The start of South Korea’s television age
In 1969 just over 200,000 television sets were in operation in South Korea. Ten years later, the number was almost 6 million, meaning that in the 1970s the number of televisions in use increased nearly thirty-fold, from penetrating 6 percent of households to nearly four in five. Amidst the political strife, the Yusin period opened the age of television in South Korea and witnessed the emergence of familiar patterns of television broadcasting and viewing that remain today. In this decade, for example, the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) went from being a government broadcaster to a public television corporation much like the British Broadcasting Corporation, and another company, MBC, founded in 1969, became a private national network and competitive alternative to KBS.
In terms of programming, however, broadcasters faced definite limits from the Yusin censors. Furthermore, in this age of black and white TV (color would come in the 1980s), the government restricted not only television’s content but also its style, issuing a decree in the mid-1970s, for example, prohibiting the appearance of male personalities with long hair. Programming was mostly limited to censored news, soap operas, variety shows, educational programs, sports, and foreign, especially American, shows. Even the amount of broadcasting itself was curtailed, shutting down in the afternoon and late-night. (Indeed twenty-four-hour programming was only introduced in the new millennium.) Still, television had a major impact in the 1970s, especially with soap operas that hooked large audiences and became a cultural phenomenon. These programs came under heavy fire from social critics for their alleged portrayal of frivolous, decadent, and immoral lifestyles, but clearly, at a certain level, these shows provided a much-need escape from the atmosphere of political tension.
Not everything, though, could be so tightly controlled as to prevent any injection of untidy politics. A shocking example of this came on August 15, 1974. As often was the case for the national holiday celebrating liberation from Japanese colonial rule (August 15, 1945), the anniversary was to be marked by a major occasion, this time the formal opening of the first subway line in Seoul. The day started, as usual, with a public address by the president to an assembled audience in a public hall, carried live on television. Very few people could have foreseen what happened next: as Park Chung Hee was delivering his speech, a man came running down the aisle firing a gun in the direction of the stage. The assassin, ostensibly aiming for Park, missed him and instead hit the first lady, Yuk Yngsu. After she was carried away to the hospital (where she died) and the commotion died down a bit, an equally remarkable thing happened: Park continued with his speech! Perhaps nothing better captured Park and the spookiness of Yusin—as anyone with a television could see.
The government crackdown also aroused dissent in mass culture that otherwise might not have formed. One example of this came in popular music, which had earlier become a ubiquitous entertainment medium and powerful cultural element. In the 1970s, the Koreans’ innate affinity for socialization through music turned some popular songs into expressions of anti-government sentiment. The ballad “Morning Dew,” released in 1971 by the singer Yang Hee-Un, for example, resonated with its lyrical tribute to inner strength and determination in the face of hardship. Young people caught in the constraints of the dictatorship found in this message a stirring call to resistance, and when the Yusin regime caught onto this possibility and banned the work, “Morning Dew” only grew in popularity and eventually became the anthemic “movement song” for a generation. The ballad’s composer, folk singer Kim Min-ki, became a champion of the anti-Yusin artists’ movement and continued to churn out protest music.
The realm of publishing also grew into a potent voice of opposition in the 1970s. In addition to Sasanggye, the magazine that published “Five Bandits,” other intellectual journals, political organs, and newspapers served as forums for provocative analysis and criticism of Yusin society. Among literary journals with an activist bent, most notable was perhaps Creation and Criticism (Ch’angjak kwa pip’yng), a publication begun by academic Paik Nak-chung with modest aims in the 1960s but which, by the 1970s, had become an indispensable player in the social discourse. While continuing to remain wary of censors, Creation and Criticism published seminal works of literature, literary scholarship, and social commentary, and hence became an arbiter of not only great literature but also of political debate. Finally, the maturation of the “Hangul generation”—the first South Koreans raised in the postcolonial practice of disseminating information printed primarily in the Korean alphabet, or Hangul—also contributed greatly to the growth of publication activity.
The higher literacy rate and publication activity were likely related to another phenomenon in mass culture that came to define the Yusin decade, the social standing and influence of organized religion. While dramatic religious growth was a story that continued throughout the twentieth century, not since the 1910s had religions and the religious establishment exerted such a pronounced impact on society and polity as in the 1970s. As noted above, Buddhism inspired the social criticism of Ko n, and the same could be said for Catholicism’s role in the work and actions of Kim Chiha. Indeed much of Kim’s Catholic inspiration came from his being mentored by Bishop Chi Haksun, who in the 1970s stood at the forefront of the Catholic Church’s steadfast opposition to the Yusin system, suffering arrests and beatings but unbending in his criticism. The same could be said for the Catholic politician Kim Dae Jung, who, like Kim Chiha, was raised in the city of Mokp’o on the southwestern coast. Kim Dae Jung had been the opponent who nearly pulled off the miraculous victory over Park Chung Hee in the 1971 presidential election. For this offense and his continuing opposition to the regime—much of it inspired by his Catholic faith—Kim was kidnapped while in Japan and came close to being executed before international pressure forced Park to relent. It is little wonder, then, that the Catholic clergy in South Korea developed a stout reputation for social justice that endures to this day.
