A new take on North Korea.

I am now reading a very interesting book on North Korea: The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves, by B. R. Myers. I have read a great deal on North Korea over the years and this book really puts a lot of things in a new perspective for me.

My interest in this book was first piqued by this book review, which is worth reading for those interested.

The author is in a good position to write about this matter because, unlike most North Korean watchers, he is fluent in the language and has spent much time pouring over North Korean materials meant for internal rather than external consumption -- a crucial difference.

According to the author, there is a massive difference in the way North Koreans portrey themselves to themselves, versus how they choose to present themselves to the outside world. Most North Korean analysts spend time puzzling over the so-called Juche Idea, which is presented as the official state ideology in its foregin propaganda. According to Myers, Juche plays an almost totally insignificant role inside North Korea. Instead, the story they tell themselves is far different.

For Myers, North Korean ideology is not based on arcane Juche-related studies, nor does it really resemble true Communist ideology -- not even the "cult of personality" style communism of Mao or Stalin (to which it is usually compared). Rather, he believes that internal North Korean propaganda is racially based. According to this view, the Korean people are seen as the world's most virtuous and morally upright. Interestingly, Myers sees this worldview as stemming to a large degree from right-wing Japanese racialist propaganda absorbed during World War II, when Japan occupied Korea. After the Japanese were gone, the theory goes, North Korea simply adopted this view for itself and put a superficial Marxist gloss on it. Thus, at its unspoken core, North Korea is more of an extreme right-wing racist nation than a left-wing Stalinist one.

The racial philosophy of North Korea differers from, say, Nazi ideology in a subtle way because they are not necessarily claiming racial superiority in the sense of having superior intelligence, talent, or the like. Rather, they are claiming a kind of moral purity that can perhaps be compared to a state of childlike innocence. This supposed innocence, the theory goes, has made Korea the victim of countless more heartless races and powers over history: the Chinese, the Japanese, the Russians, and most recently the "Yankees." Thus, goes the theory, these absolutely pure and naively moral people need a strong leader to act as a kind of parent figure and provide the necessary protection against a harsher, crueler, less moral and more aggressive external rule. Hence the exceptional devotion to the Kims -- the aim of their propaganda is to psychologically fuse the minds of the people with a parental, and specifically maternal, devotional instinct towards the leadership, which is intertwined with a race-based sense of uniqueness. One can see how this would make for an effective totalitarian form of control.

It is this rationale that leads to North Korea's peculiar form of personality cult. The leader is seen more as a protecting mother than as an instructing father. The latter mode characterized Soviet- and Maoist-style communism -- there, the focus was on a fatherly figure and on intellecutal learning of the state ideology. According to Myers, the North Korean case places far less emphasis on intellectual development or arcane ideology such as the Juche Idea, which (he believes) is really a kind of smokescreen to keep the outside world from grasping the more race-based inner ideology of North Korea. Instead, it is devotion and emotion that is much more played up. He even makes the case (using examples of art, literature, etc.) that the Kims are intentionally portrayed in a rather androgynous way, to elicit feelings of maternal devotion.

Its a very interesting theory...I'm not really qualified to pass final judgement on it, but I just thought I'd toss that out there for your consideration.


[edit on 4/20/10 by silent thunder]

I do not know where to go with anybodies analysis of the NK people. We are only limited in our knowledge of their psychology by what is given by the NK government or by our own government.

I will give the NK people the benefit of the doubt, they have not attacked anyone in over 50 years. Kind of says something there. My father spent time over the NK peninsula. He stated at any time they could have wiped out the entire regime by the Air Force alone. I wonder why they were not destroyed for the evil bastards that they were?

My father, rest his soul, asked questions. He could have become one of the military elite, yet he asked to be given the retirement 2 years prior to his 20th year. As many know, once you ask for retirement you are no longer promoted, which kept him out of the final hell of the Vietnam war. He was a pilot trainer at the time.

I find our interventionism to be a prerequisite of advancement nowadays and times of the past.

700+ military bases around the world. 130+ countries of the world with US military bases.

What other facts do you need to know?

reply to post by silent thunder

Thus, at its unspoken core, North Korea is more of an extreme right-wing racist nation than a left-wing Stalinist one.

That's a different take...never thought about it that way

We should know how to handle them better if that is the case...

I just picked up this book today, looking forward to it.

