I got an idea.Why don't we deport the GB to North Korea?
Bangalore
News Reports of Distraught North Koreans
by Band on the Run 18 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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~Question With Boldness~
I live in South Korea on a military base, most people here seem to think its a mixture. Mostly staged but with the occassional infusion of genuine grief. "Dear Leader" is a GOD to them. They are isolated and brainwashed DAILY. Its so bad, I was told, that if a North Korean makes it across the border alive, they are automatically given South Korean citizenship. Everything is under the control of the powers that be....
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botchtowersociety
Video from the funeral procession.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/dec/28/north-korea-funeral-leader-kim-jong-il-video
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cedars
I actually think that both North Korea AND the Watchtower experience (that most of us have endured) serve as disturbing examples of how easily programmable the human mind is. If you starve an individual of true information for long enough, and feed him or her only with false information that is inclined towards venerating an individual or group of individuals, they fall for it hook line and sinker every time. I actually think it's a sad reflection on the human race.
I was also watching the pictures coming out of North Korea today, and it felt like I was watching news reels from the dictatorship rallies of the 1940s. It's horrifying to think that so little has changed since then.
Control information, and you can control people.
Cedars
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hamsterbait
I remember the films of German soldiers on the Russian Front in 1943:
Dancing naked in the freezing snow, lying down in it and piling it over their bodies.
They were shot for doing otherwise in front of the camera or telling the truth.
"Cry or we will blow your brains out" is a powerful command.
Maybe they are distressed at what worse horrors are to befall them?? The WTBTS parallel is terrifying.
HB
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JeffT
I can't find a clip just now, but tonight Anderson Cooper said that the North Koreans were being told they would be punished if they did not display sufficient grief. He said something about "competitive greiving" as they are all trying to outdo each other.
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cedars
JeffT - Mrs Cedars commented that the event deserves a mention in the Guinness book of records for "most fake tears". I think she may have a point.
That said, one poster has already commented that many of the tears may have been real, such is the mind control that the regime wields over the masses. They have been fed such information as to form a genuine devotion for their former leader. I find this thought particularly disturbing, and as I said in my previous post, I think it's a poor reflection on the mental integrity of the human race.
We're a fickle bunch aren't we!
Cedars
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Roski
QwB is correct. The tears are not just fake, for a couple of reasons.
The grieving process is different. In many non-western cultures people display mourning behaviour that is sometimes refered to as professional mourning which, while to the western way of thinking may be true, it is a valid part of the grieving process. If you have ever been to a funeral in an Asian country you will know what I mean when I talk of different/more outwardly emotional behaviour. This may fire-up at different times with different attendees, hence the people looking on that may seem uninvolved.
Also, they may be crying for their uncertain future - these are the country's lucky people, so not the ordinary folk - as well as ( no doubt) the people who feel it is a good idea to so.
The book, The Aquariums of Pyongyang is an interesting insight into the world of Nth Korea for anyone intersted.
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botchtowersociety
It's like witnoids without a Governing Body.
http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/28/9776689-despair-over-kim-jong-il-real-grief-or-forced
But experts say that the scenes we’re seeing on TV aren’t necesarily out of the ordinary or over the top for North Koreans in grief. And they may even be the honest expressions of a nation not knowing how to go on once their cult-like leader dies.
“This is a society that is organized around a mass cult-like devotion to the leader,” said Mike Chinoy, a senior fellow at the U.S. China Institute at the University of Southern California and author of “Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis.” “When you have the death of a figure that you spent your whole life worshipping you’re going to feel fear and uncertainty and anxiety about what will happen next.”
You can get a window on the people’s mind-set by listening to the words of the song that was often heard in the streets of North Korea and always played when Kim Jong-Il appeared in public, said Chinoy.
“It was called the ‘Song of General Kim Jong Il,” Chinoy said. “It’s a really catchy tune and you would hear it like 10 times a day. When he appeared in public, they would always play the lines: ‘Without you there is no country. Without you there is no us.’
“If that’s what you’ve been taught – or brainwashed – to believe your whole life and suddenly you are without that leader, you’re going to think, ‘What are we going to do now?’”