The same does not apply to Protestantism, which for the most part—despite, or perhaps because of, its enormous growth in followers—remained mostly an anti-communist and pro-government stalwart. But there were eminent exceptions, including Mun Ikhwan, a Presbyterian minister who headed numerous organizations in the 1970s, religious and otherwise, that publicly resisted the Yusin dictatorship, for which he was arrested and constantly harassed. The most acclaimed Protestant figure of this period, though, was actually a Quaker, Ham Skhn. Unlike most of his fellow Protestants originally from the north who were driven by their hostility to communism, Ham sought to mobilize sentiment for major issues such as reunification through a focused push against dictatorship. Ham, already well-established as a renowned activist from the colonial period, began publishing a monthly in 1970, Ssial i sori, which perhaps can best be translated as “voices of the people.” In the ensuing ten years, this journal became the mouthpiece for Ham’s calls for ecumenism, non-violent resistance, and human rights, and cemented his moniker as the “Gandhi of Korea.” Ham became, then, among the most renowned symbols of the long journey toward democratization in modern Korea, a breakthrough in the 1980s that would not have been possible without the trials of the 1970s.
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Monumental Life in North Korea
CHRONOLOGY
1972 Erection of a colossal bronze statue of Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang
1980 Formal introduction of Kim Jong Il as the next leader
1982 Opening of the Tower of the Juche Idea, Arch of Triumph, and Great Study Hall of the People
1987 Beginning of construction of the Ryugyong Hotel
1992 Halting of construction of the Ryugyong Hotel
1994 Confrontation with the US over nuclear program; death of Kim Il Sung
1995–7 Floods, drought, and famine
2000 Summit between Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung
2008 Resumption of construction of Ryugyong Hotel
GROUNDBRE
AKING FOR THE RYUGYONG HOTEL, 1987
The construction of Pyongyang’s Ryugyong Hotel, a massive, pyramid-shaped building over 100 stories and 300 meters tall, began in 1987 amidst the ongoing battle for prestige in advance of the Seoul Summer Olympics the following year. The North Korean regime believed this mammoth edifice would symbolize the advancement, power, and pride of North Korea. But after construction was halted in 1992 and left it an empty shell for over fifteen years thereafter, the Ryugyong Hotel became a national monument for all the wrong reasons. Like North Korea itself, and especially its regime, the structure originated in visions of grandeur, depended on foreign assistance, was built on the backs of the mobilized masses, and
stalled in the face of cold reality. In 2008 construction of this colossus was revived, but it remains to be seen whether it will ever function as originally intended, or rather endure as a symbol of the decay, mystery, and tragedy of recent North Korean history.
THE HISTORICAL CHALLENGE
Anyone attempting to understand North Korea faces a host of obstacles, beginning with the difficulties of accessing reliable information about this notoriously secretive land. This problem is compounded when pursuing a historical examination, for the temptation is to focus on North Korea as an immediate, present object of concern. We tend to ask about current conditions without wondering how they might have gotten that way, which is as misguided as to view North Korea only through the lens of the country’s effect on the outside world. The task, then, is to comprehend North Korea as a product of its unique, mostly internal historical circumstances.
The lack of unfiltered information has not stopped the emergence of a major publications industry on North Korea. In the West, and particularly the US, the demand for knowledge has stemmed from the chronic sense of threat from the North Korean nuclear program. In South Korea, the recent lifting of the long-standing official insecurity, bordering on paranoia, regarding information from the North has allowed the southern citizens a glimpse of their compatriots through North Korean television broadcasts and newspapers. What the South Koreans have found, however, are, to put it mildly, not very exciting, mostly due to the monotony and transparent propaganda in this content.
The attempt to decipher the realities of North Korean society and history based on what flows out from the tightly controlled sources of information, then, must be grounded on an analysis of what the official reports might be hiding as much as revealing. One must of course also rely on accounts from defectors, refugees, the occasional visitor, and other observers. But in all instances, the picture that emerges from both the official and unofficial sources should serve to demystify North Korea and its people, and to move beyond
caricatures and the easy condemnation of its ruling system. The other major historical challenge is to treat North Korea on its own terms and to integrate it into Korean history, overcoming the temptation to dismiss the country’s history as somehow an aberration. Only then can we can attempt a sincere understanding of North Korea’s development within the larger historical context—not just that of the recent or modern periods, but of Korean civilization a whole. We can then find strong parallels to premodern patterns, which are essential to understanding North Korea today, and come closer to solving that most demanding of all historical questions about modern Korea: how did North and South Korea diverge so dramatically out of common origins?
