How far is too far?

In the face of rising nationalism, countries seek to stake their independent ground, separate themselves from their competitors, and be shown to be self-reliant and reliable. In the early twentieth century, China relied heavily on the notion of autarky, to be economically independent and self-sufficient. Later in the century, North Korea focused on a similar self-reliance, or juche, bearing a striking resemblance to earlier Chinese concepts, yet far more extreme in their implications.

Both China's autarky and Korea's juche were important to each respective country in order to assert their sovereignty and reaffirm their supposed superiority compared to the rest of the world. It was a method of rallying the civilians and gaining support to feed the ever hungry power-machine.

However as a result of this strict self-reliance and independence from the globalised world, particularly countries such as North Korea are placed in a perpetual war-ready state. Despite juche being introduced to North Korea almost 50 years ago by the then "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung, this places the current Prime Minister Kim Jong-il in a position where he is determined to maintain the almost total seclusion from the outside world. This creates world security problems abound and places any attempts at a peaceful reunification with  South Korea almost unimaginable.

Despite this great precedence placed on the notion of juche, the contradictions in economic independence are palpable.This is particularly evident with the millions to billions of dollars in financial and military aid that North Korea receives each year.

So although there are obvious positives to the notion of economic independence and self-sufficiency, great paradoxes are rife and  the longevity of a states' government and successful autarkic rule are seriously questionable.

'west knows best?'

Yukio Hatayama, Prime Minister of Japan from September 2009 to June 2010, argued for a return to a dedicated fraternity in Japan to foster a higher regard for human dignity whilst resisting the extremes of the highly capitalist world. He argued that totalitarianism had tried to achieve equality at all costs. This, he argued, leads capitalism to fall "into self-indulgence, [resulting] in disregard for human dignity."

How is this so? Does the capitalist world get so caught up in attempting to please everyone and create the most perfect egalitarian society that small pockets of the human dignity get overlooked? PM Hatayama stated that "people have been treated not as an end but a means," and in observing a great number of the worlds tragedies I find this to be correct. In trying to achieve the best for all the people, there has been a dehumanization of individuals as singular people are lost in the progress of 'society' as a whole.

In today's Western world, democracy and liberalism are pushed from every educated soul on to all the 'unknowing' and 'underprivileged' people of the world, in the pure and simple belief that 'West knows Best!'. But as PM Yukio Hatayama points out, though we may aim for such revered and 'good' goals, we must not lose sight of the original purpose, as all regimes and ideas have the potential to be both successful and 'good', or failing and 'bad'.

walking on two legs

I like how everyone reacts to things in seemingly different ways, yet how a general pattern still manages to emerge in the reaction of the East (in particular China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam) to the West's influences. The West's penetration of the East was as inevitable as the rejection and unfavourable manner in which they were received.