사이드바 영역으로 건너뛰기

反G8 (독일) #2


While parts of the German ruling class and their collaborators, aka the state, are "welcome" the protests against the G8-summit - for example the minister of interior W. Schäuble (actually he's one of the most conservative hard-liners in the gov't!! More about it later..) the German police yesterday performed in Hamburg their first "public training"(^^) likely(??) under the motto


'Provoke and Smash the Anti-G8 Protest/Movement'


Yesterday (5.28) at least 6,000 activists gathered on the streets of Hamburg to protest against the 7th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the comming G8-summit. There was a massive police presence and the entire march was surrounded by several riot police lines.



The procession was repeatedly stopped and provoked by the cops, while snatch squads and other units tried permanently to penetrate the demo. Water cannons, pepper spray, kicks and punches were used repeatedly. So the organisers eventually decided to call the demonstration off and participants then dispersed in small groups. A large part of the demonstration, however, was 'kettled' by police while other were 'hunted down' as they headed back to a social center. At least 86 people were arrested, some still detained.  


Please read/see also following:

We declare war on the leaders of the world... (GipfelSoli, anti-G8solidarity)

ASEM-G8 Protest in Hamburg

 

 


Violence in Hamburg Streets.. (Der Spiegel, German bourgeois magazine)

ASEM-G8 Protest in Hamburg - pictures


 

 


Related articles:

G8: On German media coverage (indymedia Germany)

A Protest Culture Attempts to Reawaken Itself (Der Spiegel)

 


Related stuff in SK (南朝鮮^^):

Anti G8 첫번째 회의록 (seoulidarity)




 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

8月11日.. 국제 문화제..

Following call for the

 
Arirang Int'l Korean Music Festival
in Almaty/Kazakhstan (2007.8.11/12)


was sent about three weeks ago (eh, sorry that I'm so late!!) around the world:


"My name is Olga Kang. I`m the representative of 4th generation of Koreans in
Kazakhstan.
In this year the Association of Koreans in Kazakhstan celebrate the 70th anniversaryof residing of Koreans in Kazakhstan who were exiled from the (Soviet) Far East in 1937..



(The) Association of Koreans of Kazakhstan within the framework of 70th anniversary of residing of Koreans in Kazakhstan invite the young and talented performers of the
Korean song to take part in “Arirang” the International Korean Music (Song) Festival on August 11-12, 2007 in the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan.
We`re cover all expenses including two way tickets.
So, we are looking for participants from other countries for "Arirang"."
 


So, whoever is interested to participate should contact as soon as possible:
kanolga@yahoo.com (Olga Kang)

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

증거.. ^^

Nowadays of course (nearly) everyone knows that in fact the US administration (CIA, etc..) were creating al-Qaeda.. Or that only with the active help of the western Imperialists (such as West Germany and the US) S. Hussein's Iraq got the technical possibility for the mass murder - with chemical weapons - of its Kurdish population (in the late 1980's).. Also today's "success" of Hamas as a result of Isreal's policy of supporting the Islamic "resistance" during the (first, actually the only) Intifada is (likeley) well-known.. (*)


But now we've got the evidence that the USA is supporting another part of the "Axis of Evil": the DPRK. It seems that the US military industry is exporting fire arms/machine guns/automatic rifles (in this case AR-15) to NK (perhaps for more beautiful Public Execution Performances/before usually AK-47 were used in NK..). Just see following picture ^^ (**):




* BTW.. that's NO joke!!

** Source of the pic: .."Public Execution" Performance



진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

베를린: 反McShit..

Following story about the latest development in Berlin-Kreuzberg - the city district (similar like a "gu", such as for example Mapo-gu, Jongno-gu etc in Seoul) where I'm living since 20 years (except my years in Seoul^^) - was published some days ago in the German (bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel:


MCDONALD'S IN ALTERNATIVE BERLIN
The French Fries are Coming - to Falafeltown!


