by B. R. Myers
In 1945, while Kim Il Sung was busy routing the Japanese, the Yankees took advantage of the confusion to occupy the southern part of the peninsula, where they massacred democratic forces and installed a puppet government under “president” Syngman Rhee. On June 25, 1950 the Yankees and their lackeys launched a surprise attack on the DPRK, but the heroic People’s Army drove them back. In desperation the Yankees resorted to the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, but still the Korean people refused to yield, and finally, on July 27 1953, the United States was forced to sign an abject surrender.
It was the first in a long string of Yankee defeats. In 1968 an American spy ship ventured brazenly into DPRK waters; it was captured at once and its crew held until the US issued a servile apology. A year later an American spy plane was shot down over Korean territory, but for all Washington’s saber-rattling, which included the threat of nuclear attack, it ŭltimately did nothing. In 1976 People’s Army soldiers at the DMZ were ambushed by axe-wielding Yankee troops; the Koreans wrested the axes from their attackers and killed two of them. Again Washington’s bark proved worse than its bite.
Missionaries in colonial Korea murder a child by injection; the legend calls for “revenge against the Yankee vampires.” This poster appeared in 1999, when the US was the largest foreign aid donor to the DPRK.
The DPRK joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1985, but refused to allow inspections of its peaceful atomic program until the Yankees withdrew their nuclear weapons from south Korea—which they soon did. When the UN inspections of the DPRK’s facilities ended without incident, the Americans incited impure elements inside the UN to demand inspections of additional sites. Naturally the DPRK refused to allow the enemy to lay bare one military secret after the other. Washington then announced that it would resume “Team Spirit” war rehearsals with south Korean soldiers.
In response the Dear Leader placed the DPRK on a war alert in March 1993, throwing the Yankees into a panic. Weeks later he struck a second blow by announcing that Korea would withdraw from the NPT. The Yankees promptly waved the white flag, promising the Leader’s diplomatic warriors that they would cease their provocations and even provide the DPRK with light-water reactors. President Clinton personally affirmed his commitment to the treaty in a letter offered up to the Dear Leader. But despite their humiliating defeat the Americans continued scheming against Korean-style socialism.
In 2002 their new president Bush reverted to America’s traditional strategy of threats and provocations, calling Korea part of an “axis of evil.” The Dear Leader responded to this hard-line policy with a “super hard-line” policy of his own, successfully testing a nuclear deterrent in 2006. With this brilliant triumph Korea joined the world’s most elite club, the club of nuclear powers. Again the Americans raged—and again they came crawling back to the negotiation table. In 2009 Clinton himself came to North Korea to apologize for the illegal activities of two American journalists. The DPRK’s military first policy has so intimidated the Yankees that even in south Korea they are lying low. The day is nigh when these jackals in human form—now as always the sole obstacle to national unification—will be driven from the peninsula for good.11
Like the “Japs,” the Yankees are condemned as an inherently evil race that can never change, a race with which Koreans must forever be on hostile terms. Readers should therefore not be misled by the Marxist jargon so common in the KCNA’s English-language rhetoric. In propaganda meant only for the domestic audience, the terms “US imperialism” (mije) and “America” (miguk) are used interchangeably, and Americans referred to routinely as “nom” or bastards.12 In a recent picture printed in the monthly art magazine, a child with a toy machine gun stands before a battered snowman. The caption reads, “The American bastard I killed.”13 The DPRK’s dictionaries and schoolbooks encourage citizens to speak of Yankees as having “muzzles,” “snouts” and “paws”; as “croaking” instead of “dying,” and so on.14
As in colonial Korea, propagandists are fond of demonizing missionaries, the better to combine an anti-American and an anti-Christian message.15 Christianity is dismissed as a mere tool of infiltration and subversion; one recent poster shows a copy of the Bible with the Statue of Liberty on its cover.16 The following depiction of a missionary family comes from the hugely popular novella Jackals (Sŭngnyangi, 1951), in which a Korean child is murdered by a mysterious injection of germs. (The crime is now treated as historical fact.)† The writer makes clear that the Americans’ evil can be “read” in their big noses, large breasts and sunken eyes.
