It's under heavy international sanctions. There's gulags. There's famines.

受到眾多國際制裁，有集中營，也有飢荒發生。

The people appear to worship this deified kid of a national leader.

人民看似很崇拜那身為國家領導人的神聖人物。

To understand why that is, you really have to go back to 1910 when Japan first colonized Korea.

要了解其中的原因，你就要回溯到 1910 年日本首次殖民韓國。

And Japan at the time was its own super crazy fascist imperial state, which Americans know all about because we fought a war with them.

當時的日本是個極度推崇法西斯主義的帝國，這是美國人眾所皆知的事，因為當初我們和他們打了一仗。

Japan wanted to convince Koreans that they were a subset of the Japanese race and to rally them to the imperial cause.

日本想要說服韓國人其實是日本民族的一個分支，而且日本人將他們團結起來為了達成帝國目標。

And then Japan collapsed, 1945, the North came under Soviet occupation but the ideology stayed there.

然而在 1945 年日本垮台，蘇聯就占領了北韓，但是意識形態依舊留了下來。

So we think of North Korea as like this last holdover of Soviet-style communism, but actually, it's the last holdover of Japanese fascism.

所以我們認為北韓就像是蘇聯共產主義的延續，但實際上其實是日本法西斯主義的後果。

And you still see that today.

在今日依舊能夠觀察到這現象。

North Koreans are told that they are the purest race on Earth and that their superiority means that they need a strong leader to protect them from the outside world.

北韓政府告訴北韓人民，他們是地球上最純淨的種族，而且因為他們的優秀血統，所以他們需要一個強大的領導人來保護他們不受到外界的侵害。

And then they have this leader who's kind of deified because he's a holdover from the Japanese emperor who was actually, you know, a quasi-religious figure.

所以就產生了這樣的領導人，有點像是被神化了，因為他延續了日本天皇的精神，而你知道的，日本天皇其實是個半宗教性的人物。

So then in 1991 the Soviet Union collapses, stopped giving North Korea all these subsidies, and the North Korean government needed to find a new way to keep its citizens' support

所以在 1991 年蘇聯解體，不再提供北韓這些金援，所以北韓政府就必須另尋他法來確保國民對政府的支持。

because they were so poor that they could not feed their own people and 1 in 10 North Koreans starved to death.

因為他們真的是太窮了，以至於他們沒辦法餵飽自己的人民，當時的北韓人每 10 人中就有 1 個人餓死。

So that's when Kim Jong-Il, who was the leader at the time, came up with the Songun policy.

所以時任領導人金正日想出先軍政策。

Military first, which is this big lie they tell the country that they're constantly at this like low-boil war with the entire outside world,

以軍事為主，但其實卻是對全國人民撒下的一個天大的謊言，告訴人民說北韓正與全世界持續打一場低點戰，

especially the American imperialist dogs, so you have to give up everything towards the military cause.

特別是跟美國帝國主義的走狗，所以你要為了軍事目的放棄一切。

It's really effective. Everybody buys into it.

這招相當有效。大家都完全相信這說法。

There are studies that show that even North Koreans who leave the country and see how poor North Korea is, most of them actually come back willingly.

有研究顯示，甚至是離開北韓的北韓人，看過北韓貧困的樣子，他們大部分其實都會自願回國。

When Kim Jong-Il died, there were millions of North Koreans crying in the street,

當金正日去世後，街頭上有數百萬的北韓民眾在哭泣，

and even defectors say that was more real than fake, which is kind of amazing given that the country is really poor and 1% of its population lives in prison camps.

而且甚至是脫北者都說這是真的，一點都不假，真的是有點令人驚訝，明明國家這麼貧困，而且總人口的百分之一都住在戰俘營。

And then one effect of this that works really well in the North Korean government's favor is that this militarism also distracts the U.S. and the rest of the outside world,

還有另一個影響對北韓政府也非常有利，這種以軍事為主的政策也讓美國和其他國家分心，

so we're so worried about their nuclear program and their crazy attacks on South Korea that we actually don't bother that much with the way they treat their own people,

所以我們很擔心他們的核武計畫，還有他們對南韓的瘋狂攻擊，但我們其實沒有很在意他們對待人民的方式。

who are the real victims of the North Korean system.

他們才是北韓體制下真正的受害者。