Stopping the elephant

Like a couple of naughty boys, Richard Lloyd Parry of the Times and David McNeill of the Independent sneak out of their hotel in Pyongyang early in the morning to wander round without their guides. They come across a desolate-looking street market down a side road and start taking pictures - at which point they're set upon by the irate vendors who are not too thrilled at the idea of their semi-illicit trading being recorded. Our two intrepid heroes have to surrender their cameras, and in the course of making their escape are apprehended by a police patrol. Luckily for them they get nothing worse than a sharp telling-off - though their poor guides may face worse.

The Times report is behind their pay-wall. At the Indie, David McNeill's report is the main story of the day, under the headline, "Face to face with the world's most repressive regime".

The comments on McNeill's piece though......

I'd thought the Guardian's CiF comments were bad, but.....well, this one's well-liked:

I was in Pyongyang at exactly the same time as the author of this article.
For me, the news story of my visit was not "NEWS: DPRK economy doesnt work" but "NEWS: DPRK economy works surprisingly well and people are by-and-large happy".
As a fair comparison, the level of poverty was far lower than India, Africa and large parts of Central and South America. This despite natural disasters, trade sanctions from the West and the collapse of Communist bloc, their natural trading partners.
I did not expect this at all because everything I have read about it before says the same as the above article.
Yes, there is dysfunctionality. But our society has dysfunctionality too.
They have taken a different route to us which does not iPods and Big Brands (there is no advertising anywhere - heaven!) but is guided by a different set of values. It doesnt work totally but the people are generally very happy.
And of course they have propaganda. But when I saw the reality for myself after years of reading articles such as the one above, I realised how much propaganda we get too.

Or try this:

Oh yes, lets all be herded into hating North Korea and the repressive regime.

Bah Bah Bah Bah

No space to comment on Israel though, the stealing of land, the killing and the oppressive regime in Gaza.

Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah

Though I did enjoy this one:

I will really never reproach a journalist for a little escape, I reproach those that made this to become suspicious, I reproach those that embraced in talking with Iraq to know if they had atomic bombs, when they saw there weren’t, they attached!
Now, of course, any country in the Earth when is called at talk about his atomic defense, knows it immediately have to create them or being destroyed, and weapons factories are gaining, David respect your name, realize which is the experiment gone horribly wrong, a window was opened by a breeze, and some crystals felt down, so the Elephant run to close the windows destroying thousand glasses, we must stop the Elephant.

Comments

[Bob-B]

How do people get to be so silly? It's notable that the commentator doesn't think to compare North Korea with South Korea. I wonder why not. And he/she comments that '[t]hey have taken a different route to us' as if the North Korean people as a whole had democratically decided on their current route. Clearly they had no say in the matter. It's interesting that he/she thinks there is no advertising. I am sure there is rather a lot of advertising for Kim Jong-il and the Party.

[SnoopyTheGoon]

I totally agree with the second comment. Every minute wasted on hating NK repressive regime isn't dedicated to hating Israel, the stealing of land, the killing and the oppressive regime in Gaza.

You just cannot argue with this one.

[tolkein]

You missed the article in the Guardian about this episode.

"A British and an Irish visitor taking a morning stroll are quickly stopped by a crowd when they take pictures of street vendors selling vegetables and underwear. The men are driven back to their hotel by security officials.

The North Koreans consider this a serious incident. A report is written, the memory cards of the cameras confiscated and the pictures deleted from their computers. The men are also required to write a humble letter of apology.

"This is a serious setback to the positive development of relations between Britain and North Korea," the director of the travel agency said.

The middle-aged North Korean man responsible for the group starts to cry."

Looks like the Indie has SWP members posting on their site. After all, if it's not your job, why would a normal human being want to be in a giant prison camp?

Think of the misery and fear in that sentence - 'The middle-aged North Korean man responsible for the group starts to cry.'