Katie Hines
11/13/2012
Block 4
Advanced Research Topic for Anthem
3.
Is Anthem a realistic portrayal of life in a totalitarian society?
Compare the fictionalized society in Anthem to a real dictatorship, past
or present. Some options are Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Cuba, China,
Cambodia, etc.
The futuristic novel
of Anthem relates to many
totalitarian countries, today and many years ago. From iron grip on Europe
during World War II to the communistic North Korea today, there are many parallels
to be drawn. Almost three million citizens of North Korea have starved to death
because of the failing government. In China, suffering children must work
sixteen hours a day in unclean, sweaty labor shops and mothers are not allowed
to have more than one child. In the socialistic society of Russia, millions are
enslaved by the cruel laws binding them to their declining country. Too many
countries have suffered through Anthem-like
societies, and many still are.
Going by the name of “Juche”, North Korea’s communistic
government, like in Anthem, sets
individual needs aside for the “greater whole”.(Communism: North Korea) Everything is
shared; everything is equal. But
if everything is equal, why does their tyrannical leader, Kim Jong II, receive
lavish meals in his beautiful mansion and millions are starving and homeless?
No country is there to save the dying children, because of North Korea’s
possession of nuclear weapons. (Communism: North Korea) No citizen ever
even thinks about standing up, because with the radios constantly hearing every
word they utter, they’d be immediately and mercilessly slaughtered, along with
their family. No man, or “men”, in Anthem ever considered breaking out or doing
anything the Council said not to, because not only would they be met with
severe consequences, but they did not even know any other way existed. In North
Korea, children and adults are constantly brain washed to believe they live in
the best country on earth, and that Americans are the root of all things evil,
forcing students to shoot pictures of the American flag during school. In Ayn
Rand’s world of Anthem, the
Unmentionable Times are forbidden to be spoken of, to be thought of. Citizens
of North Korea are not allowed to speak of the United States unless they are
words of hatred and cruelty. Each citizen is assigned an occupation, rather
than choosing one, such as in Anthem. Each
family is given an equal amount of food each week, however, because of the
declining economy and unfair treatment of “more important” people, that is not
much.
Families in China are
allowed to speak their mind and express themselves, as long as that expression
does not offend or criticize China’s “perfect” government. Citizens of Anthem cannot laugh or smile or skip
without reason. They cannot critic or question or stand up to the government.
Children are immediately ripped from their mothers to be enrolled in the House
of Students, never even having a family. In order to reduce the population, China does not allow
parents to have more than one child if living in the developed areas. Forced
sterilizations and abortions are pressed down on mothers, not even letting
parents see their own child.(The Economist)
After the loss of World War I, Germany, stuck
in a deep depression, was seized by the iron fist of Adolf Hitler, appointed as
the Reich Chancellor and
soon Supreme Leader in 1934. (World War II) His controversial and extremist
ideas on reasons for the decline of Germany began a massacre of millions of
innocent people, deemed as “impure Germans”. Any citizen that did not attain the
classic blonde hair and blue eyed look was out casted, rejected, slaughtered.
Any citizen not agreeing with Hitler’s radical views was out casted, rejected,
slaughtered. Any citizen with a disability or above average intelligence was
out casted, rejected, slaughtered. In Anthem,
the “sinful” members of the society receive no mercy from the Council and
are immediately out casted, rejected, slaughtered.
Ayn Rand’s novel,
Anthem, can be easily related to thousands
of tyrannical societies throughout history. Praising the average, question less
fool and reprimanding the innovative, intelligent thinkers, many countries have
bound their citizens with ridiculous rules and meaningless laws. They control
what their people do, what they say, how they act, but no matter how these
societies try, they cannot control one thing. They cannot control one’s curiosity,
and they cannot change the human nature to decide for oneself.
Works
Cited:
"Communism: North Korea." Communism :
North Korea. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2012. \<http://histclo.com/essay/war/com/wc-nk.html>.
The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, n.d.