In Berlin, of all places, a stronghold of the doner kebab, a bitter battle is raging over food culture -- a veritable clash of cuisines. The city's alternative Kreuzberg is gearing up to fight what would be the neighborhood's first McDonald's restaurant.


If anyone has the right to be worried these days in Kreuzberg, an alternative Berlin neighborhood, it's Hakan Sever. Sever, a man in his mid-30s, runs an establishment called Bistro Baghdad at the Schlesisches Tor subway station.



A doner kebab made of "pure lamb and veal" goes for €2.50 at his little restaurant, a mere two-minute walk from a small construction site that has been the cause of great controversy all across Berlin's many neighborhoods.


There isn't much to the site yet: a wooden fence surrounding an empty lot, graffiti-covered walls of abandoned buildings, a few wooden stakes in the ground and a sign, barely visible from the street, that sums it all up: McDonald's is building here.


But Sever is relaxed, almost maddeningly so. "It isn't a problem for us," he says, manning the rotating kebab maker in the Turkish fast food bistro his uncle started 24 years ago. He smiles and adds, self-confidently: "First they'd have to have our quality."


But the kebab seller seems to be the only denizen of Berlin's most alternative neighborhood who feels this laid-back about the issue. Kreuzberg enjoys a reputation for something it shares with practically only North Korea and Nepal nowadays: It's a McDonald's-free zone.


A Grassroots Movement against McDonald's


If a community group formed expressly to keep out the fast-food chain has its way, Kreuzberg will stay that way. And judging by the 100 or so local residents who attended its first meeting roughly two weeks ago, the group is already turning into a true grassroots movement -- an anti-burger movement, so to speak. The planned restaurant has become such a hot-button issue that everyone seems to be talking about it to the media. Franz Schulz, the district's mayor, is upset with the postal service, which sold the lot to McDonald's practically overnight -- and in violation of its own commitment to the city. Martin Stern, the head of the local school district, is worried about all the garbage and about the damaging effect the restaurant could have on the company that currently leases his cafeteria.


The movement opposing the new McDonald's even has its own Web site, KeinMcDoofinKreuzberg.de (NoMcStupidinKreuzberg.de), an e-mail mailing list and a high-profile political supporter, Hans-Christian Ströbele, a Green Party member of the German parliament, or Bundestag, who notes: "This is very unhealthy food."


"NO" to McDirt!!



"No McDonald's!" graffiti has already begun appearing on building walls in the neighborhood, while a MySpace page takes the anti-burger sentiment a few, more drastic steps further. It depicts a demolished restaurant with broken windowpanes and even issues a dark threat to the company's clown-like mascot, Ronald McDonald: "Look out, Ronald! Something's burning here." The tabloid Bild, sounding alarmed or alarmist, depending on one's point of view, interprets the clip as a potential terror threat.


But the clip and other voices opposed to the planned fast food restaurant are in fact sounding the alarm against a burgers-and-fries offensive in a neighborhood where culinary tastes are decidedly more Middle East than Mid-America. The battle over cuisine brewing in the neighborhood is especially ironic given Berlin's reputation as a bastion of greasy spoon fast food like the doner kebab. For the dreadlocked adolescents who while away their time sitting around Kreuzberg's Görlitz Park, and whose idea of a "Happy Meal" more likely includes humus and a water pipe, there is only one politically correct position: to resist the onslaught of the burger imperialists.


And how does the anti-burger crowd respond to the argument that Western fast food is no less healthy than the local Middle Eastern fare? Isn't falafel fried? A doner kebab delivers about 550 calories, compared to "only" 505 in a Big Mac. And wasn't there some report on the news about spoiled meat being used in doner kebabs? Who cares, they say. Super size Kreuzberg? Over our dead bodies!


The company's original plans call for the construction of one of its trademark rectangular boxes -- enough space for 100 guests and a drive-in window nestled under the familiar golden arches -- on Skalitzer Strasse, across the street from a high-school and not far from two other schools. The US-based company purchased the site from the German postal service five years ago, and local authorities have already issued a building permit. Construction could start tomorrow -- theoretically.


