From N. Korea, long line of propaganda — That’s still effective
WASHINGTON: The former president of South Korea is a “rat,” Hillary Clinton is a “funny lady” but “by no means intelligent,” and the US mainland is “similar to a boiled pumpkin.”
And if the United States starts a nuclear war, North Korea “will set fire to the dens of crimes and bases of aggression with its powerful and sophisticated nuclear strike means and completely wipe them out on the earth,” the state- controlled Korean Central News Agency said Monday.
Official mouth-pieces have bombarded North Koreans with denunciations of their enemies and paeans to their leaders since the country’s founding in 1948. But the current barrage of threats is unusually thunderous.
The latest propaganda outburst, US officials and scholars say, is intended not only to rally North Koreans behind their young new leader, Kim Jong-Un, but also to arouse the international news media and undermine the South Korean economy.
The North’s threats may lack credibility, and some of its photos have been exposed as crude fakes. But its Stalinera propaganda techniques are proving to be surprisingly effective in this age of instant news, according to Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Honolulu.
“If your objective is to reassure the domestic population of your bravery and steadfastness, it’s probably effective,” Cossa said in a telephone interview.
“If your objective is to get on Page One of the New York Times or Bloomberg News, it’s probably effective. This sort of guarantees them attention. They believe it puts pressure on South Korea to negotiate on their terms.”
The threats increased expectations for the first interestrate cut in South Korea since October. Eleven of 20 economists forecast the Bank of Korea would reduce borrowing costs to 2.5 per cent from 2.75 per cent, according to a Bloomberg News survey.
The bank kept the rate unchanged.
It’s easy to explain why the media are so quick to amplify every blast, said John Delury, an assistant professor at Yonsei University in Seoul who studies North Korea.
“The vitriolic statements are so quotable, if not laughable,” he said. For North Koreans, they’re part of everyday life.
“This is a natural part of their language,” Delury said in a telephone interview. “It’s kind of in their DNA. It’s deeply rooted in their history. They still feel they’re fighting off the whole world to survive.”
Analysts such as Aidan FosterCarter, honorary senior research fellow in sociology and modern Korea at Leeds University in Britain, say they’ve noticed an increase in vitriol since Kim Jong-Un took power a year ago after the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il.
While North Korea has for years threatened to turn Seoul, which is within range of its artillery, into a “sea of fire,” it more recently has taken aim at the distant US.
“The US mainland is similar to a boiled pumpkin,” the state news agency said, quoting an official of Kim Il- Sung Military University.
“This vast territory will inevitably turn into a living hell of appalling disasters by the annihilating strikes to be dealt by the Korean People’s Army.”
No nuclear- armed North Korean missile, though, can reach Anchorage or Honolulu, never mind Seattle, San Francisco or Austin, Texas, which found its way onto Kim’s hit list for reasons that aren’t clear.
“Claiming now that they can destroy Washington is new,” said Cossa. “It’s not credible, but it’s new.”
Credibility has never been a major concern of North Korea’s propaganda machine, he said.
“They really don’t care how it’s being seen in the rest of the world,” he said. “My best guess is the people who are writing it aren’t writing it for us. They’re writing it to show their allegiance to the dear leader or the dear general.”
The North Korean rhetoric and posters of North Korean soldiers destroying imperialist powers resemble the propaganda and tone of the former Soviet Union, said David Satter, a longtime Russia scholar now with the Hudson Institute in Washington.
Just as Nikita Khrushchev vowed to “bury” the US in 1956, Kim is trying to prove his mettle as a dictator by issuing bellicose threats, Satter said in a telephone interview from Russia.
“Like with any group of gangsters, the new guy is very determined to show how reckless and tough he is,” Satter said.
“It’s consistent with the way Communist leaders of the old Soviet Union behaved.” — WPBloomberg