Web. 19 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2012/06/consequences-one-child-policy>.
"World War II." History.com. A&E
Television Networks, n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii>.
Leading up to World War II
The devastation of the Great War (as World War I
was known at the time) had greatly destabilized Europe, and in many respects
World War II grew out of issues left unresolved by that earlier conflict. In
particular, political and economic instability in Germany, and lingering
resentment over the harsh terms imposed by the Versailles Treaty, fueled the
rise to power of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party.
After
becoming Reich Chancellor in 1933, Hitler swiftly consolidated power, anointing
himself Führer (supreme leader) in 1934. Obsessed with the idea of the
superiority of the "pure" German race, which he called
"Aryan," Hitler believed that war was the only way to gain the
necessary "Lebensraum," or living space, for that race to expand. In the mid-1930s, he began the rearmament of
Germany, secretly and in violation of the Versailles Treaty. After signing
alliances with Italy and Japan against the Soviet Union, Hitler sent troops to
occupy Austria in 1938 and the following year annexed Czechoslovakia. Hitler's
open aggression went unchecked, as the United States and Soviet Union were
concentrated on internal politics at the time, and neither France nor Britain
(the two other nations most devastated by the Great War) were eager for
confrontation.
Outbreak
of World War II (1939)
In late August 1939, Hitler and Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which incited a
frenzy of worry in London and Paris. Hitler had long planned an invasion of
Poland, a nation to which Great Britain and France had guaranteed military
support if it was attacked by Germany. The pact with Stalin meant that Hitler
would not face a war on two fronts once he invaded Poland, and would have
Soviet assistance in conquering and dividing the nation itself. On September 1,
1939, Hitler invaded Poland from the west; two days later, France and Britain
declared war on Germany, beginning World War II.
On September 17, Soviet troops invaded Poland
from the east. Under attack from both sides, Poland fell quickly, and by early
1940 Germany and the Soviet Union had divided control over the nation, according
to a secret protocol appended to the Nonaggression Pact. Stalin's forces then
moved to occupy the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and defeated
a resistant Finland in the Russo-Finish War. During the six months following
the invasion of Poland, the lack of action on the part of Germany and the
Allies in the west led to talk in the news media of a "phony war." At
sea, however, the British and German navies faced off in heated battle, and
lethal German U-boat submarines struck at merchant shipping bound for Britain,
sinking more than 100 vessels in the first four months of World War II.
World War II in the West (1940-41)
On April 9, 1940, Germany simultaneously invaded
Norway and occupied Denmark, and the war began in earnest. On May 10, German
forces swept through Belgium and the Netherlands in what became known as
"blitzkrieg," or lightning war. Three days later, Hitler's troops
crossed the Meuse River and struck French forces at Sedan, located at the
northern end of the Maginot Line, an elaborate chain of fortifications
constructed after World War I and considered an impenetrable defensive barrier.
In fact, the Germans broke through the line with their tanks and planes and
continued to the rear, rendering it useless. The British Expeditionary Force
(BEF) was evacuated by sea from Dunkirk in late May, while in the south French
forces mounted a doomed resistance. With France on the verge of collapse,
Benito Mussolini of Italy put his Pact of Steel with Hitler into action, and
Italy declared war against France and Britain on June 10.
On June 14, German forces entered Paris; a new
government formed by Marshal Philippe Petain (France's hero of World War I)
requested an armistice two nights later. France was subsequently divided into
two zones, one under German military occupation and the other under Petain's
government, installed at Vichy. Hitler now turned his attention to Britain,
which had the defensive advantage of being separated from the Continent by the
English Channel. To pave the way for an amphibious invasion (dubbed Operation
Sea Lion), German planes bombed Britain extensively throughout the summer of
1940, including night raids on London and other industrial centers that caused
heavy civilian casualties and damage. The Royal Air Force (RAF) eventually
defeated the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) in the Battle of Britain, and Hitler
postponed his plans to invade. With Britain's defensive resources pushed to the
limit, Prime Minister Winston Churchill began receiving crucial aid from the
U.S. under the Lend-Lease Act, passed by Congress in early 1941.
