Notes on Dispelling myths about North Korea

Put relevant images and sources

Introduction

These notes are from this video. The presention was made my Suzy Kim of Rutgers University.

The presentation, despite being designed for K-12 teachers, provides a succint picture of North Korea as a a recurrent target for misrepresentation in western (especially American) media. In truth, it comes to be shown, North Korea's "othering" by the USA, is a direct consequence of the war fought with the United States over its communist policies.

Notes and summary

The video presents four major myths propagated by American (and also probably most western countries) regarding North Korea.

  1. Crazy and irrational leader.
  2. Braiwashed people, a corollay of myth 1.
  3. Failed rogue state.
  4. Hermit kingdom in the brink of collapse.
Add current data on the number of NK defectors Put relevant research on NK and East Germany defectors

Summary

The general western view (especially of the USA) of North Korea is of a totalitarian country where the population, either willingly or by necessity, worshippes bumbling megalomaniac "dear leader" type, in short, a "othering" of it, as if it were some strange land that, by some unfortunate events, became the anti-america, the land of the unfree. This is mostly a fruit of propaganda, since some basic cultural and historical knowledge of North Korea would quickly show the contrary. Even worse is that a lot of the critiscism levied agaist North Korea, that of country where cultists blidly follow a charismatic leader (which is not even charismatic on the first place), can be easily applied to many western countries, even moreso America.

In short, as usual, the United States is far more concerned on selling an idea (here of the evils of a communist society) rather than showing truth, which is not surprising, after all, all that a capitalist can really do is sell.