BBC Documentary on North Korea - "Its like being inside a doomsday cult"

by cofty 15 Replies latest social current

• 

  cofty

  BBC Panorama has just broadcast an undercover documentary on North Korea.

  John Sweeney - who previously went postal on Scientologist Tommy Davis - joined a group from the London School of Economics to secretly film inside the country.

  The film showed hospitals with no patients, farms with no fields or animals and factories with modern looking equipment sitting idle. The electricity works sporadically. The public-address system that spews official propaganda is everywhere.

  Sweeney interviewed experts including the former British ambassador and dissidents in exile.

  The similarities to life in the Watchtower were striking. One commentator said that people are brain-washed from the womb. You think you can have a normal conversation with them and then suddenly they start spouting official state propaganda like robots.

  It is remarkable that there are not more North Koreans who have taken opportunities to escape to the South. Many ordinary North Koreans acknowledge the problems of life in the DPRK but blame all of their difficulties on America. Hatred for the USA and South Korea is extreme. The ruling family are gods. Kim Il-sung died in '94 but is still considered the Eternal President. Visitors are expected to bow before his statue.

  Sweeney remarked that it is "like living inside a Doomsday Cult".

  Interestingly the portraits of Marx and Lenin have been removed from the main square in Pyongyang. It is no longer considered a communist state by some but rather an extreme right-wing Nationalist state in the style of Nazi Germany of the 30s.

  If you live in the UK please check it out on IPlayer.
• 

  Oubliette

  Interesting.

  Thanks for posting this Cofty!

  Do you have a link?
• 

  fulltimestudent

  Yes, Cofty. It's not really correct to say that NK is communist. The official ideology, as defined by Kim Il-sung is called 'Juche,' a Korean word that means something like 'self-reliance.'

  In my readings on it, it would seem that Kim Il-sung wanted to draw on the Korean past to provide a philosphical foundation for the nation, but he also (in one speech) drew on his experiences as a guerilla fighting the Japanese who had enslaved all of Korea prior to WW2. As a guerilla, without supporting resources, he had to rely on what he and his small band could do to survive and fight the Japanese. Which is just about a perfect description of the NK today.

  It's (to us) very Freddie F-ish, drawing crazy ideas out of ... your arse! Certainly, both NK and China had real problems coping with construction after the Soviet Union withdrew support. You can see certain similarities in Kim's reaction to the Soviet withdrawal of support, in his concept of Juche, and in Mao Zedong's idea expressed in his "Great Leap Forward."

  At the beginning of the concept, it may have worked (in NK if not in China). For a while, NK was way ahead of SK. NK had been a manufacturing centre during the time that Korea was a Japanese colony. And some of the success may have centred on the organising abilities of Kim Il-sung. He sat (apparently) at the centre of NK industry, giving directions and instructions, and solving problems. And, it seems to have worked for a while. But, its hard to judge the success of that system. In a 'capitalist' system, where money is doing the talking, accounting systems tell you about your success. Did NK have an accounting system? If not, how did Kim I-s know what factories were efficient? How did they calculate value?

  The consensus of people I talked to, including one Lecturer who wrote his Ph.d thesis on China's accounting system during the Mao years, is that perhaps they did not use an accounting system at all.

  At any rate, it does not appear that Kim Jong-il (President No 2) wanted to sit at the centre of the spider web, on the phone all day, solving production problems. I found a speech Kim J-i had given in which he told the party that his father had said he did not have to do that. Maybe that's why the system broke down. Without someone at the centre directing all the factories what to do, a centrally planned economy really can't exist. At any rate it did break down. Electricity supply gradually becoma erratic. Fertiliser supplies did not arrive when needed.. etc. etc. and in any case, an army of 1,000,000 needs a lot of food, and arms so in a time of declining production the military takes what is needed and their is less for everyone else.

  Its all sad - and if there was some unrest, the State ratchets up the propaganda, piping it into every home, so that you never escape the voice of the leadership.
• 

  wha happened?

  what a scary world to be born into. It's going to take a few generations to get the population back to normal after this dictatership falls
• 

  designs

  When I read that the goverment has installed speakers in everyone's homes and they wake up to propaganda every morning it reminded me of The Manchurian Candidate.
• 

  cofty

  Thanks for the background FTS.

  Here is a link to BBC IPlayer but I doubt if it will work outside the UK.

  Perhaps it will turn up on YouTube soon.
• 

  Satanus

  Fulltimestudent

  From your description, it appears that nk is breaking down from the inside. Unless that trend changes, then its just a matter of time. All the usa and the south would need to do is wait.

  S
• 

  villagegirl

  I know this sounds off the wall radical to the average Republican, right wing American,

  but here goes anyway: the only logical way to govern this planet is by one agreed upon

  set of human rights, and freedoms, a universal rule of law (world government) that would simply not allow the kinds of abuses that are practised by China and by North Korea and by all the Dictators like Castro and so many others, that have ruined the entire lives of so many generations.

  The most horrifying documentary I recently saw, was a young man who escaped

  from a "three generation prison" in North Korea. He had been born n prison.

  His parents were also born in prison and his grandparents were the original prisoners.

  He thought the whole world was a big prison with armed gaurds where you lived out your life.
• 

  Mum

  The story of the NK prison escapee was on 60 Minutes, I believe. I believe he was a very lucky man, but he is really messed up in certain ways. He doesn't understand the concept of love. He had the courage to escape because he was told that people on the outside get to choose whatever kind of food they want.

  I agree, vg, that, as the Declaration of Independence says, all humans are born with certain inalienable rights. I do not believe, however, that one world government would be a good thing. That's like putting all of your eggs in one basket. If there is corruption in that government (and there always is), then there is nowhere else to turn until we find another planet we can go to to get away.
• 

  Finkelstein

  For people who download Torrent files, here's a link for the program .

  http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/8376861/BBC_Panorama_2013_North_Korea_Undercover_576p_x264_AAC_HDTV_MVGr