Perils of motherhood
Jun 16th 2012, 4:24 by The Economist online |
SHANGHAI
WHEN Guo Meilian found she was pregnant again,
she first thought to have an abortion. Ms Guo, then 32 and living in the
eastern province of Zhejiang, should not be pregnant. After she had given birth
to two daughters, she had a mandatory sterilisation in 1991, organised by the
local family-planning committee.
So the new pregnancy was a puzzle. But Ms Guo's
biggest concern was the crippling fine an extra child would incur. Before she
went in for the abortion however, friends persuaded her to have an ultrasound
taken. She learned then that she was carrying twin boys. “My family knew we had
to bring them into the world at all costs,” she says. It was to be a hard path.
Breaching China's one-child policy carries a
severe financial penalty. Parents in Shanghai pay between three and six times
the city's average yearly income in what are called “social-maintenance fees”
(SMF) for extra children. He Yafu, an independent scholar and critic of the
one-child policy, estimates the government has collected over 2 trillion yuan
($314 billion) in SMFs since 1980.
Mr He's calculations—which are based on the
number of “unplanned” births in China (some 200m) each carrying a 10,000 yuan
fine—are conservative. A husband and wife in Shanghai will each pay 110,000
yuan, based on the city's per-capita annual disposable income, for a second
child. For a third child, the parent's total is 435,000 yuan. Recently, a
couple in the affluent eastern province of Zhejiang made headlines when the
birth of a daughter cost them 1.3m yuan ($205,000) in SMF.
Failure to pay the fine carries grave
repercussions. The second “black child” cannot get a household registration, a
hukou, which carries with it such basic rights as education. But backlash can
be more severe. When Ms Guo's brother refused to pay his SMF, family-planning
officials destroyed his house, pulling down the walls and wrecking the
furniture.
This week
the one-child policy's darkest side was exposed. Pictures of Feng Jianmei, a
27-year-old from the central province of Shaanxi, prostrate on a clinic bed
next to her dead seven-month-old fetus (graphic, horrible), are causing outrage
in local media. Ms Feng, who has a five-year-old daughter, was forced to have
an abortion when her family could not produce 40,000 yuan ($6,280) for the SMF.
On the evening of June 14th, the provincial government apologised to Ms Feng. The family-planning officials involved are to
lose their jobs.
“This is pure murder,” says Huangsong999 on Sina
Weibo, China's version of Twitter, where hundreds of thousands of microbloggers
are expressing their disgust. “Are [family-planning officials] human? How could
they do this without showing any humanity? China was founded over 60 years ago,
but the country is full of monsters.” Authorities have since deleted the post.
Yang Zhizhu, one of a handful of individuals who
are criticising the SMF publicly, calls it China's “terror fee”. Mr Yang and
his wife originally refused to pay the SMF for their second daughter. The
transgression cost Mr Yang his job as a law professor. In April this year, a
fee of 240,300 yuan was taken from his wife's account. In protest Mr Yang
launched an online “begging” campaign. “It's more like performance art to
educate people about the ruthlessness of family planning”, Mr Yang explains. “I
was robbed by bandits.”
The government has created plenty of incentives
for couples to have only a single child. The best schools prefer children
carrying a “glorious certificate for one-child parents”. Such parents can be
granted a special annual allowance as well as a bonus towards their retirement
assistance.
But it is difficult to enforce a policy that is
so tangled with loopholes. (Considering China's perilously low birth rate and
its rapidly ageing population, strict enforcement would perhaps be even worse.)
In 2007 a family-planning official estimated that the one-child policy applied
to less than 40% of population. Couples living in the countryside can typically
have a second child if the first is a girl. Many other rules seem almost
arbitrary. In Shanghai, if either man or wife works in fishing and has been at
sea for five years, a couple may have a second child without facing punishment.