Heirs to the Legendary Kreuzberg Protest Culture


The anti-McDonald's community group met a second time last Wednesday evening to plan its next steps. The members of the fast food opposition movement are noticeably young. They are the heirs of the legendary Kreuzberg protest culture that was once behind the hoisting of a red flag -- absent the golden arches, of course -- on the nearby Georg von Rauch building. It was a movement that marched to the tune of a song by the band Ton-Steine-Scherben (Clay-Stones-Shards) titled "Macht Kaputt was euch kaputt macht" ("Smash the Things that are Smashing Your Life"). The band used to jam just around the corner from the current McDonald's construction site.


There is also some measure of tradition behind the clash of cuisines. In the past, protestors would toss fecal matter and plastic bags filled with paint into expensive restaurants, a practice that became far more deadly when someone decided to use a hand grenade instead in the early 1990s. But there is one big difference between the protestors then and now: While the bourgeoisie was once the target of their animosity, today's loathing of McDonald's has heavy political overtones -- especially in a neighborhood where overly zealous police activity (more...) leading up to the G-8 summit already has tensions running high.


For the Kreuzberg protestors, McDonald's is the prototype of the soulless, profit-maximizing, globalized giant corporation that exploits its workers, produces downtown trash in the form of food wrappers and containers and, by clearing rainforests and buying up the beef from vast, methane-farting herds of cattle, accelerates climate change -- not to mention the deleterious effects of fast food on an increasingly overweight German population. There is, or at least once was, some truth to all of these accusations.


But not everyone is as worried about McDonald's impact on the big picture. One couple that lives near the site is more concerned about the potential increase in traffic and the stench from the fast food joint's deep fryers.


The people at McDonald's are taking the signals from Kreuzberg seriously. Indeed, they are no strangers to opposition to their restaurants. When McDonald's first announced plans to move into the Chinese and Italian markets, local food aficionados predicted the demise of their own gastronomic cultures. Now it's Kreuzberg's turn.


For years the company has been providing consumers with detailed information about calories, ingredients and the origins of every pickle slice on its burgers. The company's main US Web site includes "testimonials" from Americans of African and Hispanic origin. Perhaps they'll add one soon about Kreuzberg's alternative culture. It wouldn't exactly be a first. McDonald's has already injected a dose of health consciousness into its menu by offering salads and yoghurt, and in England it even sells "halal" burgers -- the meat comes from animals slaughtered according to Islamic dietary rules. Capitalism is flexible.


According to Alexander Schramm, the company's German spokesman, who seeks to downplay the controversy and displays a willingness to engage in discourse, "we are interesting in talking to Mr. Ströbele and the community group." All controversy aside, McDonald's has apparently -- and wisely -- chosen to delay construction until at least after the G-8 summit.


http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,484170,00.html

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

5.24, 레바논..


Lebanon refugees talk to Al Jazeera   
   
Thousands of Palestinian refugees continue to flee Nahr al-Bared refugee camp after three days of clashes between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam. More than 80 people have died in what has been described as Lebanon’s worst case of internal fighting since the 1975-1990 civil war.


Al Jazeera spoke to Palestinians from the embattled refugee camp about the clashes they have endured and the destruction they are slowly coming to terms with.


Murtaja El-Hajj, 38,  UNRWA sanitation officer


"This is a repeat of the 1948 Palestinian Nakbha, when the state of Israel was created," el-Hajj said.


El-Hajj was born at Nahr al-Bared refugee camp and now lives there with his wife and children.


He said he refuses to leave his home because he has nowhere else to go.

 
"As long as my family is OK I will stay put," he said, speaking from his ground floor apartment, surrounded by his wife and children, brothers and neighbours.


About 50,000 refugees live in the camp and as many as 10,000 Palestinians have fled to the nearby Beddawi refugee camp.


Others have travelled to Tripoli, and many have gone to stay with their families in neighbouring towns.


El-Hajj said a "tranquil calm" loomed over the refugee camp after sporadic fire dominated the early hours of Wednesday morning.

