[imText1]In an educational material for North Korean citizens, the expression, “Starving and clothed-in-rags South Chosun citizens” has completely disappeared, the following phrase in its place: “Degenerating South Chosun (Korea) due to anti-citizenry and decadent trends.”
In a North Korean educational material recently brought into “Free North Korea Broadcast’s (FNK)” possession titled, “South Chosun is the Most Reactionary and Corrupt Society,” the reoccurring expression used to describe the South by the North, “The starving and clothed-in-rags South Chosuns” was replaced by “Degenerating South Chosun due to anti-citizenry and decadent trends” and the “Most corrupt and reactionary South Chosun.”
Until the mid-80s, all educational texts and materials in North Korea featured a “South Chosun limping woman” who, dressed in rags and leaning forward while walking under the Chongaecheon Bridge in Seoul, symbolically depicted, “The starving and ragged South Chosun citizens.”
However, with the circulation of South Korea’s food aid in the jangmadang and the far-reaching dissemination of South Korea’s growth to citizens vis-a-vis the VCD, it can be observed that criticizing South Korea through such outdated slogans has become difficult.
The material described South Korea’s political powers as “top-class pro-American puppets” and that “recently in South Chosun, the American invading army has engaged in an average of over 1,000 criminal acts. Amongst them, there have been barbaric acts where passing by South Chosun women were taken to the American barracks, stripped, and covered with paint and kicked out onto the streets.”
Further, “South Chosun’s confusion and disorder due to political corruption” has been emphasized. The document described, “Corrupt and abusive politicians are overflowing from South Korean prisons. Fraud and trickery, deceit and falsehood are the political reality of South Chosun and South Chosun politicians are the bosses of the abuse of power and graft.”
A related person of FNK, in a phone conversation with the “Daily NK,” said, “Lee Gil Nam (33, North Korean Military) who sent the lecture materials had said, ‘Whenever I gave lectures to soldiers on South Chosun’s abuse of the power and graft, thoughts of the Workers Party leaders’ own corruption would come into my mind, making it embarrassingly difficult for me to even speak of it.”
He further relayed Lee’s words, saying, “In February, when a meeting with a similar content was in progress, the words of an upper-level private, ‘Our country should also expose the reality of corruption among the leaders through newspaper and radio broadcast,’ made me startle.”
“South Chosun’s Economic Subordination” is also mentioned without fail, then and now. The material insisted, “South Chosun’s economy, including capital, funds, technology, and raw material, are all tied to American and Japanese monopolistic capitalists, so there is no sense of self-reliance. Without anything to call their own, if the foreign capitalists do not provide raw materials or resources, they will fall into ruins overnight.”
It emphasized, “In contrast to South Chosun’s decadent and diseased society, we have to deeply feel the virtue of our socialist society where the leader, the party, and the masses become one and help each other through trials. We have to steadfastly preserve our socialism which is centered on the world’s best citizens.”
The related person of FNK said, “When looking at the material, the North Korean old saying, ‘The steamed head of a cow laugh at it,’ pops up in my mind. They have to know that their insistence on the trite motto, “Our socialism is good despite death by starvation,” does not work anymore.”
