‘Chosun Gripped With Boundless Emotion and Joy’
You have to wonder what goes through the minds of the people who write this stuff today. It’s so over the top as to suggest a subversive intent. KCNA’s words, my links:
Pyongyang, February 4 (KCNA) — Upon hearing the news that General Secretary Kim Jong Il was nominated as a candidate for deputy to the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly at Constituency No. 333, the entire army and people are full of great happiness and pride of having the peerlessly great man as the leader of the nation.
Anti-Japanese revolutionary fighter Hwang Sun Hui said that the anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters were very happy to hear the news. She went on:
A few days ago the officers and men of the People’s Army nominated Kim Jong Il as a candidate for deputy to the SPA with boundless reverence. This is the unanimous will and ardent desire of the entire people.
On receiving this happy news with the February 16, the greatest holiday of the nation, ahead, I can hardly repress the swelling emotion.
We anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters will uphold the leader’s plan of building a great, prosperous and powerful nation in the van of the people.
Vice-premier of the DPRK Cabinet Thae Jong Su, noting that having nominated Kim Jong Il as a candidate for deputy to the SPA this time again is the unanimous will of the entire army and people and a great auspicious event of the nation, said:
Kim Jong Il has been leading the Party and the revolution along one road of victory for scores of years, thus performing great feats which will remain immortal in the history of the country.
He is the peerlessly great man who has defended firmly and developed in depth President Kim Il Sung’s Juche-oriented idea and line on state building and demonstrated the dignity and might of the DPRK all over the world with his original Songun politics.
All the officers and men of the People’s Army and the people came to have as a firm faith through life that he is the destiny and future of our country and nation and the symbol of all the victories.
That’s how they do political campaigns in Pyongyang, kids, although admittedly, this has all seemed a little less other-worldly after reading a couple years’ worth of Barack Obama campaign coverage. But if this is your sort of thing, you can read more here and here.
Related: We can always hope that cirrhosis will do what the collective genius of the U.S. State Department can’t.
KCNA reports are North Korea’s version of The Onion. I have a feeling that the propagandists who write such hyperbole strive to outdo each other as a hidden middle finger to the regime. “Okay if we have to write a bunch of ridiculous bullshit lies, let’s go full throttle.”
Whenever some misogynist ajosshi would banmal me, I would honorific the hell out of every word in my response. Insincere politeness and praise is a blameless form of resistance.
I recall Dr. Lankov describing how Russians would return home to the Soviet Union and realize that Communism was a failure, but they had to play dumb until the country opened up under Glasnost. At least some KCNA employees must have access to international news since world events are reported in the North Korean media and play dumb to avoid disappearing into a concentration camp.
“KCNA reports are North Korea’s version of The Onion. I have a feeling that the propagandists who write such hyperbole strive to outdo each other as a hidden middle finger to the regime.”
Nice theory, but I’ve been to Pyongyang twice and many of the people there really do believe what they say. Even innocent and subtle probings of their theoretical contractions could result in an immediate, hostile lashing out. After hearing so much BS about how the North “ardently longs for immediate reunification,” I finally told one of my guides (an older ajosshi), “I think Kim Jong-il could have reunification tomorrow if he really wanted it. The decision is entirely up to him.” My guide, who had previously been quite friendly and polite to me, gave me the evilist eye I’ve ever been on the receiving end of, and the “kibun” was arctic for the remainder of my tour there, at least with him.
At the same time, many of the “progressives” and naive communists/socialists here in the South also believe the propaganda they spew. Last night in front of T’apgol Park, the anti-LMB demonstrators there (the same groups behind the anti-US beef protests last year, now latched onto the Yongsan incident) really did look like they meant it as they shrieked loudly and repeatedly, “Overthrow the dictator!”
Yes, it was quite parodic, but try telling them that.
“KCNA reports are North Korea’s version of The Onion. I have a feeling that the propagandists who write such hyperbole strive to outdo each other as a hidden middle finger to the regime.”
Nice theory, but I’ve been to Pyongyang twice and many of the people there really do believe what they say. Even innocent and subtle probings of their theoretical contractions could result in an immediate, hostile lashing out. After hearing so much BS about how the North “ardently longs for immediate reunification,” I finally told one of my guides (an older ajosshi), “I think Kim Jong-il could have reunification tomorrow if he really wanted it. The decision is entirely up to him.” My guide, who had previously been quite friendly and polite to me, gave me the evilest eye I’ve ever been on the receiving end of, and the “kibun” was arctic for the remainder of my tour there, at least with him.
At the same time, many of the “progressives” and naive communists/socialists here in the South also believe the propaganda they spew. Last night in front of T’apgol Park, the anti-LMB demonstrators there (the same groups behind the anti-US beef protests last year, now latched onto the Yongsan incident) really did look like they meant it as they shrieked loudly and repeatedly, “Overthrow the dictator!”
Yes, it was quite parodic, but try telling them that.
It’s only humor if you interpret as that. It isn’t. It’s a directive from the top. Read it again, it says “You will obey and agree with this decision, ALL of you. You will be happy about it, or you will be imprisoned.”
In N. Korea, no other interpretation is really possible.
In the late 90’s, as a hobby I used to read the offical NK web site and I remember the language being about the same as this. Over the top rhetoric was the norm and was part of every ‘news’ piece they wrote. I saw your piece linked from the media blog at National Review.
@King Baeksu:
If I were a North Korean minder and some Yankee spouted off to me like that, I’d give him the evil eye and the cold shoulder, too. Foreign visitors mouthing off fearlessly must annoy and sometimes scare the hell out of people whose entire family might be bundled off to a camp for the slightest hint of disloyalty to the regime.
“If I were a North Korean minder and some Yankee spouted off to me like that…”
Well, in the interest of being accurate, I would say it was less “spouting off” and more like faux-innocent, passive-aggressive ribbing.
Which sort of doubly proves my point: The belief in the hyperbolic propaganda tends not only to be taken very seriously, but is not very open to ironic or sarcastic interpretations of it.