 
With no drinking water, infant milk, electricity or running water, residents of the camp are suffering.

 
"Medical supplies are scarce. The few clinics in the refugee camp are functioning with no anaesthetic as we speak," el-Hajj said.

 
Scent of death

 
"The smell of dead corpses is overwhelming," he told Al Jazeera.

 
"This has been a grave massacre. There are dead people collapsed under rubble and we have no way of getting them out."

 
Mosques, schools and clinics have been destroyed. Even the graveyard was shelled, exposing once-buried human bones.

 
El-Hajj said that UNRWA aid trucks were bombed yesterday and an electric generator provided by relief agencies to generate water supplies has been destroyed.


"We are not against the Lebanese army, but why should we, as civilians, suffer? We want the world to see what's happening to us," he said.


Fadwa Sanadaqa, 23, university student


Sanadaqa evacuated Nahr al-Bared refugee camp on Tuesday evening along with her brother, Ahmad, also a university student.


"We got into a pick-up truck with our neighbours, we covered ourselves in a blanket and held out a white flag, to keep the snipers away," she said.


Speaking to Al Jazeera, from her new whereabouts in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, she described the fear she encountered in the past three days.


Fatah al-Islam snipers had taken over the roofs of many of the houses in the camp.


"They would aim at the Lebanese army from our roofs and above our garages so that the army fire back at us and they did," she said.


People in the camp are starving and the aid is not reaching everyone, Sanadaqa said.


She hopes things will get better so that she can go back to the camp and just check up on her grandfather's house where, she was staying with her brother.


But she will never go back to live there, even if it "becomes safe to go back".


Faisal Ashkar, Nahr al-Bared refugee camp


Ashkar who has also been witness to the past three days of violence, spoke to Al Jazeera on Wednesday.


He left Nahr al-Bared refugee camp on foot last night and made his way to the neighbouring Beddawi refugee camp.

 
He condemned the Palestinian authorities for not caring enough and not portraying to the outside world just how much the Palestinians are suffering.
 

"The Palestinian authority has not given honest statements of the last few days of violence," he said.

 
"We do not need food or water, who needs that when their house has been destroyed?"


Ashkar has been unable to reach his family members as most communication has been lost.


He described the state of the camp to be in "total destruction" when he left.


Communication with Ashkar was lost, as his mobile phone battery ran out, and Al Jazeera was unable to complete the interview.


http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/275FBBFE-2C1C-4C6C-A7DA-8DC3FDFBE789.htm

 

 


 

Related articles, etc:

Fatah al-Islam vows to fight on

Fatah al-Islam given ultimatum

The End Nears for Militants in Lebanese Camp (Der Spiegel, incl. photos)

Inside Nahr al-Bared (video report)

Interview with Fatah al-Islam leader (video)

For more informations please check out:

Angry Arab News Service

Decentering Damascus

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

反G8 (독일) #1

 

Latest news from Absurdistan (aka the German State):

 

 

 

G8: Ban on demonstrations up to 6 kilometres 

Press release by  Heiligendamm Starmarch Coalition (20th May 2007)

 
Lawyer: "Prohibited zones are unprecendented in the history of the German Federal Republic."


Special department "Kavala" slow to process other registered demonstrations.
During the G8 summit there will be a ten day ban on demostrations and assemblies within as well as 200 metres around the fence in Heilgendamm.
From the 5th to 8th of June, i.e. during the summit meetings, this zone will be extended to a 4km area around the fence. Demonstrations are to be kept at a 6km distance to the conference hotel.


This weekend, on behalf of the starmarch coalition, a group of lawyers lodged an urgent law suit against the injunction at the court in Schwerin. In the appeal the lawyers state that, although the G8 delegations have no legitimacy to do so, they make decisions that have serious international consequences. This is why international protest should be made visibile to them. The "sentiments of the state guests" that the police do not want to upset, must play a secondary role.


