THE SNAKE PIT 3^RD  EDITION 2016 (Friday, April 22, 2016)

IF I WERE A SUPREME LEADER OF A CERTAIN COUNTRY I COULD TALK TO DOLPHINS

For your next holiday destination if you’re looking for somewhere filled with safe and smiling soldiers, a booming economy, a stable, modest and loveable leader, plenty of beautiful scenic wonders which is allied with it’s neighbours look no further then North Korea…if you want the complete opposite of that description.

A recent Mirror Magazine published that North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un has resurrected an old tradition carried out by his father Kim Jong-il. It’s clearly identifiable to any sane person why this tradition was banished a long time ago but obviously the supreme leader thought the ‘Pleasure Squad’ tradition deserved another chance. That’s correct the ‘Pleasure Squad’ introduced in Kim Jong-il’s regime, my apologies Kim Jong-il’s tenor, where virgin schoolgirls were chosen to serve North Korea’s elite, I think it needs no further description. Kim John-Un himself is an interesting leader, an individual to say the least and whether or not North Korea is in a better state with him as supreme leader as opposed to his father is highly debated.

I thought it would be fascinating to delve deeper into the man and much maligned leader that is Kim John-Un, and how exactly he is perceived by his country and by the world. Kim is the son of Kim Jong-il meaning the Kim Johg-un is the beetle from Team America? Kim Jong-un was officially declared supreme leader, following his father’s state funeral at the end of 2011. According to many scoops of knowledge from North Korea his father was a superhuman, so it would be a logical assumption to make that Kim Jong-un has the genes of a superhuman also, and the proof is in the pudding, let’s have a look at these extraordinary qualities of the supreme leader. Allegedly at age 27 Kim underwent plastic surgery to resemble his grandfather Kim Il Sung, that is the definition of dedication. At age 29 The Onion newspaper announced Kim as the “Sexiest Man Alive” in 2012 a feat his father could only achieve every single year of his supremacy. Even the description mirrors the sexy leader Kim Jong un really is “With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman’s dream come true”. I would love to see the women from Pyongyang squabble over this absolute heartthrob.

To add to this ridiculousness, during his schooling in Switzerland, he developed a strong liking for Swiss cheese. Apparently the North Korean government spends tens of thousands of dollars per year on Swiss cheese imports to keep the Supreme leader satisfied while the country starves. I mean couldn’t he just share some of it with his starving country? Wouldn’t he create millions of job opportunities if he started producing Swiss cheese in North Korea, potentially ending poverty and hunger? Or should someone slap him over the face with a peaking duck and remind him of his heritage and faithfulness to country and remind him to start appreciating his own cultures cuisine?

Kim Jong un is such a sex symbol of North Korea every male student attending North Korean universities have been asked to copy Kim’s haircut. To extend on his haircut, apparently Kim cuts his own hair as he is afraid of barbers after a traumatic childhood experience. So there you have it the military leader of North Korea afraid of a barber.

One of the ironies of this deeply flawed man is despite no formal military training Kim Jong-un is head of one of the largest armies in the world. According to the US State Department, the North Korean Army has an estimated active duty military force of up to 1.2 million personnel and yet Kim probably wouldn’t even have the qualifications to ask a soldier to tie up their bootlace.

North Korea’s constitution speaks of democratic voting and freedom of expression, even though this is not carried out in practice obviously as it is a dictatorship. Yet the North Korean government still has ballots and guess what…unsurprisingly there is only one option, Kim Jong-un.

However the seriousness of the state of the civilians in North Korea cannot be forgotton. The number of North Korean children being treated for severe malnutrition increased more than 30% in 2014, according to a United Nations agency. The UN’s report highlights arbitrary torture and interrogation practices, at one point describing an account of “pigeon torture,” an interrogation technique in which prisoners are suspended by their hands behind their back. Lasting for days, it often results in defecation, vomiting, and complete exhaustion. These types of brutal, medieval tortures are all too common in North Korean concentration camps, in these concentration camps over 200,000 people have reportedly “disappeared”. These charges of crimes against humanity are non-enforceable as the International Criminal Court and the UN cannot condemn those who are guilty, as they have no jurisdiction to come into North Korea and arrest those who are guilty. An extension of this cruelty to the poor North Korean citizens, reports have revealed that struggling families sell their children to Chinese farmers with the hope that they will gain opportunity out of the country. Yeonmi Park was one of few North Korean’s who escaped from the country and was able to publish a book about life inside the strict and secret country. Her book ‘In Order to Live’ describes how the North Korean regime decided everything for you from where you lived, where you attended school, what you wore, the books you read and if you wore jeans or dyed your hair you could get seriously punished. As for international unauthorized calls or watching a Hollywood or South Korean film, you could get executed.

There are many things that we don’t know about North Korea and some of their bizarre laws. In North Korea marijuana is legal and not even classified as a drug. The plant can often be seen growing alongside roads and smoking marijuana in public is considered normal and the most popular citizens to smoke marijuana are young military members of the North Korean Army; no wonder they can get their feet so high in the march. Another ridiculous law is that North Korean citizens only the have the choice of 28 legal hairstyles in the country; men have the choice of 10 short haircut whilst women have the choice of 18 different hairstyles but if you’re a married women you must have short hair. Possessing bibles, watching South Korean movies and distributing pornography are all against the law and are punishable by death. However, those who read the bible haven’t given up the fight, reports have revealed there is an organisation that parachutes bibles into North Korea by North Korean defectors, when the wind allows it they are sent over the border. There are holes poked in the balloon carrying the bible and that allows the bible to carry a certain distance before deflating. I mean they could send over food for all the starving citizens but instead with it’s recent release South Korean activists have sent over many copies of ‘The Interview’ starring James Franco and Seth Rogan to defy the beliefs that Kim Jong Un is a superhuman.

And finally the hatred between North Korea and South Korea have been existent throughout history, but North Korea in the 1950’s created a very attractive city to piss off the South Koreans and to entice South Koreans to move to the North. However the impressive city Kijong-Dong is a ghost town. It is actually an uninhabited city but it was created to look like a marvellous city from the border, the village looks prosperous but in reality it’s empty. It was used as a tool of propaganda to show that the North Koreans lived in peace and prosperity but it was an empty city with no bathroom.

So there you have it, if you’re creating your list for a holiday that has a supreme leader that’s simple irresistable look no further than North Korea the country that spends their entire government budget on nuclear weapons that won’t reach a city in America and Swiss cheese.

Michael Serpell