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2 The world according to
Pyongyang By Andrei Lankov
Over the past couple of weeks, the small
community of Seoul-based Pyongyang watchers was
busy discussing a minor professional sensation.
The Wolgan Chungang monthly, widely known for its
good insights on all things North Korean,
published a lengthy transcript of a speech,
allegedly delivered last December, by a high-level
Central Committee official. He was obviously
talking to a group of prominent academics and
engineers. The official's name is cited as Chang
Yong-sun, but he
seems to be a complete
unknown to the North Korea experts.
The
authenticity of the transcript cannot be proved
beyond doubt, but the Seoul expert community tends
to believe that this tape was indeed secretly
recorded somewhere in Pyongyang a few months ago
and then smuggled to the South.
Being a
former Soviet citizen, this author is inclined to
believe this view as well. The tape rings true.
This is how a high-level official would talk when
lecturing lower layers of elite on the current
situation, and such regular lectures were typical
for many communist countries.
The
semi-privileged met the bigwigs to get
instructions on recent events, as well as some
alleged insiders' stories and anecdotes. The
semi-privileged cadres felt themselves partaking
in the enigmatic world of grand politics, and also
learned something about the new trends in their
leadership's thinking about the world. Most
people who deal with "Chang's lecture" concentrate
on those parts of the lengthy presentation that
deal with US-North Korea relations and the
six-party talks on nuclear disarmament. Indeed,
such issues are treated at great length by this
document. Many others pay attention to rather
unfavorable depictions of the Chinese or outbursts
of threats against Japan.
However, I
believe that there are more important things in
the transcript than merely a North Korean version
of what happened during former assistant secretary
of state James Kelly's visit to Pyongyang or
during the first rounds of the six-party talks.
The tape allows us to have one more glimpse at the
world view held by the North Korean elite or, at
least, by its lower reaches.
What are the
features of the world as seen from Pyongyang?
First of all, the significance of North Korea is
blown out of all proportion. Somebody would
describe this as Pyongyang megalomania, but
perhaps author Bruce Cummings found a better term
when he talked about "North Korean solipsism", an
assumption that North Korea lies at the center of
the world, and that the world itself surely must
be aware of this.
The North Korean press
now tells its readers that the major international
conflict of the modern world is the ongoing
struggle between US imperialism and heroic North
Korea. Chang Yong-sun even told his audience that
the development of North Korean missiles has
produced a serious impact on the public-health
issues in the US: "Nobody can intercept our
missiles now. All the people in the US are aware
of this.
"This is why all the people in
the United States are completely allergic to
missiles of our republic. Once they learn that we
test-fired missiles, they become so worried about
the rockets changing their directions and
exploding over them and killing them, so they
develop nervous diseases and nettle rash breaks
out all over their bodies. This is what is
happening in the United States."
One
should not feel too sorry about the bastards,
however. According to the official North Korean
world view, once again reiterated by Comrade
Chang, the US is responsible for everything that
goes badly in Korea, and the constant military
threat from the warmongering Washington is the
major fact of North Korean life.
The
audience was reminded that in 1950 it was the
Americans who attacked North Korea, bringing death
and destruction to the country (this official
version of 1950 events seems to be almost
universally believed by North Koreans). This great
crime of 1950 has not been avenged yet, Comrade
Chang reminded his listeners.
Many people
in the US want to believe that such hostility
stemmed from President George W Bush's policies,
but Comrade Chang reminded his audience a number
of times that there is no real difference between
the Republicans and Democrats: both US parties are
pathologically hostile to the Country of the
Beloved General. The differences between them are
of a purely tactical nature, Chang Yong-sun told
his audience. He said Republicans rely more on
brute force, while Democrats are more canny and
more willing to use ideological subversion and
economic pressures.
Chang Yong-sun
repeated a number of times that the major threat
from the US is not that of a sudden military
attack. The imperialists are not that simplistic:
these days their major weapon is internal
subversion. He said: "Although it appears as if
the Americans do good things to us, their real
nature has not changed at all. Their primary
objective is, from start to finish, to undermine
us from within and melt us down by disarming us
ideologically."
Chang Yong-sun repeated
the message that has been delivered countless
times by North Korean leaders big and small: the
ideological threat of the outside world
constitutes a greater danger than all imaginable
military threats. He alleged that the foreign
enemies have designed some grand plan of
subversion. Chang said specially designated
think-tanks work on this issue day and night. If
his fantasies are to be believed, one of such
centers is somewhere in Washington and employs no
fewer than 370 retired generals whose only job is
to find ways to undermine North Korea from within.
Being an enthusiastic supporter of soft
power, the present author knows perfectly well
that there is no coordinated plan of applying soft
pressure on Pyongyang. The amount of money and
efforts spent on broadcasts aimed at North Korea,
on support of refugee groups and other similar
activities, is ridiculously small. It is a dream
to have a US research center specifically dealing
with North Korean issues and stuffed with even,
say, five post-doctoral candidates (let alone with
370 ex-generals).
But this raises a
question: If this the case, why do Pyongyang
politicians keep repeating similar statements? Why
do they refer to a non-existent threat? Perhaps
because they know what they should be really
afraid of. They know only too well how potentially
precarious against such a challenge their position
is, and they probably cannot even believe that
their adversaries fail to appreciate the major
vulnerability of Pyongyang and do nothing to
exploit the related opportunities. Comrade Chang
would be really surprised to learn how weak and
disorganized are actual efforts of the "class
enemies" in the area that he (perhaps correctly)
considers decisive.
Some twists of
Pyongyang's official mindset might come as a
surprise to many readers. For example, Comrade
Chang found a source of great pride in the North
Korean penchant for secrecy. He used one peculiar
example to explain why this secretiveness is
great. According to him, the Americans defeated
the Iraqis because they imitated the voice of
Saddam Hussein and then sent fake orders to Iraqi
troops in his name.
However, as he proudly
reminded everyone, Marshal Kim Jong-il had spoken
in public only once, so Americans will never find
enough material for their perfidious schemes. The
entire secrecy is necessary to keep foreigners at
a disadvantage: "A long time ago, the Great
General taught us to make sure that our internal
things appears to be hazy as if covered by fog
when the Americans spy on us. So we have made sure
that internal things of our country appear really
hazy as if in a fog when our country was viewed
from outside."
It is remarkable that the
country's economic woes are explained in a novel
way, which was made possible by the nuclear test.
Until 2006, North Koreans were supposed to believe
that the only reasons for the recent famine were
huge floods that "might happen only once a
century". Now it is admitted that the government
needed money for missile and nuclear development,
and hence had no other choice but to sacrifice
some people to save the nation.
Chang
Yong-sun said: "To be frank with you, even if one
sells 50 plants as large as Kim Ch'aek Steel Mill,
the money is not
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