Your posting reminds me of those immature kids who stand outside the gates at executions and hold parties.
Having been to Panmunjom and the DMZ several times, I can't express with words the true sense of seeing North Korea. All I really got to see with my own eyes was the PRK side of the DMZ, but it was something of an education. Standing on an observation deck on the ROK side, you can see across to the hills across the way. They were all stripped bare of anything green while the ROK side was in full foliage. The people over there had evidently been eating it, making tea, soup, or what have you from leaves and bark, according to our guide. The PRK guards in the "peace village" were very well fed, indeed. a
At about the same time, around 1997 or 98, we, the U.S., had sent food aid. That food aid showed up in rations aboard an abandoned PRK submarine that the ROK subsequently seized. Take that for what it's worth....
I remember when Kim Il-Sung died I had hope that the bizarre personality cult around him would decline and North Korea would become less oppressive. That was like a decade ago. (Kim Il Sung was the one for whom the personality cult started and he headed it longer. He is still seen, at times, as "Eternal Leader.")
An advantage in this case is that none of Kim Jong Il's sons seem to be old enough or in his good graces enough to take over. Still the idea that Jong-Il dying or retiring will bring betterment to North Korea seems naive to me on first blush. These people have been living under a familial personality cult for over 50 years. Most of them probably know nothing else. Even if he dies change will likely be gradual or may not happen at all. Even Turkmenistan is not exactly "free" years after Turkmenbashi died. For that matter Belarus has never been really free either despite the fall of Communism.
Do you really think that Kim's death will change anything?
I'm sorry, Rod, but I don't think it's good to take pleasure even in the suffering of such an evil man. You can be happy about what his death might bring; I think it's okay, perhaps, to "hope" for his death, in that it could be ultimately good for the Korean people and the world (though of course, the practicality of that is a bit suspect; who exactly will take his place?). But to be happy that he, himself, as a person (even an evil person) is suffering, is a different matter.
God bless.
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