Here's an excellent interview with the author. Even if you're not interested in shelling out for the book, it's quite in-depth and insightful.

He makes a very good point regarding language skills - most Western commentators (and indeed policy makers) don't read Korean at all, so they take the English propaganda at face value. It's something I've noticed since I moved East - the West reports on what is easy to understand, or at least what has been translated for them. As a result, what's going on is - surprisingly often - not at all what's being reported in the media.

I'd say this applies to both the Koreas, China, and Japan.

National Geographic had a good documentary inside North Korea. They actually managed to get TV camera's into homes of some North Koreans to see how they lived. Apparently every household must have a portrait of Kim Jong-il hung on the wall and must turn towards him a certain amount of times per day ( can't remember ) and give him thanks for their lives, food, and possessions. Amazing how much power this man has just by instilling fear into his people. Simply amazing

Very interesting.

Mother figure instead of Father figure, that would make a lot of sense. I can see how this is avery effective form of government in a totalitarian regime.

You play up protection versus defense, tell your people they are better, spiritualy and morally.

Although on a light note:

You know when you get video back from NK and it's all in black and white? This isn't because they have no color photography.

It's because the people there, are so evil, they have no color..

~Keeper

Good read my friend, i'm very intrigued with N.Korea... when ever I read or see any documentaries on N.Korea I feel like i'm visiting a different world! I do feel sad for the people though... just shows how much mind control can effect an entire country! ONE man... ONE family... controlling all the people with such power that if he were to say it's day (even though it's night) the people will refuse to believe their own eyes and believe this man...

... so now look at our own world, we think we're "free" and guess what so do "they" we're all being brain washed so much even we don't know it! All so that some SNIP* can have all the power! What a waste of space...

Interesting article.

A close friend of mine went to South Korea for six months on business. This friend is somewhat of an amateur linguist. He learned a little Korean prior to his travels, and continued to study the language while there. My friend is extremely polite, very much of a gentle and liberal guy, very Scandinavian in looks, born in the Midwest USA, doesn't like to confront or criticize people.

What he found in South Korea was this: he was constantly an object of ridicule, belittling, and rascism. He relates multiple horror stories of how incredibly racist the South Korean society is.

Here is the annoying twist: the Koreans were extremely polite to his face. They reserved all of their ridicule and rascist remarks for their Korean friends. They would make highly ridiculing and derogatory statements in front of him, to his face, in Korean. They had no idea that he understood what they were saying. They thought it was a fun thing to do.

He traveled throughout Korea – and found this to be the very worst in smaller towns and cities, but it was prevalent throughout the country among just about everybody.

He relates one story about how he finally exploded after he overheard people in a restaurant making particularly offensive remarks about him. He got up, went to their table, and spoke to them in Korean, telling them that he understood what they were saying about him. The people who had made the remarks started crying. The restaurant quickly emptied in shame. The owner of the restaurant ejected my friend, telling him never to come back.

Needless to say, my friend became quite paranoid and cut his business short. He refuses to return to Korea.

To be clear, it is strictly a societal thing. I don't think Koreans are bad people at all. It is just something slightly sick about that whole society. But if this is the norm in South Korea, I can imagine North Korea to be even more bizarre and self-centered.

It appears to be a very weird and immature society.

reply to post by silent thunder


Thanks OP, I actually learned something about NK that cannot be found on Wikipedia.

Still sounds like an infantile society to me, but in a different way than I thought or was taught by normal news sources.

reply to post by silent thunder


Wow, doesn't that sound a lot like the English monarchy just after WWII? I mean about the English being such good people, which they are, They had to leave India because they finally realized the immorality of collonialism which was horribly evil (evidenced by the Jallianwala Bagh massacre) and their strong belief that they are racially superior, but also about the patronizing attitude of the government.


[edit on 20-4-2010 by m khan]

They can portray themselves in whatever way they choose, I'll just settle for them not committing random unprovoked acts of murder and aggression against South Korea.

How about they try portraying that for a while.

