The limits of imagination, the absence of other choices
Q: What do you see as the fundamental reason for making these choices?
The important thing is that within their imagination, there are no other options. If there were possibilities for a different life, they would struggle with it and make better choices... but they can't. It's a society that forces sacrifice.
Mr. A's analysis pinpoints the core of North Korean heroism brainwashing. The problem is not coercion but the absence of alternatives. Soldiers voluntarily choose sacrifice, but that choice is made within a closed cognitive system where they cannot imagine other possibilities.
Russian deployment: an 'opportunity' for soldiers
Q: If there had been an opportunity for Russian deployment during your military service, what would it have been like?
If there had been deployment when I was serving in the military, I would definitely have gone. Military life at a young age is hard. You can't eat, can't sleep, get beaten — in that situation, if you can eat properly and be in an environment that's not barracks life, I'm 100% confident I would have gone. I think I would have gone gladly.
Q: Wouldn't they have thought about the danger of the battlefield?
An atmosphere is created within the military that makes soldiers volunteer for what the state wants. After continuously hearing and being brainwashed about what the party wants, what the leader wants, you reach a state where you want to belong to that, want to be a part of it. If you go to the battlefield and come back alive, you're a hero, and even if you're sacrificed, you believe you'll be remembered forever. The effect is tremendous. If the international community, and the United States or South Korea, which have the possibility of direct armed conflict, don't understand this mechanism, they could pay an enormous price.
This cannot help but be a threat. These are not simply people following orders but beings thoroughly educated to believe sacrifice is glory.
In the next installment, through reports from ASIAPRESS's reporting partners, we will examine the atmosphere of heroism promotion through new heroes of the Russia-Ukraine war currently taking place throughout North Korea. (To be continued)