The old jackal’s spade-shaped eagle’s nose hung villainously over his upper lip, while the vixen’s teats jutted out like the stomach of a snake that has just swallowed a demon, and the slippery wolf-cub gleamed with poison like the head of a venomous snake that has just swallowed its skin. Their six sunken eyes seemed … like open graves constantly waiting for corpses.17
As might be expected, the Korean War occupies a central place in anti-American propaganda, but the Text dwells less on the US Air Force’s extensive bombing campaign (which is hard to reconcile with the myth of a protective Leader) than on village massacres and other isolated outrages. The killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Sinch’ŏn in October 1950 (which was actually perpetrated by Korean rightists) is held up as the Yankees’ most heinous crime.‡ The nightly news regularly shows groups being led through the museum in the village by ever-indignant female guides. A typical illustration of the massacre shows US soldiers menacing captured Korean women. As is common with Yankee villains, the commanding officer has a white neck, Caucasian features and a dark-skinned face; presumably such depictions are meant to convey the contaminated nature of American racial stock to the domestic viewer without insulting the DPRK’s African allies.18 The Text does its best to celebrate the truce of July 27, 1953 as a crushing defeat for the Americans, but incessant calls to avenge their crimes reflect a painful awareness that the enemy got off far too easily.19
A poster commemorating the Sinch’ŏn massacre of October 1950 “Let us not forget the grudge over Sinch’ŏn!”
Above: The iconic photograph of the USS Pueblo crew after their capture in 1968. Below: The poster reads: “If the US imperialist indiscriminately lash out, they will not be able to escape the fate of the USS Pueblo!”
Gloating over the capture of the USS Pueblo in 1968 is more truly felt. History books treat it as the shining highlight of North Korea’s long-running confrontation with the United States. The photograph of the hapless crew with their hands in the air is the single most iconic image of the enemy; there are even postage stamps of it. The short story Snowstorm in Pyongyang (P’yŏngyang ŭi nŭnbora, 2000) contrasts the Pueblo prisoners’ filth and depravity with the purity of the child race. Frequent showers do nothing to alleviate the Yankees’ nauseating stench, so that a KPA soldier finally refuses to go on cutting their hair. 20 In a half-revolted, half-jeering tone, the narrator tells the scandalous back stories of the captured “bastards.” One crewmember, it is claimed, felt so disillusioned by the incestuous goings on in his family that he “began sleeping with whatever women came his way. Tiring of that, he became gay.”21
The Text regards homosexuality as a characteristically American “perversion.” Here one of the Pueblo’s crew pleads for the right to indulge it in captivity.
“Captain, sir, homosexuality is how I fulfill myself as a person. Since it does no harm to your esteemed government or esteemed nation, it is unfair for Jonathan and me to be prevented from doing something that is part of our private life.”
[The North Korean soldier responds,] “This is the territory of our republic, where people enjoy lives befitting human beings. On this soil none of that sort of activity will be tolerated.”22
The US government having apologized for spying, the prisoners are led off. At the same time a snowstorm rages, “as if intent on sweeping the country clean of all the filthy ugly revolting traces” left behind by the Yankees.23
<
br /> Let us turn now to the Text’s treatment of the ongoing nuclear dispute. Here too the contrast to Soviet propaganda is stark. Where Moscow always professed a respect for international law, the North Koreans reject the notion that a pure race should be bound by the dictates of an impure world. The Text thus cheerfully admits that the DPRK joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1985 only to “use” it for the country’s own ends, whereupon it “ignored” or “scorned” the treaty’s stipulations.24 The “diplomatic warriors” of the DPRK’s Foreign Ministry roam the world at will, barging into the offices of frightened officials to make blunt, rude demands. In the following passage from one of the most highly celebrated novels of 1997, Deputy Foreign Minister Mun Sŏn-gyu (a thinly disguised version of Kang Sŏk-chu, who held the title at the time) calls on Hans Blix in Vienna.25
Mun sat down and, before the IAEA Director General could open his mouth, said in English, “I have come to rigorously protest the agency’s discriminatory pressure on us.”
