Dictators control our realities in heavy-handed ways: western governments control our realities in subtle ways.
North Korea: collective realities: how dictators shape our reality: an obvious example
A glowing reality: The North Korean authorities seek to control reality through poems and propaganda that focus on the greatness of their leaders, the might of their military, and the joyous lives of ordinary citizens.
The former Commander-in Chief of the North Korea, Kim Jong-Il, once stressed, “I rule through music and literature.” According to writer Jang Jin-sung who wrote Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il cemented his path to power, not through a military career, by working as a creative professional for the Party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department.
Jang Jin-sun says of Kim Jong-Il, “Yes, he was a dictator by means of physical control, but he was also a dictator in a more subtle and pervasive sense: through his absolute power over the cultural identity of his people.”
The author also takes on a false persona: In Dear Leader, Jang Jin-sun notes, that as a worker in the Party’s Propaganda Department, he took on the identity of a South Korean poet, and wrote poetry in support of King Jong-Il from the perspective of an outsider. This was a clever propaganda tool.
The poems praised the might of the North Korean military; suggested that North Korea is a desirable place to live. The poems also gave the impression that outsiders admire the North Korean leaders and believe that the army is mighty and powerful. It makes the North Koreans feel as if their country is much more influential than it is and that it is a good place to live.
So successful was one of Jang Jin-sun’s poems that he was subject to an “Extraordinary Summons” and singled out for praise for his “gun barrel” poem that set the standard for the Songun (military first) era.
Does this mean that the North Koreans are encouraged by the cultural “phony” leaders to imagine that they are sharing a lifestyle and reality with the South Koreans?
Discarding a phony reality: parallel with Biff: Jang Jin-sung who wrote “Dear Leader” (2013) says he rejected a promising career and the reality constructed by the Commander in Chief because it was shamefully fake. After he saw a woman in the market in Dongdaewon trying to sell her child for just 10 cents he realized just how desperate the lives were of so many North Koreans. He could not reconcile this desperation and their abject poverty with the shameful and hypocritical picture painted by the Leader. The glowing paradise of North Korea was just as much a myth as … . Eventually, he swam across the frozen river on the border with China and sought asylum in the South Korean Embassy in Beijing.
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