THOUGHTS ON NORTH KOREA
Channel 5 has recently been running a two-part documentary called ‘Michael Palin In North Korea’. As the name suggests, the programme follows the ex-Python as he explores one of the world’s most isolated and secretive states, getting to know the people who live there.
For such a notoriously closed-off country, Palin was given surprising freedom to move around Pyongyang. Of course, the word ‘freedom’ should be used with caution when talking about a totalitarian state, and the film-makers were certainly not at liberty to film whatever they liked. But it did reveal more of North Korea than I have seen before.
When confronted with such a profoundly different culture, the question inevitably arises: what is it like to live there?. Now, objectively speaking, you are statistically worse off if you live in North Korea compared to living in a Western democracy. We have all heard of how bad North Korea’s economy is and how brutally its totalitarian system is maintained. It would be of no great difficulty to find evidence pointing to the fact that, beneath the facade of grand architecture, impressive military displays and posters of smiling, saintly leaders, North Korea is not a good place to be.
But that’s an objective conclusion, reached through an appreciation of all the facts. But what is it like, subjectively, to live somewhere like that?
I ask this because the people who featured in the documentary did not conform to my expectations. Having heard of how brutal and oppressive the country’s regime was, I expected to see a country in a state of decay, with crumbling buildings through which shuffled the half-starved, dejected living dead that were its unfortunate inhabitants.
But that’s not what I saw. Instead I saw magnificent architecture, facilities like leisure centres, streets that were spotlessly clean and people who appeared well-dressed, well-fed and just going about their lives like any ordinary city-dweller. Again, I should stress that the documentary was limited in what it could show and its makers were under constant supervision by authorities who made sure we only see what they want us to see. Who knows what horrors a documentary crew with total freedom to uncover whatever they chose could reveal? But what I want to ask is how does life in Pyongyang seem to those people I saw, the ones who looked pretty happy?
(Image from ‘Michael Palin in North Korea’)
It seems to me that both the West and North Korea have forms of propaganda to feed to their citizens. In the case of North Korea, the propaganda is all about promoting this idea that utopia has been successfully brought about. In the past, a great man called Kim Il-Sung, defeated his enemies and went on to build the greatest, most successful society on Earth. In order to maintain this great achievement, all you need do is place your trust in those people deemed the worthy successor of Kim Il-Sung.
This is the narrative that North Koreans are brought up on. And, really, how could it seem to be anything other than true? This exaggerated version of history and contemporary life is the only version of events North Koreans are permitted to know. There is no commercialism in North Korea, and no opposing political parties. There’s no real news. All there is, is state propaganda. Your outlook on life has been shaped by highly controlled forms of information and all you know is what it tells you. Yes, some people might question the veracity of such claims but they tend to disappear. The people I saw in the documentary looked content, probably because they were. It’s that old philosophical head-scratcher: Does the slave who does not know he has no liberty feel enslaved?
Now let’s turn to our culture. The propaganda we are fed is the idea that utopia is just around the corner. It has not happened yet but it surely will in the future. But what Western propaganda really wants to encourage is the idea that your life, right now, is less than satisfactory.
Unlike North Korea, we live in democracies in which opposing political parties can voice their opinions. And they tend to be of the opinion that whoever is in power has failed the electorate. “Your leaders are failures, their methods are failures, and they will further ruin your life unless, come the next election, you vote them out and us in”, is pretty much the message opposition parties broadcast every day. In North Korea you never hear anything like this. There is no opposition haranguing the ruling party over its methods and no campaign posters ‘informing’ you how much your life sucks and who is to blame. If you live in the West, though, such messages are a near-constant part of daily life. And I wondered what conclusion someone might reach if they saw footage of my home town with its litter blowing down the streets, obscene graffiti scrawled on fences, broken windows and homeless people sleeping in the doorway of closed-down stores and compared it with the clean and tidy streets that seemed devoid of any vagrants, which was how Pyongyang was represented in that documentary. Again, this was footage filtered through the watchful eye of North Korean authorities, but if somebody did not know this would they not believe that Pyongyang was a better place to live?
(Image from wikimedia commons)
And then we have consumerism and the advertising that feeds it. Again, our consumer-dominated societies are based on the idea that your life is unsatisfactory. You can’t possibly be content with so many problems plaguing your existence. But, good news! There’s a product that can fix your problems. If only you were to purchase it, you would be happy. (But, really, consumerism never wants you to achieve long-term contentment, for if you did you would not spend nearly so much trying to obtain it. That line from a Simon and Garfunkel song, ‘got to keep the customer satisfied’, got it wrong. The aim is to keep the customer in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction).
Consumerism and the billions that are spent on related promotions has turned Western societies into places that breed artificial scarcity, relative poverty and envy. To live here is to live with the constant knowledge that others live much happier and successful lives than you. We are encouraged to constantly try and keep up with the more affluent members of society, to compare our lives unfavourably to theirs and remedy the situation through shop therapy. You don’t get this sort of thing in North Korea. There is no commercialism and no advertising because there is no private enterprise. Everything comes from the State, a ruling party with no opposition and a propaganda machine that just tells people everything is fine (while disappearing anyone who can prove them wrong).
Objectively, you are better off living in a Western capitalist country. The statistics makes this abundantly clear. We are richer; we have greater freedom. But there is a paradox at play in Western culture, for it has been noted that, although even your average citizen leads a life of quite remarkable comfort and prosperity compared to how our ancestors lived or what was considered possible, we are no happy. Whenever polls are conducted they tend to show that people think life sucks. I reckon that is largely to do with the fact that we are so often told by the vested interests of democratic politics and consumerism that our lives are not satisfactory. As a result, plenty of people really do feel as though they have every reason to feel discontented with their lives.
We seem to have reached a surprising conclusion. Subjectively speaking, and providing you tow the line and do not attract the ire of the authorities, you are better off living under a Totalitarian regime where you believe your society is a great one and there is no standard of comparison to shake you out of your delusion. It’s like Cypher put it in ‘The Matrix’: “Ignorance is bliss”. It’s probably preferable to living somewhere that tells you on a near-constant basis that your life is not good while providing you with bogus fixes, and where the negative externalities and structural violence that are an inevitable consequence of market capitalism are manifest all around you in the form of closed-down stores, broken windows and homeless people begging for money.
So does this mean I advise moving to North Korea? No way! In the West we do have some freedom to question the consumer-driven society and not conform. But woe betide the person who does not conform to a totalitarian state’s idea of how you should live your life….
REFERENCES
“Michael Palin In North Korea”.