HISTORICAL PATH, 1970s TO 2000s
Notwithstanding these lessons, it is difficult to avoid a consciousness of South Korea when tracing the North’s history, and vice-versa, for in part the radical departures in the two states’ development resulted from their strenuous efforts to contrast themselves from each other. For both, the rivalry drove their self-perceptions and actions. By the turn of the 1970s, both countries had completed their post-Korean War recoveries and established strong foundations of industrialization and military autocracy. Whereas South Korea continued to undergo dramatic change in comprehensive fashion thereafter, however, in the North the post-war economic growth hit a wall, and politically the leadership demonstrated a disturbing recidivism, a lapse into primal Korean forms and values. It was as if North Koreans had nothing to do, and nowhere to go, but to reassure themselves of their specialness. The echo chamber, however, resulted in an ongoing tragedy of modern Korean history.
Like many countries, North Korea squandered its relative plentitude in natural resources, such as hydroelectric capacity, coal, and even oil. The industrialization of the 1960s and 1970s made available many advances in material comfort, especially in the urban areas, where citizens enjoyed modern amenities. Even in the agricultural sector, where growth from collectivized farming appears to have been inconsistent, production was sustained sufficiently to allow the country even to export grains into the 1980s. The following decade, however, was one of unremitting economic catastrophe, beginning with the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, and hence the halt of cheap fuel and other subsidies. This was soon compounded by the disastrous floods, then drought, of the mid- and late-1990s, which resulted in the famine that likely killed more than half a million people (with some estimates reaching 2 million) and robbed the country of an entire generation to malnourishment. Though endowed with a relatively solid economy by communist standards toward the end of the 1980s, within a decade North Korea entered the new century a basket case, with its people suffering from rationed food, lack of power and heating, and general misery. How much of this downfall can be attributed to natural disasters, and how much to deficiencies in the economic system itself, will have to await further judgment; but on another level, of course, this is a moot point, for the system was responsible for placing the people in such a vulnerable position in the first place. The decade of the 2000s witnessed somewhat of an economic recovery, including thorough efforts to attract South Korean investment in the tourism and manufacturing sectors. Private markets even sprouted around the country. But the steady flow of refugees showed that this liberalization failed to overcome widespread privation—or more likely, that the economic conditions continued to be dramatically uneven within the country.
According to visitors’ accounts, the people of the showcase capital city of Pyongyang and of some other urban areas such as Kaesng, for example, appeared anything but impoverished. This simple reality offered a reminder of how this self-identifying socialist paradise developed into a society dependent on starkly unequal access to privileges and resources. While the revolution of the immediate post-liberation years had permanently flipped over the pre-1945 order, as time passed tight control of social interaction led to a startling regression to the premodern Korean patterns of hereditary hierarchy. Ancestry, in short, was paramount and, as in the dynastic eras of the past, much of the “purity” of one’s blood was determined by the political circumstances of the founding of the regime. Below the royal family, the Kims, the aristocratic elite were the party leaders whose ties to Kim Il Sung extended back to the Manchurian guerilla days. After the descendants of party cadres, top bureaucrats, and army brass, North Koreans with peasant backgrounds came to occupy the commoner middle class. A despised or stigmatized population, meanwhile, was comprised of descendants of political criminals and colonial-era elites and landlords. A bureaucracy that investigated the lineage background of individuals in prospective marriages maintained this bizarre transplantation of premodern patterns.
Such a social hierarchy reflected, of course, the distribution of political power as well. But as time passed, evidence surfaced that the regime, despite its outward appearance, stopped short of becoming a monolithic structure, particularly after the death of Kim Il Sung in 1994 following half a century (!) of rule. Even before this staggering event, the military, party leadership, individual bureaucracies, and local agencies appear to have established their own power bases that relied upon corruption, black marketeering, and international trade for funding. The divisions and rivalries between these power centers might have played a role in the circumstances surr
ounding Kim’s death and will likely resurface stronger than ever upon the death of his son Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Il, who was officially introduced as the successor in 1980 while in his late thirties, has in fact always relied on his association with the army. His preferred official title as the military’s supreme commander was bestowed upon him just three years before his father’s death, and later he was commonly referred to as “The General” despite having no military background. And the public proclamation of a “Military First” state policy beginning in the 1990s appeared as a tactic to ensure the support of this powerful institution. Despite his ostensibly unquestioned supremacy, Kim Jong Il never enjoyed the same aura of authority as his father. Kim Jong Il’s own successor, whether a son or someone else, will face even greater difficulties in establishing legitimacy, for legitimacy was always based on the recognition of Kim Il Sung’s personal heroics.
Even more daunting for the next regime will be to maintain its delicate balance in foreign relations. While people outside of North Korea have prioritized this regime’s impact on the outside world in attempting to understand the country itself, more illuminating is the question of how external forces or, more precisely, the perception of these forces, have determined the internal workings of North Korea. On the one hand, of course, the regime exercised stringent control over its people’s exposure to the larger world, for it depended on the belief, within the country, of North Korea’s relative superiority. Here, ignorance was a powerful tool. On the other hand, the regime found the threat of foreign forces useful in reinforcing the foundations of its rule. The everlasting Korean enmity for Japan was stoked whenever necessary, for example, given that it served as the basis of Kim Il Sung’s historical claims, and hence the state’s claims to legitimacy.
A History of Korea Page 28