> As long as I could remember, East Germany was similarly trashed by U.S.
>"scholars" and reporters. I was genuinely surprised, when I visited the GDR
>in 1979, and each year after that until 1991, to discover that all of those
>attacks were lies (and with the exception of prerecorded denunciations of the
>Stasi, never of the BRD's secret police nor the West's Berufsverbot policy,
>the old propaganda is today an embarrassment to those who promoted it). If
>Korea ends up being unified on terms dictated by the powerful South, as
>Germany was by the West, I think conditions in the North will probably
>deteriorate for workers and women, just as they have in Eastern Germany.
Korea's right to self-determination should not be made conditional on its choice of economic system. Unity - even on capitalist terms would be a massive step forwards.
The comparison with Germany is instructive. Carole Eisenberg's recent book Drawing the Line demonstrates that it was the West that divided Germany. Reunification was opposed by Thatcher and Bush when it happened for the obvious reason that a divided Germany was part of the Cold War imperialist framework. Reunification was a good thing, welcomed by Germans of both sides. And if there is resentment in the East it does not add up to a plea for a return to the past.
Trying to argue that North Korea is a socialist society seems mad to me. It is making a virtue of the most demoralising and isolating conditions that imperialism has placed on the Korean people. We should defend N Korea against imperialism, not make it into a model for development.
-- Jim heartfield