Excerpt from the law suit:


"Protests against international politics carry special weight - they must be given the space to be expressed and to be taken seriously by the heads of states of the G8 countries along with the international public. Effective public visibility means specifically that international media must have access to the protests. The necessary visibility of the protests can only be guaranteed if the protests are able to generate media attention at the actual location where events are taking place. The basic right of association is even more important at such supranational events than at national ones."


According to the Hamburg-based solicitor Carsten Gericke, the demonstration bans are for the most part unlawful: "The prohibition zones designated by Kavala are unprecedented in the history of the German Federal Republic", he explains. "If organisers wishing to obtain the permission to demonstrate cannot hold their event, then their rigt to association is irrepairably violated. This is because the demostration in question is irrevocably relevant to the event taking place within the area of the ban," he further elaborates.


The police are also claiming that "extraordinary threats" to the G8 summit exist. However, there are no indications of such a threat. In the law suit that has been lodged it states that the German police and the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution have been forced to admit that "sustainable indications of serious threats or dangers have not been able to be brought forward by the office dealing with the issue."


Furthermore, the suit criticises the police organisation Kavala: "Creating a special department "Kavala" within the Rostock police force to process this injunction is unlawful", Gericke writes. Equally, the creation of this special department with hundreds of civil servants has led to a situation in which the registration of many assemblies and demonstrations have not been processed at all or only very slowly:


"The effect has been that the office has not acted in accordance with its constitutionally determined duties to cooperate because this special department had to first be made operational and is staffed by external civil servants. Because of this, the rights of the organisers registering the demonstration have been denied."


Other registrations have also been affected by the ban. The organisation "Jewish Voice" has registered a protest rally with 150 activists from Palestine and Israel on June 5th. The 5th June is the 40th anniversary of the start of the Six Day War. The organisation has still not even received a written response to their request.


"We are very pleased with the broad and even international media response and sympathy with the protests against the G8 summit", say the organisers of the star march on June 7th. International calls to demonstrate against the G8 continue.

[Starmarch Coalition]

 

 


Related stuff:

A Long Hot Spring - a Season of Protest (Der Spiegel)

A Taste of the Coming Showdown

An Interactive Map of the Summit Site: World Leaders Fenced In
SPIEGEL TV: Germans Prepare Massive Security Precautions 

매일 '민주주의' (독일)

 




For more news/informations about the Anti-G8 Struggle:

G8 Germany 2007 (indymedia UK)

dissentNetwork

Anti-G8 Alliance for a revolutionary perspective

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

독일: 매일 인종차별주의

Racist assaults are on the rise in Germany

Black Man Beaten, Stabbed for Speaking English


The long list of racially motivated assaults in Germany has just got longer with the beating and stabbing of a Ghanaian man caught speaking English outside a night club in an eastern town on Friday night.


An African man was beaten and stabbed by three German teenagers outside a nightclub in the latest of a long series of racist attacks in eastern Germany.


Police said the 22-year-old man, named only as Daniel G., had enraged the three 18-year-old men because he had been speaking English to his girlfriend. The doorman of the nightclub in Nauen near Berlin had refused to let him into the club and he was talking to his girlfriend about it when the three assailants approached him.


"Why are you speaking English, Nauen is in Germany," one of them shouted, the newspaper Bild reported. Another man pushed him to the ground and they started kicking him. One of them pulled out a knife and stabbed him.


Police said the victim, a trainee retailer from Ghana who has lived in Berlin for over four years, managed to defend himself with pepper spray. He and his girlfriend fled to the railway station with the attackers in pursuit but police arrived in time to stop them attacking him again. The victim was taken to hospital with a stab wound to the kidney but it wasn't deep enough to be life-threatening.


Two of the attackers were caught and confessed to the attack. They face assault charges but have been granted conditional release pending the court case. The third assailant faces no charges because he was deemed to have played only a minor role.


Racially motivated attacks are a frequent occurrence in Germany, especially in the eastern part (the former German Democratic Republic) where far right/fascist parties are now represented in three of the region's five federal states.


The domestic intelligence agency recorded a total of 919 assaults motivated by far-right extremism/racism (i.e. fascisism) last year, up from 816 in 2005 (according to the Ministry of Interior). 