Others turn to more imaginative means to bypass
the SMF. Dong Feng, a 33-year-old from Nanjing, is offering to be a “fake
husband” for a couple willing to divorce in order to have a second child. Mr
Dong is exploiting another loophole: if one of two newlyweds has no children
while the other has a child from a previous marriage, a second child, a
half-sibling, is allowed. Having no children of his own, Mr Dong is in a
position to help a woman who has already become a mother once. He is charging
20,000 yuan for his services—ie less than most SMFs—which will involve
registering a marriage, applying for fertility and birth certificates and,
finally, securing a hukou for the child. Mutual non-interference in each
other's personal lives is his only non-cash requirement.
For Ms Guo and her twin boys, it was her
personal connections, or guanxi, that helped. At first she was asked to pay
20,000 yuan, a 50% discount in light of her failed sterilisation. She appealed
to authorities through her brother, who went to school with the town chief, and
got a further discount. In the end she paid only a nominal 1,000 yuan.
“But I still feel indignant”, she says.
“Bringing up children is already a huge burden and the government provides no
assistance—instead they take from parents. In my eyes they are thieves.”
Juche
The North
Korean economic system is called Juche. It is a mixture of xenophobic
nationalism, central planning, and economic independence. The North Koreans
have attempted to produce all of their needs domestically. The exception of
course is dictator Kim Jong Il who esjoys lavish meals of imported food as well
as imported clothes and consumer goods. The results of Juche has been an
economic disaster. North Korea was the
most heavily industrialized and prosperous area of Korea. Today North Korea has
no only fallen behind prosperous South Korea, it has become perhaps the poorest
country in the world and can not even provide subsistence levels of food to its
people. North Korea is afflicted by famine andc dependent on shipments of food
and oil from donor countries to prevent mass starvation.
Military Program
A great deal has been written about Noth Korea's
military program, especially its nuclear weapons program. Military analysts
agree that North Korea has functioning nuclear weapons. Experts disagree as to
the number, but most agree that the Noth Koreans are adding to their stockpile.
They have demonstrated ballistic misdsles they have develooped, including an
overshoot of Japan in one test. The North Koreans also maintain a huge, well
equipped standing army--one of the largest in the world and a constant threat
to South Korea. Especially troubling is that North Korea has used military
weapons to earn foreign exchange. High techh weapons and technology has been
sold to rougue nations working on weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Econonomy
Korea was a very traditional, agricultural
country until Japan formally seized it (1909). The Japanese developed mineral
resources and introduced heavy industry. Most of the industrial development
occurred in the north where the mineral resources were located. North Korea thus
was an important part of the Japanese World War II war industry. North Korean
industry was largely beyond the range of the American strategic bombing
campaign and thus unlike Japanese industry survived the War. Thus when the
Communists took over, it was thw wealthiest, most prodictive. Kim Il Song
sinstalled in power by Stalin pursued Soviet-style central planning and
integrated the country into the Soviet economic system. The Korean War
(1950-53) did considerable damage and was followed by a long period of economic
decline when a series of large centrally planned projects proved economic
failures. At the same time the South which pursued capatalist free enterprose
economics brought about an economic miracle accomplished without important
natural resources which made it one of the richest countries in Asia. Communist
North Korea is the world's most centrally directed and least open economies.
The result has been unmitigated disaster. Economic problems are endemic, but
largely hidden while the Soviet Union subsisized the regime and forced its
Eastern European satellites to do the same. The fall of Communism in Eastern
Rurope and the Soviet Union, ended North Korea's ability to arrange barter
deals. State policies preventing foreign competition has neant that industry
fell behind that of other countries. The country's industrial capital stock is
thus old an inefficient, suffering from underinvestment and shortages of spare
parts and unable to produce products saleable outside of the country. As in
other Connunist countries, agriculture is also a failure as a result of
collectivization and mismanagent. Combined with droughts, crop failures have
resulted in famine, only ameliorated by food shipments from countries the
regime vilifies (America, Japn, and South Korea). All of this is further
compounded by the maintenance of a huge military andc weapons programs which
absorbs much of the country's economic output.
