More Problems in North Korea

North Korea is facing mass starvation, and reports are coming in that rationing is starting to take hold in the cities. Kim Jong-il’s regime is obviously blaming the crisis on the United States and South Korea, but there are reports that the propaganda is not being accepted like it used to. From the Daily NK:

“The source described an awkward atmosphere at the conference: When a chairperson of the People’s Unit of Hyehwa-dong in Hyesan asked outright, “We can understand that fact that Americans and Lee’s puppet factions are not aiding us with rice, but, why won’t China help us, as our closest ally?” The speaker’s face turned pale at the question and a sudden silence and tension filled the hall.

“At that moment, the lady next to the chairperson started chuckling, putting her head down, people began to chuckle here and there, and eventually, the entire hall was engulfed in laughter,” the source told DailyNK.

The speaker reportedly responded through his own laughter, “’You know the lecture material always reads like this. You can well understand the situation and know what I am saying, right?’” The source said that “his comment sent people rolling in the aisles,” and pointed out, “The situation showed how absurd the propaganda released by the authorities is."

He added that “Now, when the authorities blame America for the lack of food, people ask in turn, ‘Is it America’s and South Chosun (Korea)’s responsibility to feed us?’ People lately have grown to dislike China, which has not aided us sufficiently, and yet is always emphasizing the China-North Korea relationship.”

While it’s far too early to write the obituary for Kim’s government, this does remind me of a story one of my professors who spent years in the Soviet Union told me once. In the year before the Soviet Union collapsed, and the Eastern bloc had already left the fold, the Communist Party held one of its media conferences that was being broadcasted throughout the country. My professor was walking home from work, and could hear bellows of laughter from all the apartments on his way there. He stopped by a friends to see what it was that had produced so much laughter in a normally quiet part of time, and he saw that everyone was listening to the congress of communists talk about the glorious future of socialism and the leading roll the Soviet Union will play in it. All those watching recognized how inane the propaganda was, and that the end was coming for their old bloated ideology.