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

이스라엘, 팔레스타인 etc.

Well, while last week's news were full with reports about the daily street battles (mainly between Hamas and Fatah, the two parts of the Palestinian "Unity Gov't") in Gaza, now - since last Friday - the news are dominated by the daily IDF/IAF attacks  against targets in the Gaza Strip.


Actually nobody was able to stop last week's street battles there, despite several "ceasefire agreements".


So Hamas in the middle of last week took the initative: they resumed officially the rocket attacks against Israeli cities and villages. The aim: to provoke the resumption of Israeli military operations in Gaza. Hamas and other militants seem convinced that only an Israeli invasion of Gaza is the best plan of action, no matter the cost. In interviews with both Islamic Jihad and Hamas militant commanders over the past month, the Observer (UK) learned that both groups badly want to draw Israel into a protected ground combat in a reinvasion of Gaza for political and military reasons.


Ha, and it was - what a surprise!! - working! Since the IDF/IAF operations against targets in the Gaza Strip the clashes between the Palestinian "resistance" organisations were/are extremely decreasing, almost ended.



Yeah, of course this kind of tactic is complete objectionable - but has been working. At least until now. Because even this will bring the Palestinian cause not to solution, not at all (but who cares??!!).
But finally everyone, at least in Gaza, is remembering now the REAL enemy: ISRAEL.


And everyone will now find (back) to the "good old", but also "brand new" tactics of "resistance". For example the Islamic Jihad: the organization released last weekend a video clip in which a high-ranking Jihad official said that his organization has prepared dozens of female suicide bombers who were eager to blow themselves up along with IDF infantry troops if if Israel was to enter and operate in the Strip.
One of the women in the clip said that she would like to be the first to commit suicide on behalf of the Palestinian resistance against Israel.



She said that she was jealous of the suicide bombers who "received Allah's help in fulfilling successful missions, and we wish to follow in their footsteps. The enemy will be defeated if it invades the Strip."..


And Hamas' "new" idea: Israel will be wiped off the map



Related:

Israeli minister issues death threat to Hamas leaders 

Israel warns Hamas chiefs

Gaza violence not over for Israel or Palestinians

Israel may provide Fatah military support (Ha, a "very good" idea!!)

 



*****



Meanwhile another group of the (int'l) Palestinian "resictance" - in this case in Tripoli/Lebanon is trying to get the "sympathy" of the local and int'l audience. Right now CNN is broadcasting pictures from the ongoing battle between the Lebanese Army and the Palestinian"Fatah al-Islam". And it's looking like some of the pictures from last year's Israeli aggression against Lebanon.


 

50 killed as Lebanese army fights Islamists

Lebanese troops tighten siege of camp

 


 


And until now, the fights are still continuing, nobody is able to count the civilian losses/casualties!! But without a doubt they - like it's "usual" in such cases - are/will be likeley the main victims!


Please read also:

Lebanon battles a new demon (A. Times)

 

 

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

蓮(花)..

The Lotus Flower, "made" in..


..the DPRK/North Korea..


..and (simply blooming) in the ROK/South Korea

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

주체'사상' ^^

"Do you spare a particular time of the day, such as before you go to bed, for Kim? Do you talk to Kim? Does he talk to you?" A young North Korean student's answer to all these questions was, "Yes." (Phoenix TV, HK). HARRHARR
Some weeks ago NK's KCNA designated  Geumsusan Memorial Palace - the eternal residence (^^) of the "Eternal President" of the DPRK, aka Kim Il-sung's mausoleum - in Pyeongyang as the "Temple of Juche". Once again: HARRHARR!!


Following article was published in last week's (4.12) Asia Times (HK/China):


God forbid, religion in North Korea?


Juche a religion? The national ideology of North Korea has been named the world's 10th-largest religion, according to a prominent US religious research website, Adherents.com. The website estimates the number of juche "believers" to be 19 million out of a total North Korean population of 23 million


Juche, or "self-reliance", joins the list alongside the world's major religions such as Christianity and Islam, and even elbowed out some better-known religions such as Judaism, which is estimated to have 14 million believers, from the top 10 "major religions of the world" list.


