Tourist videos from North Korea (Communist Only)

[Laika]

It is technically possible for tourists to visit North Korea but it is tightly controlled. Doing so helps raises foreign currency for the regime and so can be understadably controversial. None the less, youtube videoes filmed from within North Korea itself give an intreating insight into the country. Even if you are left wondering how much of it is staged, thats still quite a powerful commentary on the nation and system of government itself.

Whilst this thread may be welcome outside the Communist Only subforum, I've put it here so that several videos can be added together overtime because of how rare it is to actually see anything from within the country itself.

This one is part of a week long series if you want to follow it, but I think surfing in North Korea has got to be the highlight.

Motorcycle ride through the DPRK:

That's Probably enough. Any thoughts Comrades?

 

[Laika]

Just third world bourgeois life.
I defend the DPRK in the sense that I point out capitalist hypocrisy.
They aren't doing much observably right.

I don't really know what to make of north korea. It is literally a blank space on the map in terms of how much we know. As eager as people are to condemn it, most do so without ever really understanding it. And they accept their own ignorance as a basis for doing so. It gets a label that makes it the "other" or the "enemy" but people live there. That ****hole is full of people. I find peoples willingness to accept their moral incomprehension at face value almost offensive, as it means their outrage is for nothing. I dont mind it if people condemn north korea, but dehumanising them- victim and perpetrator alike- is just weirdly narcassistic, particuarly when such a system makes the distinction between them so thin.

 

[YmirGF]

Respectfully, of course, I am a tad amused as to why you would stick this in the Communist Only DIR. Are you frightened about what kind of comments you would otherwise receive and might be hard pressed to defend your thinking?

 

[Laika]

Respectfully, of course, I am a tad amused as to why you would stick this in the Communist Only DIR. Are you frightened about what kind of comments you would otherwise receive and might be hard pressed to defend your thinking?

yeah. Sometimes I honestly just don't want the hassle. *shrugs*

But what a way to disguise your own thought crimes by projecting and being the first to make the accusation so that no one will suspect you! Your shamelessness and guilty conscience could yet be the making of you Comrade.

 

[YmirGF]

There doesn't appear to be anyone with any thinking that needs to be defended.
I highly doubt anyone on this forum is keen on endorsing the KKK.
I see usefulness in having it in the communist DIR because we can avoid people who don't know much about communism and avoid those trying to pretend that the DPRK is an example of socialist/communist policy/theory.

Respectfully, of course, while I was out working in the gardens I was thinking about this and thought, "The DPRK is almost anything BUT a Communist society. Socialist-inspired personality cult perhaps?"

 

[Laika]

Respectfully, of course, while I was out working in the gardens I was thinking about this and thought, "The DPRK is almost anything BUT a Communist society. Socialist-inspired personality cult perhaps?"

The DPRK gave up any reference to socialism, communism and Marxism-Leninism in its constitution in the early 90's following the collapse of the USSR. Even north korea took that as a signal that "the party was over".

Its official ideology "Juche" (meaning self-reliance) bears only the most superfical resemblence to its Marxist-Leninist predecessors and its quite a stretch to see a relationship between them. Offically Juche was a "leap in development" or "revolutionary break" away from Marxism even if it may have started and evolved from a Maoist version of it.

Whilst Cuba, China, Laos and Vietnam continue to self-identify as Socialist and Marxist-Leninist, north korea is in a bizarre catagory of its own. I'd entertain the idea that it is a socialist state but I would be really lost to know what to say beyond that as its so "out there" in terms of how far the personality cult of the kim family has gone. Who ever heard of a hereditary socialist republic? None of the marxists of the twenieth century would have even considered that, perhaps even Kim il Sung as one of north Korea's founders himself. If it were socialist it would throw a major spanner in the marxist conception of history because of the number of "rules" it breaks. If its not, we get even more lost.