Mick Hartley

I’ve never been to North Korea, but it seems to me to be the nearest any country has ever been to realising Orwell’s 1984 dystopia. Peter Crowcroft has been there three times, and he thinks so too. This diary of his latest visit is well worth reading – plus pics! (via North Korea Zone):

1984 is the DPRK. Or go and see The Godfather trilogy; that is how the DPRK works at the top.

1. Reunification. Forget it. It is never going to happen. It is a pipe-dream being peddled to the DPRK masses. The USA is the bad guy always finding excuses to stop it. All media from outside the DPRK is banned – no radio, newspapers, movie films. Personal contact of foreigners by local people is banned.

2. Collapse from Within. Forget it. The indoctrination system for the masses is now so well honed that I see no sign of discontent. As long as the Kim Family look after the top cadres and the Army with gifts and perks the Family will be secure. People have been predicting the demise of the DPRK for years. Most recently Victor Cha in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (March 2, 2004) said: “the overturning of systems like North Korea occur not when things are at their worst, but when they begin to get better.” Well sorry, but there has never been a socialist state like the DPRK where information is totally controlled. KJI almost never appears in public no doubt remembering how Ceausescu met his end – boos from the masses. In Eastern Europe TV and newspapers freely flowed over the borders.