I just watched in astonishment a piece on the BBC on how many in South Korea believe they were brainwashed with anti-Communist propaganda, and that North Korea is a better, more fair model of government than that of the repressive Americans. They interviewed college students who, with a straight face, praise their northern divided half.
This reflects an apparently growing mindset that the American troops should leave the peninsula so reunification can be achieved.
I don’t have to go into the surreal brutalities and psychoses of the DPRK. All I can say is, Be careful what you wish for — it just might come true. I can understand wanting to get foreign troops off your soil. I can’t understand anyone seeing any redeeming qualities in the living, breathing hell created by Dear Leader and his goons.
1
By Stephen
That’s just insane. I know that some of the Koreans are resentful of the American presence in the South (especially after some of them ran over some Korean girls), but to want to join the North? That’s a little too far.
August 25, 2003 @ 5:41 am | Comment
2
By Adam Morris
I saw the same segment. I thought that strange. So did my fiance, and she’s from South Korea.
August 25, 2003 @ 7:47 am | Comment
3
By richard
Thanks for verifying this story, Adam — I found it so incredible, I was afraid people would think I’d dreamed it up.
August 25, 2003 @ 9:40 am | Comment
4
By richard
Stephen, I just ran through your site — looks like you are a true francophile. That’s not a politically correct thing to be right now, so I admire you for your courage!
August 25, 2003 @ 9:43 am | Comment
5
By David Frazer
I’ve no idea about what South Koreans know about North Korea, but if some of what they’re told is obviously untrue or distorted it would be understandable if some people thought that everything they were told was lies.
I’ve read that one reason for the dramatic rise in racism in eastern Germany after reunification was that the East Germany government and Socialist Unity Party had given a prominent place in the national ideology to anti-racism, anti-colonialism and third world solidarity. Thus, people who rejected communism rejected anti-racism as well because it was all part and parcel of a discredited ideology. In the same way, a South Korean disenchanted with his country’s way of doing things might decide that everything ‘they’ told him about the North was a lie.
August 27, 2003 @ 4:49 pm | Comment