>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>Reparations from America, etc. that fought in the Korean War, to
>>begin with. Reparation from Japan to atone for its colonialism &
>>wartime atrocities.
>
>Right, I'm sure those will be immediately forthcoming. Aside from
>this lovely fantasy, what do you suggest NK really do?
>>I wish that U.S. leftists took seriously the necessity of removing
>>the American military presence from the Asia-Pacific theatre (which
>>would help North Koreans _a lot_), but I'm afraid anti-militarism &
>>anti-imperialism in America are practically dead.
>
>Oh really? There are few things I'd like to see more than the U.S.
>military pull out of everywhere, and I bet most of the people who
>constitute the U.S. left, such as it is, would agree. So who, aside
>from the NATO-loving social democrats, are you talking about?
Isn't there a contradiction between the above two responses? Reparations are a "fantasy" (tell that to the folks in Jubilee 2000!), you think, because American leftists would never, ever, be able to control the American government. If such is the case (as it may well be), pulling the US military out of everywhere must remain a "fantasy" as well. I'm afraid most American leftists in fact agree with you on both. American socialism is a "fantasy"; justice must remain "spectral," as Derrida says.
>That's an excellent question, and I don't know the answer, and I
>don't think you do either. NK-style "self-reliance" is a disaster.
>On all but the most slavishly devoted accounts, the country is
>desperately poor and governed by a bizarre personality cult.
Now, "Juche" and the personality cult:
(1) "Juche" isn't a socialist paradise, but it's better than the conditions of many other capitalist & soon-to-be-fully-capitalist nations (see the CIA's comparison of North Korea with India, Turkey, China, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. If you think the CIA & the State Department got the figures wrong, I'd like to see more credible estimates.). The country is poor, yes, but it would be poorer if it embarked on the capitalist road, I think (and it might, given the recent policy direction).
(2) The North Korean personality cult is quite deplorable, but North Korea is less obsessed with the personality cult than the USA is, with its cult of the "Founding Fathers," "In God We Trust," love of "celebrities" of all kinds, slavish admiration of the rich, the powerful, and the beautiful. On top of that, we got the cult of "branding" & "intellectual property" as well, as Naomi Klein & Michael Perelman point out. If you don't see the cult of personality here, you are quite out of touch with American culture! As Zizek might say, you project what you see but don't want to see here onto other nations. Scary nationalists are always "out there"; likewise, worshippers of the "Great Leader" are always "out there." How about some psychoanalysis?
>In what ways are "socialist" North Koreans any better off than the
>proletarians of capitalist South Korea?
Isn't the main reason why South Korea has become rich the presence of North Korea & other socialist nations? Also, South Korean industrial development really took off with the Vietnam War, just as post-WW2 Japanese development took off with the Korean War. So, to celebrate the economic powers of Japan, South Korea, etc. means to celebrate the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and imperialism & anti-communist American foreign policy in general.
I'd leave it up to Koreans, of North & South, to decide on what terms they would like to see two countries reunified. But as I said, if they get "reunified" on capitalist terms, North Koreans will experience what has happened to East Germans -- a high level of unemployment.
> Do you really think a small country can disengage completely from
>the outside world?
Why do you think they disengaged from the "outside world"? Their main trade partners used to be socialist nations; now they trade mainly with China & Japan. Why not question American embargoes, if the object of your criticism is isolationism. The most important question is *on what terms* you engage with the outside world (the question which A16 protesters should discuss among ourselves). As Carrol noted, "Juche" is better than becoming a slave to the Bretton Woods institutions. I like the ideas that Samir Amin used to propound often: delinking, South-South trade, focus on social development, etc. Socialism all over the world, and cosmopolitan intellectual exchanges among all peoples (not Big Macs everywhere), would of course be better, but we have yet to create such a world. Meanwhile, what are nations like Cuba, North Korea, etc. to do?
Yoshie