Humanitarian Nightmare
Details on the full extent of the humanitarian
nightmare inside the country. Information is tightly controlled by the North
Korean Government. Some information is available from refufees, most of who
have escaped through Chinsa.
Famine
No one
has precise statistics, but it is believed that anywhere from 1-3 million
people have died in famine that began in the mid-1990s. Although there has been a draught and the
country's economic policies have worsened an already dire situation.
Maintaining a huge sranding and therefore unproductive army is another factor.
A major cause of the famine appears to be a result of Government policies
similar to those persued by Stalin in the Ukranian famine. The Government of
Kim Jong Il seems determine to use food as a famine for those deemed the least
loyal. Notably, relief agencies are not allowed to minitor food distribution in
the most severely affected areas. [Gershman]
Refugees
North Koreans are desperate to flee their
country. Escape through the heavily militarized DMZ to South Korea is virtually
impossible. Most regueees have managed to escape across the Chimese border.
Chinese authorities return refugeees they encounter to North Korea. An
estimated 0.3 million are in hiding in China, terrified that the Chinese will
repatriate them forcefully. Leaving North Korea illegally is a criminal offense
and those returned are arrested and committed to the Gulag, often along with
their families.
Gulag
The Soviet Gulag has not entirely disappeared.
The North Korean Government operates its own vast Gulag known as kwan-li-so or
political penal labor colony. Satellite photographs and interviews of refugees
suggest that 0.2 million people are in the North Korean Gulag. Prison
conditions are horrendous. Many do not survive. An estimated 0.4 million people
have perished in the last three decades. [Gershman] Camps are vast enterprises.
One camp in Hoeryong County has about 50,000 inmates. [FEEC] The North Korean
Gulag and police state system make North Korean the most rifidly totalitarian
state in the wolrld.
Class enemies
Kim Il Sung, the current rulers's father set a
goal of elininating class enenmies through three generations. This means that
those arrested in North Korea also have their parents, children, and
grandchildren as well as other relatives committed to the the Gulag. Often
infants are killed and pregant women given abortions. [Gershman]
United Nations Agencies
The U.N. Human Rights Commission has largely
ignored the situation in North Korea. As of 2004 thet have only criticised the
regime twice. In addition, the Chinese have prevented thec U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees from contacting North Korean regugees in China.
[Havel]
Kidnapping Japanese
Relief Assistance
Foreign donnor countries have provided extensive
food aid and relief assistance to North Korea to prevent famine. The North
Korean Government has sought to use threats of invading South Korea and its
nuclear problem to black mail neigboring countries into expanding these
shipments. The United States has also provide relief assistance abnd oil. The
results are distressing. Not only has Korth Korea not curtaoiled irs nuclear
program, but much of the food aid is diverted from the popultion suffering from
famine and insttead used to support the army and regime loyalists. [Havel]
Sunshine Policy
Since the Korean War, the South Korean
Government persued a policy of unrelenting hostility to North Korean and its
Communist regime. In recent years, South Korean Ggovernments have pursued what
they call the Sunshine Policy. This change occurred when South Korea emerged
from military governments to democratically elected governments. The idea was
based on the idea that dropping the official policy of hostility would help
develop positive contacts with the North and gradually change the nature of the
North Korean regime. There have been some heavily publicized family visits and
some small achievements such as opening communication among naval vessels to
reduce the possibility of unitentioned fire fights. There seem to have been
very little real progress, however, even though the South Koreans have provided
large amounts of food and other relied assistance to the North. One observer
writes that South Korea;s "official 'sunsgine policy,' which, however well
intentioned, is based on constant concessions amd appeasement. The policy costs
South Korea huindreds of millions of dollars, but is not helping in the effort
to save innocent lives. In the end, the policy only keeps thevleaderv og
Pyongyang in power." [Havel]