Koreans are racists from the core. They believe they are superior to any other races in the world not just by morally but also physically and intellectually. But then you have to check who they think they are. They are the same race as the ancient Huns and Mongols speaking Ural Altaic tongue. They think Chinese are their brothers who got mixed with the inferior, short stature and dark skinned southerners like Vietnam, Laos, Thai..etc. So, while they respect their culture, they do not respect the Chinese people. If you are a Chinese, you better not try to speak Korean with Chinese accent. They will laugh at you behind your back. Their perception goes same to the Japanese who are a mixed race of Ainu with the ancient Korean originated factions who unified and ruled the whole islanders. They have been isolated from the outside world the entire history for very long especially from the West. While their cousins went outward to explore the world, conquering, ruling and mingling with them, they enjoyed ridiculing them to be impure. If your brother got married to a monkey, you wouldn't want to associate with him even if he is your brother, to make an extreme analogy. That's the way they think of Chinese and Japanese as a whole group or anyone who would mix with a foreign race. You can observe this mentality only if you go deeply into their elite society. They will never say it outright to the foreigners. So you have to expect North Koreans are not too strange in that respect. People do not follow the leader just because the leader says something. They follow the leader when they believe what he/she says makes perfect sense.

Originally posted by Axial Leader
Interesting article.


What he found in South Korea was this: he was constantly an object of ridicule, belittling, and rascism. He relates multiple horror stories of how incredibly racist the South Korean society is.

There was an article about this phenomenon in the New York Times maybe 6 months ago.

www.nytimes.com...

If you read that article you might begin to understand why they were racist toward him.

never saw it from that view, maybe we just need to let the country run its course as long as it doesn't turn violent to another country

SO let me get this straight if you are right-wing it makes you a racist? LOL

you realize Hitler was infact a socialist?

Did you know the first America president to free the slaves was a Republican (Abraham Lincoln)

Lol@ how moronic and down right gullible some people honestly are.

Originally posted by Gakus
SO let me get this straight if you are right-wing it makes you a racist? LOL

you realize Hitler was infact a socialist?

Did you know the first America president to free the slaves was a Republican (Abraham Lincoln)

Lol@ how moronic and down right gullible some people honestly are.

Where does anyone say if you are right-wing it makes you a racist?

There are such things as racist right-wing dictatorships. There are such things as non-racist right-wing dictatorships.

There are also people who are conservative, but this does not imply "right-wing idctatorship." Nor does liberal imply communism. It is completely ludicrous to compare Hitler to Lincoln, and it is completley ludicrous to compare Democrat Andrew Jackson to Stalin.

I don't see anyone but you making these kinds of assertions or drawing these kinds of conclusions in this thread. "Lol@ how moronic and down right gullible some people honestly are," indeed.

well this is my view about NK

North Koreans Living in a Orwellian world and think's there Great leader (little Kim ) is a God !

I have recently posted this on another thread
www.abovetopsecret.com...

as we really should of gone after NK instead of Iraq ! If US the USA really were there to invade and to Liberate the Iraqi People why did we not have those majority Iraqis people join along side with USA to get the so called Terrorist. its Looks like to me that it was the Act of a Crusade !

from what i learned about North Korea

are these the reasons America , and UN will not attack? !

1 5th largest Military Country in the World
2 Literally Raised to Kill Americans trained to be Fearless, Honor suicidal
3 Thinks there Leader is a God and will protect them from harms way
4 The Biggest of them all They have Massive WMD's and proved recently underground Nuclear testing and have Missiles are capable of reaching Hawaii so far

ever seen North Korean Games ?

how about this look at these videos on this site I say amazing LOL

North Korea’s propaganda goes online: terrifyingly funny link below

observers.france24.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Get your five (hours of brainwashing) a day Korean Central Television (KCTV) is the only chain available to North Koreans. It was launched in 1963 and broadcasts for five and a half hours each evening. Only 40% of the country has access to television, but the channel is also available internationally. It underwent an aesthetic revamp in 2005, but remains to contain only propaganda. Here is a typical emission:

www.youtube.com...&feature=player_embedded#!

Some videos of interest! take a look
US defector on life in North Korea -- 09 September 2008 Traitor! Comrade joe
www.youtube.com...

Obama Stumped When Asked About North Korea
www.youtube.com...

Ron Paul on North Korea 4/5/09
www.youtube.com...

North Korean Propaganda against the US of A Disturbing Pictures!
calitreview.com...
www.dprkstudies.org...

A Major Edit ! Extreme Typos had to Edit as i could not understand what the hell i was talking about LOL ! + added the KN Propaganda sites




[edit on 21-4-2010 by Wolfenz]

Thanks for the heads up about the book. I'll have to see if it in stock here somewhere. I need a book for this weekend.

Sounds like a good window into what they are like.