From a sociological point of view, juche delivers a full range of what a religion is supposed to deliver in society, the website says, explaining its rationale for classifying North Korea's state doctrine as a religion. In fact, the site has a separate link devoted wholly to explaining painstakingly in multiple pages the theoretical and sociological basis of what makes juche count as a religion.


This view, however, is not necessarily shared in North Korea, which is after all a communist country and officially atheistic. The Pyongyang government promotes juche as a state ideology but does not outwardly endorse it as a religion. North Koreans actually use the term juche sasang, meaning the "juche ideology".


Nonetheless, the US website says juche is de facto the only officially sanctioned national ideology and also the only allowed belief system in the country at the exclusion of all other religions, so it "clearly" qualifies as a religion. Importantly, it asserts, juche, in many ways, is even more overtly religious than were Soviet-era communism or Chinese Maoism.


Many visitors who have been to North Korea are inclined to be convinced by the argument, including Han Sung-joo, a former South Korean foreign minister. Han was recently quoted as saying that the cult of two Kims (current ruler Kim Jong-il and his late father, the country's founder Kim Il-sung) is very extensive.


"There is a deification and a religious emotional element [in juche] in the North," said Han. "The twinned photos of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il are everywhere. Every speech says Kim Il-sung is still alive. I think if I stayed another two weeks, I might even see Kim Il-sung. The country worships someone who is deceased, as if he were alive."


A US State Department report tacitly agrees with this view, saying juche "has practically [reached] a level that makes it a state religion".


Eun Hee-shin, a Korean-Canadian who has been teaching "religion and culture" at North Korea's Kim Il-sung University since 2003, recently told a South Korean magazine: "Whenever I visit Pyongyang, I get the feeling that North Korea is a place that doesn't feel the need to have other religions. For North Koreans, the juche ideology is the most uplifting religion and has become a firm faith."


In a surprisingly sympathetic view, Eun saw similarities between Christianity and juche. If Christianity is a distinctive form of religious culture that believes in "Father God", the juche ideology is North Korea's distinctive form of religious culture that believes in "Supreme Father", Eun said.


"The juche ideology goes beyond being a political ideology and has become a state religion. The deification of Kim Il-sung has been carried out accordingly. From the perspective of the academic study of religion, this is similar to the deification of Jesus that [occurred] after his death," Eun said.


From Eun's point of view, it's simplistic to think of a female schoolteacher who died in flames while trying to save the portrait of Kim Il-sung during the 2004 explosion incident in the Yongchon region as strange. Deification always produces fervent followers, and there's little difference between a Christian martyr in a remote African village and the North Korean teacher, Eun said.


Juche began to impinge on the outside world from the mid-1960s in some translated North Korean works. Yet the origin of the ideology goes back to a 1955 speech made by Kim Il-sung, titled "On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work".


The juche philosophy gradually emerged as a systematic ideological doctrine in North Korea while it was witnessing the China-Soviet split in the 1960s. Kim Il-sung outlined the three fundamental principles of juche in 1965. They were "independence in politics", "self-sustenance in the economy", and "self-defense of the national security"...


It is not easy to travel to North Korea to find out for oneself the magnitude of the cult indoctrination of juche in real life. Last year, the country had only about 20,000 visitors from abroad. But this month Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV offered viewers a rare glimpse of how the theology of Kim worship is practiced in North Korea, airing an hour-long program fresh from Pyongyang.


Reporter Liu Fang quizzed a young student and checked on the degree of deification of the Dear Leader by asking questions that very much sounded like a Sunday-school teacher asking her pupil about the bedtime prayer. "Do you spare a particular time of the day, such as before you go to bed, for Kim? Do you talk to Kim? Does he talk to you?"


The young student's answer to all these questions was, "Yes."


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/IE12Dg01.html

 

 

 

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