North Korea has adopted the “Uriminzokkiri” (Being Amongst Our Nation) slogan, coined following the inter-Korean Summit in 2000, to vindicate its regime and distort the concept of the ‘nation’, according to Kim Gwang Cheol, a visiting scholar from the Sejong Institute.
Kim made the claim in his thesis, ‘Distortion of North Korea’s National Identity and Criticisms of Uriminzokkiri’, saying, “You have to interpret Uriminzokkiri as ‘amongst the Kim Il Sung-Nationalists’ and those who agree with them.’”
“[North Korea] has distorted Korean national identity into an assertion of the Kim Il Sung nation. The Korean nation cannot equate to this Kim Il Sung nation,” Kim explained. “Even after the June 15th inter-Korean summit, with North Korea’s politics having firmly positioned the conservatives in South Korea as the enemy in the instigation of a struggle against South Korean conservatives by forming a united front with pro-North Korean groups in the South, you can see that the ‘our nation’ in North Korea’s Uriminzokkiri is not the Korean nation.”
Kim added, “The essence of the inter-Korean conflict is in the choice; is it the Kim Il Sung nation? Or the Korean nation? There is the need for a clear judgment of what the slogan ‘Uriminzokkiri’ means.”
Kim further explained that Kim Jong Il himself utilizes Uriminzokkiri for two puposes. The first is to stimulate a sense of nationalism in South Koreans so as to receive aid. The second is to incite an exclusive nationalism through which they can establish a united front opposition against the ‘conservative’ forces of the United States and South Korea.
On which, Kim suggested an alternative path; that when North Korea requests economic aid under the banner of Uriminzokkiri, the South agree, but request repatriation of POWs on the same basis.
