The news from North Korea has been scary, as usual, so I decided to pick up a copy of The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters, after reading an op-ed piece by the author, B.R. Myers in the NYT. Fascinating read about a country much more fascist than Stalinist or Confucian, and quite Orwellian in its habits. Salient characteristics include a strong personality cult, and a belief in racial superiority and purity adopted almost whole-cloth from the Japanese colonizers between 1905 and 1945, to be reconstructed after WWII, replacing Mount Paektu for Fujisan, and Kim Il Sung for Hirohito. History books and photographs are still continually being rewritten and "photoshopped" to meet modern needs. Oh, and of course America is a decadent, depraved, and mongrel country holding South Korea in its thrall--with only the heroic efforts of the Great Leader and the Dear Leader having protected at least half of the Korean people from the Yankee threat to the South. This is how the DPRK regime justifies its hold on power to its people, so don't count on an end to their saber rattling anytime soon. Unfortunately it seems that a lot of South Korea doesn't think much better of us here in America--though they don't seem too anxious for our troops to leave the Korean peninsula. Being "united" under Pyongyang would definitely have disadvantages. Oh well. At least the DPRK is no longer able to maintain a stranglehold on all information coming into the country. Maybe knowledge can eventually bring change without war.
