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9163dd5
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I saw exactly one picture of Marx and one of Lenin in my whole stay, but it's been a long time since ideology had anything to do with it. Not without cunning, Fat Man and Little Boy gradually mutated the whole state belief system into a debased form of Confucianism, in which traditional ancestor worship and respect for order become blended with extreme nationalism and xenophobia. Near the southernmost city of Kaesong, captured by the North in 1951, I was taken to see the beautifully preserved tombs of King and Queen Kongmin. Their significance in F.M.-L.B. cosmology is that they reigned over a then unified Korea in the 14th century, and that they were Confucian and dynastic and left many lavish memorials to themselves. The tombs are built on one hillside, and legend has it that the king sent one of his courtiers to pick the site. Second-guessing his underling, he then climbed the opposite hill. He gave instructions that if the chosen site did not please him he would wave his white handkerchief. On this signal, the courtier was to be slain. The king actually found that the site was ideal. But it was a warm day and he forgetfully mopped his brow with the white handkerchief. On coming downhill he was confronted with the courtier's fresh cadaver and exclaimed, 'Oh dear.' And ever since, my escorts told me, the opposite peak has been known as 'Oh Dear Hill.' I thought this was a perfect illustration of the caprice and cruelty of absolute leadership, and began to phrase a little pun about Kim Jong Il being the 'Oh Dear Leader,' but it died on my lips.
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religion
caprice
confucianism
farce
karl-marx
queen-noguk
tomb-of-king-kongmin
veneration-of-the-dead
vladimir-lenin
absolutism
totalitarianism
korea
nationalism
xenophobia
cruelty
kim-il-sung
kim-jong-il
north-korea
ideology
communism
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Christopher Hitchens |
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3b315a0
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Even in former days, Korea was known as the 'hermit kingdom' for its stubborn resistance to outsiders. And if you wanted to create a totally isolated and hermetic society, northern Korea in the years after the 1953 'armistice' would have been the place to start. It was bounded on two sides by the sea, and to the south by the impregnable and uncrossable DMZ, which divided it from South Korea. Its northern frontier consisted of a long stretch of China and a short stretch of Siberia; in other words its only contiguous neighbors were Mao and Stalin. (The next-nearest neighbor was Japan, historic enemy of the Koreans and the cruel colonial occupier until 1945.) Add to that the fact that almost every work of man had been reduced to shards by the Korean War. Air-force general Curtis LeMay later boasted that 'we burned down town in North Korea,' and that he grounded his bombers only when there were no more targets to hit anywhere north of the 38th parallel. Pyongyang was an ashen moonscape. It was Year Zero. Kim Il Sung could create a laboratory, with controlled conditions, where he alone would be the engineer of the human soul.
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1953
curtis-lemay
division-of-korea
hermit-kingdom
japan
korea
korea-under-japanese-rule
korean-demilitarized-zone
korean-war
mao-zedong
siberia
south-korea
pyongyang
world-war-ii
joseph-stalin
kim-il-sung
north-korea
china
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Christopher Hitchens |
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4f4de13
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Eventually the Korean War will be understood as one of the most destructive and one of the most important wars of the twentieth century.
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war
korea
korean-war
military-history
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Bruce Cumings |
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2cda6ff
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It was this war and not World War II which established a far-flung American base structure abroad and a national security state at home, as defence spending nearly quadrupled in the last six months of 1950, and turned the United States into the policeman of the world.
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war
the-korean-war
war-history
korea
military-history
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Bruce Cumings |
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d5b786c
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Those who suffer terrible wars have a finer sense of when they begin and when they end.
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war
war-history
korea
korean-war
military-history
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Bruce Cumings |