[KS] Re: first message

[Elizabeth Ten Dyke]

I can imagine that no one wants to "predict" the downfall of the DPRK, 
and I can further imagine that no one (expect perhaps people like me who 
would derive intellectual satisfaction from watching the process unfold) 
would WANT it to occur.  I don't have the exact quotes, but I recall that 
on November 10 or 11 1989 prominent Euro-American officials (such as 
Margaret Thatcher, George Bush) made understated comments about the 
collapse of the GDR such as "This all seems to be happing rather 
rapidly."  Yes, German unification has been overwhelmingly expensive both 
for the East and the West, not only in terms of things like the currency 
union (which was 2 to 1, though the CDU promised 1 to 1 before the 
elections in Spring 1990), but in terms of the cost of subsidizing 
make-work programs for tens of thousands of unemployed East Germans, 
rebuilding infrastructure in the East, revamping school curricula, etc.  
Then of course there was the ultimately political cost--the recent loss 
of the CDU and Helmut Kohl in national elections.  

I can further understand the hesitation of some to anticipate a regime 
collapse or even shift in the North based simply on the dire 
circumstances of the economy there.  People have pointed to Iraq as a 
comparison, where  pressure, and internal privation, only seem to 
have strengthed support for Saddam Hussein.  On the other hand, the 
circumstances in North Korea are different--if only because of the 
existence of the South!!!  The fact that the GDR had a wealthy sister 
state, closely linked to the West, presented the East German people, and 
government, with a unique and peculiar set of tensions, contradictions and 
challenges NOT faced by other central and East European countries.  

This is why I wonder about bases for empirical comparison between the GDR 
and the North Korean cases.  To what extent is there contact and 
communication between ordinary people in the two nations?  In the  German 
case there was physical contact and communication (visits East and 
West), transfer of material goods (gift packages that arrived often at 
Christmas) and media exchange.  East Germans could sit in their homes and 
watch programs such as Dallas that depicted an unimaginably extravagant 
lifestyle!  Of course, there was also the irritating presence of 
Intershops where western goods such as chewing gum and pantyhose were 
available--for convertible currency (which many East Germans were able to 
acquire through contact with relatives in the West).

There was, also, Hungary.  Is there an Asian Hungary??? That is a state 
through which North Koreans (perhaps some of those who have benefited 
materially and intellectually from the partial industrialization in the 
North) could possibly gain access to the South?  It was of course 
Hungary's decision to open its border between the East and West that 
facilitated the mass exodus of the summer of 1989.

Also, to what extent is there an intellectual/political elite which may be
increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo, and may seek to initiate
some transformation from within the system???  One of the unresolved
questions of the East German Wende is to what extent it was unofficially
sanctioned, and even furthered, by individuals closely connected with the
Stasi (state security service).  Of course the fall of the state suggests
that if the Stasi sought to initiate change (for example by allowing
public disclosure of electoral fraud in the spring of 1989) the course of
events rapidly spun out of control. 

Just some thoughts

Liz Ten Dyke
Dept. of Anthropology
Hunter College
New York City






 


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