Lord Haw Haw of Pyongyang
Selig Harrison’s latest op-ed is such a bizarre departure, even by his own declining standards, that I had to read it for myself to really believe it. I have little to add to what Kushibo has already said about this, except to stare agape at Harrison’s use of language. He calls South Korea’s elected President Lee Myung Bak is a “hard-liner,” while hereditary tyrant Kim Jong Il is a “leader.” Deaths that North Korea caused with malice aforethought are attributable only to “cycles” that we are duty-bound to break through appeasement and concessions. He mischaracterizes the multinational investigation that found North Korea guilty of sinking the Cheonan as a “South Korean inquiry.”
I don’t think this leaves any real question open as to where Harrison’s sympathies lie. Selig Harrison just saw North Korea shell a South Korean fishing village, kill and maim civilians, and create Korea’s first population of war refugees since 1953 … and still, he not only constructs some elaborate justification for this, he has the chutzpah to demand that South Korea sign a peace treaty, but only after the United States unilaterally cedes its territory first. What else really needs to be said?
What can be said? He has crossed the line and must be identified as a Juche apologist.
What can be said about the attitudes of Selig Harrison, Christine Ahn, and the like is that their attitudes toward America – the extremely reductionist account of America as a hegemonic, neocolonial beast – reflect more a childish fantasy to slay the most perfidious and pernicious dragon than reality.
I really don’t understand how some could lack a basic self-awareness – that they can freely make dissenting observations only in a country or “empire” they disdain so much. That is not to say that they do not make some valid claims and critiques. Quite the contrary. However, their general “dissent” is dismissed to the fringes not because of the imperial attitudes of the Washington establishment, but because Harrison and Ahn are correctly assessed as pseudo-intellectual hacks, generalists who comment on all things Coreana (or “human rights”), and just plain stupid.
How deliciously ironic would it be if they actually accomplished their agenda to weaken the projection of U.S. power and to make U.S. policy toward China and North Korea as inconsistent as possible? They could then immigrate to their socialist utopias, where free speech is held so dear, which they have defended for so long.
Why is there no wikipedia entry for Selig Harrison? Is it because the no-vilification rules are unavoidable — or is he, in fact, a figment, a convenient name for an editorial actually penned by Kim Jong Il, much as Stalin wrote for Pravda under a pseudonym? Inquiring minds and all that.
david woolley, in the link provided by Joshua, I mentioned “skewering” Mr Harrison in the past. That “skewered” link contains a PBS interview with him, so I don’t think he’s someone’s pseudonym. But your comment got me thinking of the Die Another Day villain, and it occurred to me you might be on to something.
Joshua, I see that you and I had a similar reaction to Harrison’s op-ed piece. I just couldn’t believe that he was calling for the US to act as an imperialist, neo-colonial power.
Such is the irony . . .
Jeffery Hodges
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kushibo,
Selig Harrison may still be looking for his place in the sun, but I’ve obviously found mine on Monster Island.
Fame at last!