“Ask a North Korean” is an NK News column penned by North Korean defectors, most of whom left the DPRK in the last few years. 

Readers may submit their questions to defectors by emailing [email protected] and including their first name and city of residence.

Today’s question is about class and discrimination in the DPRK.

Although North Korea claims to be a worker’s paradise, there are undoubtedly the haves and the have-nots — like in any other society. Compared to the majority of countries, however, there is a chasm of difference between the classes in the DPRK.

Tae-il Shim, who lived in North Korea for decades before defecting in 2018, discusses the animosity felt between North Koreans who enjoy wealth and those that are struggling every day just to survive.

Got a question for Tae-il? Email it to [email protected] with your name and city. We’ll be publishing the best ones.

Many countries have issues with discrimination. In North Korea, you’re discriminated against on the basis of whether you have money or you don’t.

Those with money view those without it as non-human, and believe accordingly that wealth should be enjoyed only among those that have it. They consider themselves great and heroic, but lack knowledge and common sense.

They work those living beneath them like slaves, who in turn go about their pitiful lives, forced to abandon any sense of conscience, morality and justice.

The rich constantly strive to advance their positions. They fear that their wealth could be taken away from them in a purge and at any moment. Or maybe those they exploited will come to claim what has been stolen from them.

The North Korean authorities have traditionally denounced those who have fallen out of favor for having accrued their wealth with “black money” given to them by American and South Korean intelligence as payment for espionage operations. They swoop in and take the accused’s money before shooting them or sending them to a political prison camp.

Those at the opposite end of the economic spectrum have a totally different view of risk. They think that, even if an activity is punishable by death, it’s worth having a go at hitting the jackpot.

Those who lived through the famine in the 1990s all say the same thing: “Money is patriotism, money is loyalty.”

The millions that starved to death weren’t the ones who engaged in smuggling. These people even sold state-owned goods to China; not a single person who did this died from hunger.

The ones that did were those that continued to do what they were told. They were the men who went to work to protect the Republic, without rations or financial compensation.

Nowadays, people see that if Kim Jong Un doesn’t have money in his pocket, he can’t rule the country. They know that if someone commits even a grievous crime equivalent to a hundred death sentences, they can get off the hook by paying a large bribe.

To get that money, though, regular people can’t draw on funds stowed away in foreign bank accounts, like the Kim family and the upper elite can. They have to gamble in order to win big.

Along with those parasites at the top that live in a symbiotic relationship with the Kim regime, there are those who earned their money through their own righteous efforts.

The problem is that this group has had to risk their lives by engaging in activities that the Kim regime forbids. North Korean society is like a jungle swarming with ravenous beasts. It’s difficult to feed oneself through honest work.

Edited by James Fretwell