Hans Blix was stunned. They had not even exchanged greetings according to diplomatic custom. This was almost unheard of in international relations. But before he could find words to express himself, Mun protested again.
“How could the agency send us such an unfair agreement? And why do you keep applying pressure on us to sign it?”
“Well, hold on there … this is so sudden … it’s a little.…” Blix seemed to be thinking rapidly. He needed to figure out how best to respond to Mun’s straightforward attack [….]
Mun continued in the same unyielding tone. “Last year the head of our treaty office gave a detailed clarification of our position [….] So why did the agency send us a discriminatory agreement to sign? Does it think we are idiots, ignorant of international rules and indifferent to our own dignity?”
The discriminatory document in question was one applicable to countries that had not entered the Non-Proliferation Treaty and was aimed at ensuring the regulation of atomic facilities and equipment. Signatories to the NPT, on the other hand, were subjected only to inspection of atomic material, which is why Mun pressed this point so firmly.26
So although the DPRK had hitherto “ignored” the NPT’s stipulations, Mun wants it treated like a member in good standing. Perhaps aware of the shamelessness of his own demand, he does not appear genuinely angry. Instead he is amusing himself by bullying Blix. Readers are clearly meant to be amused too:
Squirming, Blix raised both his hands. “That was just a mistake.… A mistake! It was an error on the part of our officials. I wasn’t even aware of it until your esteemed country protested. Didn’t I even send a letter of apology, albeit a belated one, to your esteemed country? Isn’t that enough?”
“No, it’s not enough.”
At Mun’s hard and clipped response Blix stretched out his arms again. “But what else do you need? For heaven’s sake, what other pledge do you need?”27
Mun replies that America’s nuclear weapons must be withdrawn from South Korea at once. Blix stammers out his acquiescence:
“Ah, ah, I understand. Very good. I am very grateful to your esteemed country’s government for making its position known with such honesty.… Are all your esteemed country’s diplomats so direct?”
“Why,” Mun retorted, “you don’t like that?”
“N-no. On the contrary. Honest and very clear … it’s very good. But … I wonder how best to call such a diplomacy.…”
Mun laughed out loud.28
The Text has a term for it: “attack diplomacy.”29 Attributed to Kim Jong Il’s own desire to see his Foreign Ministry behaving “aggressively and combatively,” it is by no means reserved for America and its lackeys.30 One “diplomatic warrior” tells Russia that it “should not impudently stick its nose into another country’s affairs.”31 On the other hand, the regime is mindful enough of its relationship with Beijing not to revile (at least not in print) the entire United Nations, but only the “impure elements” inside it that allegedly do America’s bidding.
Needless to say, the race-oriented Text makes little distinction between political factions in Washington; Democrats and Republicans, “doves” and “hawks” are all said to be bent on destroying the DPRK.32 (Barack Obama’s accession to the US presidency in 2009 led to no reduction or softening of anti-American propaganda.) Nor can the Text acknowledge that America might refrain from a military attack in order to save Korean lives. The pure and the impure can have no common interests. Still less can the Text entertain the notion that the impure might defy their instincts. “Just as a jackal cannot become a lamb,” runs a maxim known in minor variations to every North Korean, “the US imperialists cannot change their rapacious nature.”33
This leaves the Text with no way to interpret America’s readiness to negotiate except as a “kneeling down” or “waving of the white flag” in the face of Pyongyang’s terrifying strength and unity.34 President Clinton’s letter promising “His Excellency Kim Jong Il” full compliance with the terms of the Agreed Framework appears in the official encyclopedia as a trophy of the “shining victory” of 1994.35 The enemy’s failures of nerve are portrayed as characteristic not only of the US, but of non-Asian foreigners in general. (I have already referred to the mockery of the USSR’s “surrender.”) In this passage from a propaganda novel, which is typical of the DPRK’s sneaking respect for Hirohito’s war machine, the Dear Leader recalls how Britain was taken down a peg or two during the Pacific War.
