How to Speak North Korean

I recommend you visit the "official website of the democratic people's republic of Korea": Official Site


Here are are a few gems:

The Leaders ( [deceased]The Great Leader Kim Il Sung & [current] The Great Leader Kim Jong Il) are the sun of the nation and mankind

Sung's "for a free and peaceful new world" is the most compelling reading ever since the want ads in the saturday paper.

In the defence area the Juche means Self-Defense, it's a basic point to warrant the protection of the country using an invincible military power that will protect the motherland and revolutionary achievements from the aggressive Yankee imperialism and its servants.

Today the D.P.R.K. is a genuine worker's state where all the people are completely liberated from the exploitation and oppression. The workers, peasants, soldiers and intellectuals are the real owners of the power and defend their interests.

The "Brief History" of Kim Jong-Il runs 160 pages . . .

You can even subscribe to LODESTAR, "the international newsletter of the Korean Friendship Association."

If the CIA didn't have a dossier on you a minute ago, they will once you click on that page.

I bring all this up because I know that a lot of the young'uns on ATS don't remember the cold war, and have never seen any authentic Commie Doublespeak. This stuff was in the weekly reader when I was a kid. . . . not enough, of course, to get you actually thinking about the bright side of marxist-leninist collectivization . . .

anyway, this Roman Meal Bakery thought you'd like to know.





[edit on 5-7-2006 by dr_strangecraft]

[edit on 5-7-2006 by dr_strangecraft]

I'm continuing to read the DPRK site.

One of the things that interests me is that the Il's seem to have stressed "Juche," the concept of total self-reliance, to the point of xenophobia.

I say interesting, because communism was originally formulated by a couple of Germans, i.e. Marx and Engels. Unlike Communism in the rest of the world, you don't see ANY mention of Marx or Marxism anywhere on the DPRK website.

Maybe communism itself isn't quite "Juche."

But they've certainly buried its foreign roots deep under their own rhetoric. They come within an inch of claiming that Il-Sung invented communism. . . .

Thats intersting, I wonder if the N. Koreans actually think of their party as being serperate from that of marx, lenin, mao, etc.

HAHAHAHA!!

The CIA may keep an eye on you especially if you enjoy singing along with Kim Jong Il.
www.korea-dpr.com...

(I think they block direct link, go to www.korea-dpr.com... and click on kfahymn.swf)

Na ka ja inmin kunde... la la! LA! LA!! HAHAHA!!

I've spent the last half-hour speed-reading the first hundred pages of the "short history" of il-sung (the father)

Talk about your conspiracies. . . .

You can learn just as much (more) from reading the wikipedia article. There are only two pages of the document that even reference Lenin or communist leninism (35, 46). No mention at all of Marx or Engels that I saw.

Here's what I came away with.

1. Kim il-sung's father was a nationalist leader against the Japanese occupation; the school where he was educated was a Christian missionary school. il-sung's history even mentions the christian community praying for his father while he was being tortured by the japanese occupational government.

2. After an aborted uprising, Kim's family fled to manchuria. It seems likely that il-sung became a member of Mao's red communist army; it sounds like his unit was captured or retreated into the Soviet Union.

3. The soviets retrained Il-sung, and he took command the Korean Communist army in exile. I suspect that the wikipedia article is incorrect---I think it likely that il-sung actually took the name of a famous pro-korean nationalist (kim il sung) who had died in battle. Basically, I believe he did assume the mantle of the slain leader. The Soviets certainly supported him 100% as the leader of Korea from that point forward, whereas before he was nothing special. < my personal speculation is that the original "kim il-sung" was assasinated, by the future leader of North Korea, who even stole his victim's name and office!!! >

4. It seems that there had been an indigenous (non-Russian, non-Chinese) proto-communist movement in Korea, while Il-Sung was taking the leadership of the army in exile. As soon as Il-sung returned to Korea once the Japanese had left, he immediately suppressed the incipient non-nationalistic indigenous movement for a Moskow-oriented soviet-style communism.

In other words, it looks like the Marxists in Korea were not particularly pro-Russia. These radicals lost out to Kim, supported by the government in Moscow. How's that for imperialism?

One of the repeated truisms from his memoirs is that the Koreans shouldn't look to Woodrow Wilson's "self-determination principle," because in Kim's words, no strong nation has EVER helped a weaker, helpless nation." This is sort of funny, since it means he's denying all the help he got from Moscow and Peking, which seems to be the case . . .

Even more ironically, he sneers at the American promise of "self-determination for all peoples," and yet "Juche" seems to be the precise concept, rendered into Korean. Hmmm. Political doublethink worthy of "1984"

.

Dr. Strangecraft
< my personal speculation is that the original "kim il-sung" was assasinated, by the future leader of North Korea, who even stole his victim's name and office!!! >

This could be the best conspiracy theory/speculation ever posted on BTS. Looks like I got some reading to do. What would NK look like today if the "incipient non-nationalistic indigenous movement" took power instead of the 'faux' il-sung? So many questions... very cool Doc.


You might get more feedback if you move this to ATS... not sure where it'd go though.