Not-so-DPRK...

The acronym may sound like a hip fashion label, but the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (‘North Korea’ in short) demands to be taken seriously. Apart from its skimpily-dressed ‘traffic girls’ and its habit of bombing South Korean civilians, there are three ways in which this country isrelevant.

The first has to do with our history. Dom Mintoff’s sustained flirt with Kim Il Sung (now dead and officially designated ‘Eternal President’) in the 1970s and 80s brought the country much bounty.

In education, for example, our University was placed on the map thanks to a certain international student – the brother of the future Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. In human resources, special police units found they had much to learn from the hand-to-hand combat skills of North Korean trainers. And, in the arts, North Korean painters are known to have given Malta at least one masterpiece, a mammoth propaganda portrait of Mintoff last seen at Maċina in Senglea.

Second, North Korea and such are needed as a kind of Emmanuel Goldstein to the ‘free world’. Goldstein, readers will remember, was a renegade party member in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Every day, the whole country would stop for its ‘Two Minutes Hate’, during which Goldstein and his brotherhood of dissidents would be denounced. An e nemy of the state to boot, Goldstein was useful to the party as the eternal enemy from whom people must be protected. Pariahs like North Korea and Iran function in much the same way.

But there is a third reason why we need North Korea, especially now that Zaire’s (now the DRC) Mobutu – full name Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu waza Banga (‘the all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and will to win, will go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake’) – and Turkmenistan’s Turkmenbashi (‘leader of the Turkmens’) are no more.

I think of these totalitarian states as textbooks. They may be extreme cases where politics and a sense of humour are largely unknown, and where the state murders people on a whim. And yet I believe they tell us a lot about how power works in general, including in our own contexts.

Take the link between space and power. In North Korea the most significant pleasure spots are the vast squares and megalomaniacal government compounds of Pyongyang, and the so-called Korean Demilitarised Zone, a pathologically-militarised ribbon of land that separates it from its neighbour. The border, with its fences and surveillance gizmos, functions to define the state and its attitude to the outside world.

Then there is the fixation with power displays. North Korea is famous for its ‘one million man’ military parades, its choreographed ‘mass games’, and such wholesome spectacle. (Rumour has it that Mintoff was once treated to a Pyongyang choir singing ‘Ma tagħmlu xejnmal-Perit Mintoff’.)

Individual bodies, too, are shaped by the state and its morality. Self-discipline and cults of warlike masculinity and femininity are the order of the day. For common mortals, national costumes and workwear (officially designed by Comrade Kim, of course) will do just fine. And, North Korean television is fond of gems such as the ‘Let’s trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle’ campaign.

The really big thing about North Korea is of course the whole personality cult business around the Dear Leader, Kim. One hardly knows where to begin here, truth be told. He is everywhere, he is all-knowing and fearless, he never sleeps... you get the picture.

I often wonder how one copes in such circumstances. Being stuck in a lift with the Dear Leader for starters, mains, and pudding must be absolutely dreadful. Besides, I can’t possibly believe that people buy all the tripe about Kim the Brilliant Commander, Kim the Great Athlete, Kim the Great Fashion Designer, and so on (I haven’t made these up). Common sense tells us that North Koreans are as rational as the rest of us. So how do they manage to keep a semblance of sanity in their daily lives?

I suppose one way to deal with things is to pretend they’re not there. The average citizen of Pyongyang probably just switches off, so to say. Sounds tricky when one is afloat in a sea of posters, music, uniforms, and rhetoric, but then our minds have a way with such things.

That’s probably because we have a very good trainer at our service. It’s called death. We drive past cemeteries on the way to work, read the obituaries in the papers, and every so often hear of someone who has given up the ghost. There’s little reason to suppose we will be spared the compliment. And yet, save for the odd soliloquy, we get on with our lives. Life in North Korea probably works out along the same lines.

I also imagine there are little ways of giving the whole thing the finger. Flicking the actual digit would probably earn one a bullet in the head, or a job at the fish-canning plant on the outer glacier. But I’m sure there must be nuanced forms of resistance, so low key we haven’t noticed them.

The other thing with these regimes is, they tend to collapse in sudden and strange ways. One of my favourite news clips is the look of amazement on Nicolae Ceausescu’s face as one person, then 10, then the whole crowd, begins to jeer what he thought would be everyday propaganda fare. Within days, Ceausescu and his regime were history.

All very impressive, but why textbooks? Surely the ‘free world’ is qualitatively different? Why compare ourselves to North Korea?

I wouldn’t dream of doing so in fact. My point is simply that these extreme cases and the more democratic states we are accustomed to often share much the same power dynamics (without the bullets and nasty stuff).

The next time you drive past a billboard heralding EU fundsfor new roads, or read a headline like ‘Prince William saves man’s life in chopper rescue’, think of Comrade Kim.

mafalzon@hotmail.com