tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922639800925489148.post3625680675684271428..comments2022-10-17T07:51:34.923+13:00Comments on Nae Hauf-Way Hoose: North Wind in the WestDougalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16935605945901196637noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922639800925489148.post-60085762918345655802010-06-09T00:55:01.555+12:002010-06-09T00:55:01.555+12:00Just got around to reading this Dougal and enjoyed...Just got around to reading this Dougal and enjoyed it a lot. I've been thinking about some of this myself recently, spurred by yet another BBC report from North Korea which followed the usual script. These reports have now become utterly repetitive to a quite infuriating degree. And yet they always claim to be trying to find out what is 'really going on' in North Korea. The North Korean authorities and Euro-American media seem to be locked into this endlessly repeating, mutually reinforcing cycle.<br /><br />There have been some attempts at doing something different though. VeryMuchSo have done a decent job, I think, of trying to humanise (and to some extent historicise) North Korea with their trilogy of films, while still making something entertaining to watch (although I must admit I've only seen 1.5 of the 3). I believe they are doing a new film now, but they are always very secretive about their ongoing projects.<br /><br />On the question of whether history/context change the political complexion of the regime I would say emphatically yes. Understanding the historical origins of the DPRK, its formative years and the lineage of its ideology all help us to destroy the widely-believed myth that North Korea has something to do with socialism/communism.<br /><br />Your piece also made me think a bit about a sort of reverse question: is North Korea interested in historicising itself? To a large extent North Korea has reduced history (perhaps understandably) to a single idea: US imperialism and resistance to it. Everything else is structured (and often fantastically constructed) around this and very little is left that really gives context or explains much about Korea today, other than that one brutal fact of US imperialism and the destruction it wrought in the Korean War. Needless to say, this alone cannot explain North Korea.Owenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06582121080189037705noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922639800925489148.post-37005880472796606622010-06-01T22:28:43.873+12:002010-06-01T22:28:43.873+12:00Thanks for the comment, Scott. On Hitchens being s...Thanks for the comment, Scott. On Hitchens being smug, I like Eagleton's line about the Oxford version of him making Uriah Heep look like Little Nell.<br /><br />As for context changing complexion, by way of dodging a full account of that particular question I'd say it's more about how it changes *our* complexion: understanding that things happen for a reason doesn't make them any better, but it does make them explicable in a way the 'totalitarian' thesis can't.Dougalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16935605945901196637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922639800925489148.post-83444054133670891792010-06-01T10:36:52.158+12:002010-06-01T10:36:52.158+12:00Really interesting post.
It reminded me of a very...Really interesting post.<br /><br />It reminded me of a very smug bit in Hitchens' *Orwell's Victory*. He predicts that it will be revealed, at some point after the collapse of the current N. Korean regime, that samizdat editions of *1984* helped to sustain a band of fearless dissidents through their darkest hours, etc etc. Another metanarrative; except this one doesn't even need any historical facts to authenticate or instantiate it. We can just dust down the Iron Curtain templates. (Another function of the riddle/enigma stuff: everything's unfalsifiable, since 'the truth about North Korea' is unspeakable and we'd never believe it anyway... which Hitchens has also written about recently, come to think of it.)<br /><br />On the other hand... does knowing the full 'context' really change the political complexion of this regime?Scottnoreply@blogger.com