>I find it odd that criticism of certain countries is now limited to
>inhabitants of those countries, or, as Wojtek Sokolowski claimed a while
>ago that you have to speak German in order to critize state socialism in
>the former East Germany. Of course one should speak with knowledge, but
>knowledge is not restricted to certain groups.
>
>Is it possible to hold multiple thoughts at once? that Yoshie is correct,
>if uncharitable in her expression, to insist on reparations to North Korea
>and to insist on acknowledgement of the terrible damgage done to NK during
>the war by the US, that North Korean development has been damaged by US
>militarization of Korea, AND that North Korea has been ruled by a
>self-serving and self-sustaining bueracratic elite that restricts
>political, civic, and social freedoms that have value in a human life.
>
>Interesting too for Yoshie to compare the cult of personality in North
>Korea to the cult of the Founding Fathers in the US, but I do think that
>the cult in North Korea is of a seriously greater intensity and allow for
>no dissent at all.
I can live happily with what you said in the second paragraph, as long as criticism is made concrete by empirical facts & offered in solidarity with North Koreans for their benefit.
As to the first paragraph, see my post titled "Just Logos." What's been said in this thread, I don't really consider to be real criticism -- it's just labeling & branding. Anti-Stalinism as a marketable intellectual commodity, as in Zizek's comparison of Stalinism with Courtly Love (see Doug's Sat, 22 Apr 2000 17:59:38 post), which gives one a reading pleasure of sorts, since he's a clever writer with clever conceits, but which doesn't say anything about how North Koreans thought and think about Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, & North Korean political economy in general, for instance. One may enjoy Zizek's brand of anti-Stalinism, but one remains ignorant of North Korea (its past, present, and possible future directions) after reading it.
Also, I don't like ignorant American, French, and other European persons yucking about an Asian country without bothering to learn anything about it. What they say about North Korea, they have in fact said about, for instance, Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, etc. I believe that, according to the Western media, all Asian countries "isolate themselves from the world and for _no_ reason"; we are represented as "secretive, impenetrable, etc.," constitutional "liars" whose words can never be trusted on any subject.
Now, combine Orientalism & anti-Stalinism as an intellectual commodity, and what you'll get is doxa, not scientific discourse, much less solidarity with the people in North Korea.
Now, the cult of personality. The cult of the Founding Fathers isn't the only cult of personality in America, however, as I noted in my post to which you refer. In America, the cult of personality lives a fluid & decentered existence, and it's all the more powerful because of its capillary nature, as Foucault might say. The American cults of personality are mirror images of the multi-layered & decentralized nature of Federalism, which however doesn't contradict, but in fact supplement, the centralization of economic & military power.
Finally, in modern capitalist culture, we even live and enjoy the cult of personality *without* persons. It seems to me that it is much bizarre to kowtow to Nike's Swoosh, MacDonald's Golden Arch, etc. (which are nothing but signs of monopoly power) than to bow before Kim Il Sung (who, whatever criticisms one may have of him, actually led a revolutionary movement which kicked Japanese & American asses a bit). In North Korea, it is human persons who have become objects of respect & admiration; in America & elsewhere, we worship dollar signs. Am I the only one who thinks the latter is more pathetic than the former?
no logo, please,
Yoshie