NK Propagandist Defector Speaks

[Susurrus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16413669

[Robespierre Richard]

I was also surprised by how many protests there were on the streets, I realised South Korea is a country ruled by the masses rather than a dictator.

Glorious.

The rest wasn't really insightful though, except that he wrote propaganda poems glorifying Kim Jong-Il and generally being dubious (I'm sure he could have brought some examples). I wish he actually described North Korea's political system, which he says South Korea's is superior to. As it is right now, nobody really knows much about it...

[Krano]

Most ordinary people were living from what they could buy in the markets, so I was lucky to get rations. Between 1994 and 1999 I believe over three million people died of hunger. Apparently everytime you talk about North Korea you have to bring up the 90s famines as if they were still going on.

I realised North Korea was the poorest country in the world, presided over by the richest king - and that's why I wrote poems that were critical of the regime while I was still there.Writing critical things about the North Korean regime inside North Korea? seems little suspicious.

A view from the south shows North Korea's sparse landscapehttp://img853.imageshack.us/img853/8641/57706122nklandscape3.jpg

Wonder why they used that picture instead of

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9964/baitoumountaintianchi.jpg

[Agathor]

Apparently everytime you talk about North Korea you have to bring up the 90s famines as if they were still going on.


I know, it's insane. The media is obsessed with things like that. It's like how every time they talk about Jeffrey Dahmer the cannibalism has to come up. For fucks sake guys, that was just one part of his life. He also raped kids.

[Krano]

I know, it's insane. The media is obsessed with things like that. It's like how every time they talk about Jeffrey Dahmer the cannibalism has to come up. For fucks sake guys, that was just one part of his life. He also raped kids.
That famine was also in China and South Korea, China was able to produce more food to combat it and South Korea got aid from US. Well what about North Korea? meh let the citizens starve and lets just blame there goverment for it.

[Tim Cornelis]

Apparently everytime you talk about North Korea you have to bring up the 90s famines as if they were still going on.

Because they were so long ago, right? And the effluence of it is not felt today by North Koreans at all.


That famine was also in China and South Korean, China was able to produce more food to combat it and South Korea got aid from US. Well what about North Korea? meh let the citizens starve and lets just blame there goverment for it.

Yeah, that's exactly how it happened. I mean, the North Korean government did not wait a year during the famine before it requested humanitarian aid in 1995 at the UN, and the US did not aid North Korea through the World Food Programme. North Korea has not received aid throughout the 1990s.

Nope.

It seems rather odd that you claim South Korea received aid from the US, while South Korea gave aid to North Korea... Hmmm, maybe, just maybe, it is North Korea's government fault after all.


In June 1995 an agreement was reached that the two countries would act jointly.[145] South Korea would provide 150,000 MT of grain in unmarked bags, and Japan would provide 150,000 MT gratis and another 150,000 MT on concessional terms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea#Famine)



Writing critical things about the North Korean regime inside North Korea? seems little suspicious.

It happens in every regime, no matter how brutal.

[Susurrus]

Writing critical things about the North Korean regime inside North Korea? seems little suspicious.


To be fair, writing surreptitiously subversive things in decent poetry is really rather easy. Particularly when there's already a political theme.

[Agathor]

That famine was also in China and South Korean, China was able to produce more food to combat it and South Korea got aid from US. Well what about North Korea? meh let the citizens starve and lets just blame there goverment for it.

Where do you get this crap? There was no famine in South Korea in the 90s. Famines do not exist in modern industrialized countries. South Korea is a wealthy country which can import as much food as it needs.

North Korea asked for aid in the 90s and the US was the most generous responder.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/8641/57706122nklandscape3.jpg

Wonder why they used that picture instead of

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9964/baitoumountaintianchi.jpg

Amazing, North Korea has a factory which can make pretty mountains. Oh, wait, that's a natural feature. The DPRK's political and economic system did nothing to contribute to it aside from making the fairly easy choice of not exploiting that territory for resources and instead saving it for tourists. Hey, go figure, pretty much every country in the world has pretty natural landmarks, it doesn't mean that their economy is productive or that their politics are responsive to the people.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Amazing, North Korea has a factory which can make pretty mountains. Oh, wait, that's a natural feature. The DPRK's political and economic system did nothing to contribute to it aside from making the fairly easy choice of not exploiting that territory for resources and instead saving it for tourists. Hey, go figure, pretty much every country in the world has pretty natural landmarks, it doesn't mean that their economy is productive or that their politics are responsive to the people.

I'm not sure that was the point he was trying to make; rather that they purposefully chose bleak images of wintry barren landscapes for poetic impact and propaganda (in much the same way, DPRK chooses pictures of flamboyant newly erected housing estates and blooming summer time).

It's said that the serious deforestation springs from the 90's famines, where in the harsh winter the need for firewood was so great that people cut down countless forests to keep warm.

[Susurrus]

http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/8641/57706122nklandscape3.jpg

Wonder why they used that picture instead of

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9964/baitoumountaintianchi.jpg

Probably because that looks more like farmland than, um, a lake.