In his 1943 attack on Singapore, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, “the Tiger of Malaysia,” demanded the allies’ unconditional surrender, requesting that General Archibald Percival Wavell answer either “yes” or “no”…. Wavell at last spat out the word “yes” and hung his head. Since then use of the word “yes” in negotiations is regarded in the West as a symbol of subjugation and shame. But history has repeatedly forced the vanquished to say this humiliating word. At the Korean War truce talks the UN Commander Clarke had no choice but to answer “yes” to our demand that he surrender. In later years, after the Pueblo incident and the downing of the E-121 plane, the enemies bayed for war like madmen, but ŭltimately when we asked the stern question, “Will it be war?” they had no choice but to answer “no.” And when we said, “Will it be talks?” they had no choice but to answer “yes.”… Our people, our invincible People’s Army is asking, so answer them! No need for a long answer. One word will do. War? “No.” Talks? “Yes.”
Kim Jong Il smiled.…36
The Text thus treats the negotiations leading up to the Agreed Framework of 1994 as having taken place between a victorious DPRK and a vanquished USA.37 The content of these and all other negotiations is overlooked, the regime being unable to admit that it would so much as listen to requests for concessions. Instead readers are treated to peripheral dialogues like this:
America had no choice but to grovel.
Gallucci: “We respect you. The future peace not only of the Korean peninsula but also of Asia, the Pacific Region, depends on us, on the US and [North] Korea.”
Mun: “Whose words are those? Yours?”
Gallucci. “The words of the White House.”
Mun: “That amounts to saying that we’re a superpower too.”
Gallucci: “That’s right, you’re a superpower. A superpower like America!”
Now Korea was on an equal footing with the United States, the world’s only superpower. Asia’s small country Korea, which had once lost its luster on the world map.…38
As I mentioned in the historical part of this book, the assertion that America signed the Agreed Framework out of fear creates a logical inconsistency in the Text. On the one hand, the Clinton administration’s claims that the DPRK was developing a nuclear arsenal are condemned as outrageous lies, while on the other hand heavy hints are dropped that a bomb already existed at the time. In a novel set in 1993 (and published in 2000), Kim Jong Il vows he will retaliate against any nuclear attack by turning America, in a single day, into “a sea of fire.”39
&
nbsp; Of course, many in the West will shrug this off as bravado masking a deep fear of American attack. How could the DPRK not be afraid, after what it endured in the Korean War? But in the early 1960s, East Bloc diplomats registered their worry that the North Koreans were too dismissive of the American threat, even talking of another attempt at liberating the South, despite the nuclear weapons stationed there at the time.40 And that was before the DPRK embarked on its unbroken string of successful provocations of the superpower, from the USS Pueblo capture in 1968 to its detainment and show-trial of two American journalists in 2009. Suffice to say that there is no trace of fear of any adversary in the Text. (One is struck by the contrast to anti-American propaganda in East Germany during the 1980s, which constantly raised the specter of nuclear war.) On the contrary, the child race is depicted as itching for a “holy war” or sŏngjŏn—once a common term in Pacific War propaganda—in which to kill Yankees and reunite the motherland.41 “No matter how the Americans threaten us with their foolish war plans,” Kim Jong Il chuckles in a novel set in 1998, “we are not frightened in the least.”42 Clinton and his men, meanwhile, express grudging respect for the “iron man” of Pyongyang and terror of the DPRK’s long-range missiles, which are faster and more accurate than America’s own.43
The disconnect between Washington’s bark and its bite is contrasted with North Korean resolve. “If we say we do something, we do it,” a gargantuan KPA soldier shouts in one poster as he slams his fist down on the continental USA. “We don’t utter empty words!”44 Other posters show wish-fulfilling images of fighter planes or missiles destroying the US Capitol.45 Yankee soldiers are depicted as spindly, insect-like creatures, dwarfed by enormous Korean fists, hoisted effortlessly on bayonets, or squashed under missiles.46 Even mathematics textbooks reinforce the impression of a hopelessly outclassed foe: “Three People’s Army soldiers rubbed out thirty American bastards. What was the ratio of the soldiers who fought?” etc.47 Also common are calls to “sweep” the Yankees from the peninsula like so much dirt.48