The purge and execution last week of the uncle of North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong Un, has sparked worried questions from international observers about his grip on the nuclear-armed country. The uncle, Jang Song-thaek, was not only considered a close confidant of Kim, but a key member of the country’s ruling elite. Also noteworthy was the fact that the North Korean government put out a relatively detailed statement shining light on Jang's supposedly treasonous crimes (including being a counter-revolutionary and having grand personal ambitions).

To try and make sense of what is going on in North Korea, I decided to write B.R. Myers, an expert on the country, who has particular knowledge of the current regime’s propaganda. He is also the author of “The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters.”

I began by asking him about what he made of last week’s news generally, and the statement about Jang’s crimes in particular.

B.R. Meyers: I was not all that shocked by the purge itself. Kim Il Sung purged his own brother. Kim Jong Il effectively purged his own eldest son. As for Jang’s punishment, it’s not as wild and brutal as all that. The Chinese execute people for corruption too. The shocking thing is the indiscretion with which the regime has gone about everything. Anyone who still thinks some gray eminence is pulling Kim Jong Un’s strings just doesn’t realize how much long-accumulated mythological capital the latest propaganda has destroyed in a matter of days.

North Korea had prided itself on complete unity ever since the establishment of a “unitary ideology” in 1967. When the regime warned against subversive behaviors it resorted to cartoons with animal figures rather than admit to actual internal disunity. Power struggles elsewhere were gloated over as evidence that only North Korea had leaders whose greatness stood above dispute. The benevolent charisma of the leaders was said to be so irresistible that even representatives of enemy states, like Jimmy Carter and Kim Dae Jung, succumbed to it. And now the North Koreans find out that Kim Il Sung’s own son-in-law and Kim Jong Il’s right-hand man was engaging in crimes since the 1980s? Yet they are still expected to believe in the infallibility of Kim Jong Il’s choice of successor?