Where are these North Koreans freely criticising their country's policy? In jail or worse, I think. Unless you believe that even in the midst of famine, everyone is so contented with their lot that they have no reason to be critical!
On Sunday, April 23, 2000 6:33 PM, Jacob Segal [SMTP:jpsegal at rcn.com] wrote:
> 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.
>
Well put. In fact what the view you criticise boils down to is a strange inverted nationalism whereby the workers of country x only get your solidarity when being oppressed by your own (i.e the US) ruling class but not when they're being oppressed by _their own_ ruling class. Not internationalism in my book.
> 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.
...and exploits and oppresses its own working class and peasantry. Rather than hiding behind the argument that Americans have no right to criticise North Korea, perhaps one of the apologists for this 'socialist' state based on the hereditary principle can explain what exactly it is in North Korea they are defending.
Carrol at least is honest when he writes: ' "Ancient Despotism" (whatever that means precisely) probably is in the 20th century far preferable for a small third world country than submission to the World Bank/IMF. ' However, those aren't the only alternatives and neither of them has anything to do with socialism.
Bruce Robinson
> 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.
>
> Jacob Segal
>
>