Once upon a time, North Korea was normal

The contrast is so sharp it feels mythical—yet small decisions, stacked over decades, shaped it. Nations don’t collapse overnight.

They drift, inch by inch, until they fall off the cliff. There was a time when North Korea was normal.

It inherited most of the peninsula’s heavy industry from the Japanese period: steel mills, chemical plants, and hydroelectric power.

By the late 1960s, North Korea’s per capita income was higher than South Korea’s.  It produced more electricity. Its cities were better lit.

Pyongyang’s wide boulevards and monumental architecture projected confident modernity.

Factories worked. Trains ran. It was a functioning industrial state.

But what began as a liberation struggle against Japanese colonialism slowly hardened into a communist dictatorship. World War II ended with the Soviet Union imposing communism in the north.

The United States backed capitalism and democracy in the South. Same people, two ideologies, two very different futures. This is how North Korea came into being.

Its architect was Kim Il Sung. A guerrilla fighter against Japan, he was charismatic, shrewd, and fiercely patriotic. He was a compelling leader who promised sovereignty and progress. He spoke of Juche—self-reliance—an intoxicating idea for a newly free people. He cultivated an image as a benevolent father. 

The early narrative was of a brilliant, determined man leading his people to dignity.

In June 1950, Kim's forces surged south, aiming to reunite the nation. They captured Seoul within days.

Tanks rolled past rice paddies; victory seemed assured.

But General MacArthur's audacious Inchon landing reversed the tide.  Three years of brutal stalemate followed—three million dead—ending not with peace, but an armistice. The peninsula remained split. Nothing was gained.

Yet despite launching the invasion, North Korea crafted a magnificent lie: America started it.

They paint themselves as perpetual victims of US aggression. This narrative is the bedrock of their state. It justifies everything.

It fuels a hyper-nationalistic, militarised society where the Kim dynasty is the nation’s only saviour.

They spend nearly 25 percent of their GDP on the military while citizens starve.

The real threat isn't Washington; it's the regime's need for perpetual enemies to justify its grip. And North Korea’s investment yielded a terrifying prize: nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. They can now theoretically reach the US mainland. But the real, immediate threat is to the South. Seoul, a metropolis of 10 million, sits a mere 50km from the DMZ.

It’s a sitting duck. The regime’s ultimate power isn’t in striking America, but in its capacity to turn its neighbour to ash in minutes.

This "achievement" has a price paid for by human souls. No internet. No independent thought.

No freedom to move, or even to bow incorrectly before a statue.

Possession of a Bible can see a family erased. The state’s security is built on the total annihilation of the individual. Then came 2011. A 28-year-old Kim Jong Un—no leadership experience, no military service, no real-world achievements—ascended to absolute power.

How do you justify that? It is a result of decades of indoctrination. A population trained to see godhood in the family name.  To cement his divine right, he turned brutality into theatre. He had his uncle executed by an anti-aircraft gun.

His brother, Kim Jong-Nam, was assassinated in an airport in Malaysia with a nerve agent. The message was primal: the leadership is above all morality. North Korea did not become the world’s most bizarre nation overnight. It descended step by step, fueled by three toxic ingredients.

First, the blind adherence to a false ideology that became a state religion. Second, the erection of a leadership cult where every good harvest, every scientific success, is ascribed to the wisdom of the Kims.

Third, and most critical, the deployment of a vast secret police apparatus to crush the slightest whisper of dissent.

One voice silenced makes the next easier to disappear.

You end up with a nation of hypocrites. Not by choice, but by survival. Everyone lies because truth is dangerous.  Reality is what the ‘Dear Leader’ says it is. Thinking for yourself is the most dangerous act of all. Doubt becomes treason.

This is totalitarianism in its purest form—not just control of bodies, but of minds.

North Korea is an ominous lesson. A warning to those who play with truth.  It starts as a game. Voices silence. People vanish. Human nature has an evil streak.

Give it absolute power, and it will consume everything. The descent into darkness is never a leap. It’s a step. Then another. Then a thousand more. We should learn. Before the steps become a path we cannot turn back from.