Monday, May 30, 2011

Why North Korea has the lowest suicide rate in the world

This is part of an article I was reading from Free North Korea Radio (www.fnkradio.com) today. It was a sad, surprising, and eye-opening article for me. It was titled "A (North Korean) defector's thought on suicide" (탈북자가 보는 북한식 자살 정의).

Life, an incarceration.
North Korea is known to be the country with the lowest suicide rate on earth. Why is this, for this nation with the worst world economy, human rights violations, and highest number of defectors in the world? It is because there is a mental pressure far stronger than suicide itself.
North Korea defines, "Every citizens of DPRK is a family member of 'Kim Il Sung People' and a child of 'Ocean-like Kim Jong Il comrade'." Because of this, every citizen is a member of this larger society; therefore, committing suicide is considered a treason, marking the person as a traitor to the leader, the party, the nation, and the people.
If someone in your family committed suicide, everyone in the family gets purged by North Korea's infamous 'implicated crime law'. This is why a North Korean citizen can end his/her poor life by starving/freezing/beaten to death, but not suicide. However, even with this kind of strict and unforgiving social pressure on suicide, some people kill themselves with much contempt for their government.
Suicide may let the dead rest, but the rest of the family would be socially and politically ostracized for the rest of their lives, with no hope for success or career.
 


 
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6 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 5, 2014 at 9:51 PM

    Nothing to do with persecution of family survivors. Everything to do with totalitarian thought. Next to N. Korea in terms of low suicide rates come all Islamic states. Next to them come strongly Catholic countries. The highest suicide rates occur in the most liberal of countries ~ most Buddhist countries are very tolerant of everything, including suicide. See Durkheim for diffs between catholics and protestants.

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  2. UnknownApril 15, 2014 at 3:13 AM

    Chances are, N. Korea cooks the books on suicide rates.

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  3. AnonymousAugust 7, 2015 at 8:21 AM

    You commit suicide when you see no reason to continue living. Maybe North Korea and Islam give you a reason for existence (worshipping Blessed Kim and Big Al).

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  4. KevinJanuary 8, 2017 at 6:14 PM

    You should get that pandey nutter off the net. All propaganda about north Korea. There's loads of suicides in the western system.

    ReplyDelete
  5. KevinJanuary 8, 2017 at 6:15 PM

    You should get that pandey nutter off the net. All propaganda about north Korea. There's loads of suicides in the western system.

    ReplyDelete

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