Major North Korean state-run organizations are reportedly holding mandatory lectures on the importance of nuclear weapons and a national focus on self-defense in the face of “aggression” from the U.S. and South Korea.
Yet the slogans promulgated by these groups—including the Socialist Women’s Union of Korea, Socialist Patriotic Youth League, and General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea—are failing to reverberate with the new generation, who are more interested in improving their living standard, Seoul-based news outlet Daily NK cited a participating lecturer as saying.
Pyongyang is forging ahead with its United Nations-sanctioned nuclear weapons, which the Kim Jong Un regime views as necessary for its preservation, prompting a rare joint statement by China, Japan, and South Korea last month affirming their commitment to the North’s denuclearization.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest in decades amid a spate of North Korean missile tests, trash-filled balloons Pyongyang sent south in response to anti-regime literature from the other direction, and the suspension of a key inter-Korean military agreement meant to reduce tensions near the border.
Lecturers cite the “war provocations” by Washington and its allies as justification for North Korean efforts to continue strengthening its national defense efforts, Daily NK’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity since Pyongyang strictly forbids contact with individuals outside the country.
These lectures are reportedly ill-received by younger North Koreans, with some openly expressing apathy and even annoyance about being made to listen to the well-worn appeals to nationalism they grew up around.
