Some myths regarding “demonization” of the North Korean regime, comedic mockery of Its dictator, and “dehumanization” of the people
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Suzanne Labin was a French intellectual, originally of socialist views, who came to be a critic of totalitarian communist regimes. She authored a book entitled The Anthill: The Human Condition in Communist China that was based on interviews with escapees from China in the mid-to-late 1950s. Robert Guillain was a French journalist, also of the left, who wrote a book entitled The Blue Ants: 600 Million Chinese Under the Red Flag, about his experiences in China as a visiting correspondent during the mid-1950s.
By today’s standard, these books have very politically incorrect titles. But Labin’s, far from being patronizing or engaging in Western stereotypes, was actually a sensitive examination of the plight of Chinese living under Maoist totalitarianism, and Guillain’s was rather sympathetic to the communist regime. The references to “blue ants” and an “anthill” were therefore certainly not intended to be offensive.
Nevertheless, during the heyday of left-wing revisionism which permeated much of Western academia from the late 1960s through the late 1970s, both authors were unfairly condemned and stereotyped. They were accused of using the “blue ants” and “anthill” metaphors in a “simplistic and dehumanizing” manner, but in fact were referring without malice to the blue cotton clothing worn by Chinese, and the massive “nature-remaking” and often failed work projects in which millions were compelled to toil in primitive and deadly conditions. Labin’s work, in particular, was a highly empathetic cry against the regime’s real dehumanization of those unfortunate Chinese.
In denouncing these works based on their titles, a famous China-focused academic at UCLA in the 1970s employed a false dichotomy, a type of “straw man” argument, comparing what he unjustly termed the “simplistic and dehumanizing” nature of Labin’s book to the equally simplistic works published by outright apologists for and enthusiastic admirers of the Maoist regime, wrongly lumping the two types of books together without distinction. Few students would have bothered to read her book.
The great funnyman Mel Brooks by today’s standards also produced politically correct comedic satires. He revived an entire genre of comedy films and plays mocking Adolf Hitler and the Nazis from the 1960s through the 1980s. That genre of insulting murderous enemies of freedom by making them look ridiculous, existed even during the dark years of World War Two, as exemplified in comedy films such as To Be or Not to Be, which was an Academy Award nominee of 1942, which Brooks himself re-made in 1983.
Brooks, a Jew and a World War Two veteran who fought against the Nazis maintained that this was his way of seeking revenge. He claimed that in doing so, he was using his work “as a weapon” against such evil forces, “posthumously robbing” Hiter of any sense of dignity. Brooks in no way sought to minimize the genocidal crimes of Hitler and the Nazis. He was rather seeking some unorthodox way of bashing them.
Young, idealistic opponents of the North Korean regime today are influenced by the some of the more tendentious findings of corrupted social science, of ideologically inspired intellectual straight-jackets such as the still fashionable concept of alleged demonization or dehumanization of an alien “other,” promoted decades ago by the late Edward Said and those of his ilk. It is understandable that they would tend to recoil at the idea of mocking, ridiculing, and belittling dictators.
However, even the most well-intentioned concern about making light of the absurdities inherent in life under a totalitarian state such as North Korea, a true dystopia as distinct from an authoritarian regime, and even such a concern among human rights activists, is fundamentally misguided, and even counter-productive.
This is because such a focus will likely, if unwittingly, reinforce and play into the false narrative of those who support and make excuses for the North Korean regime, in their constant accusation that any and all Western critics of the North are guilty of “demonizing” the regime and its people.
While no decent, intelligent person would “demonize,” without exceptions, all the inhabitants of a country, any more than he or she would “demonize” all adherents of a religion or members of a racial or ethnic group, there are surely regimes of the past and present which, based on their demonic actions, fully deserve to be “demonized,” in the sense of being accurately recognized and justifiably condemned as evil.
The same justification certainly applies to mockery of brutal dictators. Who but a pro-North Korean activist or a morally confused individual would argue, for example, against the clever mockery of Kim Jong-un’s visage in the “Flash Drives for Freedom Campaign” of the Human Rights Foundation, which publishes NK Insider? Who would seriously assert that mocking Kim Jong-un in that manner was somehow “dehumanizing” or a harmful stereotype?
There have certainly been films and personal accounts of visits to the North which are oversimplifications, but it is still wrong, and counter-productive in the grand scheme of things, to hold up such “straw man” examples of negative stereotypes of the North as being somehow equivalent to, or as wrong and harmful as praise for the North.
It should never be overlooked that in the most real sense, as a practical reality, it is the North Korea regime itself which fundamentally “dehumanizes” its people, rather than some silly film or stereotype-laden visitor’s account.
After all, there are no organizations in the U.S. which are in any way dedicated to “dehumanizing” the people of North Korea, but there are organizations, well-funded ones with influential supporters, which are dedicated to defending the policies and actions of the North Korean regime and actively opposing its “demonization.”
There are nevertheless those who maintain that popular negative stereotypes about the North should be countered and condemned just as strenuously as positive narratives about the North.
What this approach fails to take into account, however, is the practical, real-life circumstances of American and more broadly Western perceptions of the regime. The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people have neither the slightest inclination nor the time to familiarize themselves with details about the nature of the regime or those who suffer under it, and that given this lamentable situation, a negative perception of the North, even if laced with misunderstandings and stereotypes, is still preferable, as the “least worst” perception, for all its faults, than either total ignorance regarding the North, or positive perceptions of the regime.
In some situations, as unfortunate as it seems, binary choices are a sad reality with which one must make the best of. The truth with regard to what are obviously the normal human feelings and behaviors of ordinary people in the North should not be expressed, either unwittingly by those rightly concerned with upholding their humanity, or wittingly by those who seek to falsely portray the North as a normal state, in such a manner that the highly abnormal system under which they suffer is masked by a deceptive veil of superficial “normality.”
Lawrence Peck is a correspondent for NK Insider based in Seoul and Los Angeles. Having intensively researched and closely monitored the activities of pro-North Korea and other extremist groups and activists in the U.S. for over 25 years, he has been recognized in the U.S. and Korea as one of the leading American authorities on such topics, and has lectured, written extensively and been interviewed on such topics in the U.S. and Korea. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Juris Doctor degree from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles. He previously worked in Korea for several of the largest Korean business groups in the fields of intellectual property licensing and international business development. He also serves as an advisor to the North Korea Freedom Coalition of the U.S. Lawrence may be reached at the email address: lawrence.nkinsider@gmail.com
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