What can a country like North Korea hope to export? In what field does it have the requisite expertise to be an acknowledged world leader? - a proven track record, as it were, of success achieved at the highest level? Leave aside the vexed question of nuclear technology, and arms. And, um, counterfeit currency, and drugs, and all the rest. The answer, obviously, is kitsch monuments. No other country comes close to the idolatry on display across the DPRK to the Great Leader and the Dear Leader, so it's a logical step to direct this most successful of indigenous industries to the purpose of earning a little foreign currency (which, at the moment, is pretty much the only kind). So, welcome to Senegal's African Renaissance:
[Photo: Ben Sumner]
From the WSJ:
New York has the Statue of Liberty. France has the Eiffel Tower. Now Senegal is about to get the "African Renaissance"—built by North Korea.
This month, workers from Mansudae Overseas Project Group of Companies, a North Korean design firm, were putting the finishing touches on a giant copper sculpture of a family. Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade will inaugurate the African Renaissance Monument in April to mark the 50th anniversary of the country's independence from France, a ceremony he expects the president of North Korea's Parliament to attend.
"Only the North Koreans could build my statue," says Mr. Wade, sitting in a red velvet chair in his palace. Moreover, they offer monuments at a good rate, he says: "I had no money."...
Over the past decade, Mansudae has built dozens of statues and monuments for cash-strapped African countries. Botswana cut the ribbon on a memorial to three tribal chiefs in 2005. Neighboring Namibia boasts a bronze of its founding president wielding an AK-47.
The African Renaissance is Mansudae's biggest work yet, measuring 164 feet high and crowning two barren hills in Dakar called "Les Mamelles" at the westernmost point of Africa. That makes it taller than either the Statue of Liberty (151 feet) or Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer (100 feet). The statue depicts a father holding a baby in his left arm. The man's right arm is around the waist of the baby's mother. The three are reaching out to the sky and out to the ocean.
"Its message is about Africa emerging from the darkness, from five centuries of slavery and two centuries of colonialism," says Mr. Wade.
And what better way to emphasise that message of freedom than by getting the North Koreans to build it?
Africa's rash of nationalistic monuments, statues and shrines has made Mansudae's signature aesthetic of socialist realism fashionable. In Benin, for example, a statue of a 19th-century king holds his hand up, symbolically forbidding the French to enter.
Socialist realism is popular "because people can access it easily," says Mary Jo Arnoldi, curator for African Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution. It is easy to understand for illiterate populations, she says. "But aesthetically, it's not going to win any prizes."
In Senegal, however, the statue has been a beacon of discontent, sparking angry newspaper editorials and protests from religious leaders. The statue's sultry mother figure, dressed in a wisp of fabric that reveals part of a breast and a bare leg, has offended imams in this majority-Muslim country.
So it's not all bad news.
Financing details for the project have been murky, and some taxpayers are outraged by the very idea of it when power outages occur daily and university students strike over rising fees. Mr. Wade had no budget for the African Renaissance, so instead offered a prime chunk of state-owned land in exchange, which North Korea has since resold at a large profit, he says.
However, a panel near the base of the monument lists the official budget as $25 million, though foreign government officials estimate its cost at around $70 million. Mr. Wade says he plans to keep 34% of the profit from entrance fees and merchandise for a personal foundation.
And the next commission for North Korea's most successful export business?
After all the criticism, Mr. Wade is now getting some compliments. He says he recently received a letter from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi asking how he could get a similar statue.
Comments