[KS] 2/ Pyongyang Univ of Science & Tech (PUST) on BBC1 TV, Mon 3 Feb, 2030 ...

[Frank Hoffmann]

My apologies for the poor English in my last posting (certainly not the 
first time). A moderator approved before I could stop and edit it.

Frank


----- edited version ------

Aidan, a brief comment on your notes quoted below:

There is a very useful German term most here will already be familiar 
with: *Gleichschaltung* (forcible coordination)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung)
The term has mostly been used for the Nazi regime, but I would really 
"urge" everyone to please consider using that term discussing any sort 
of dictatorship, may that be considered one on the political right or 
on the left. The power mechanisms that this term explains applies from 
my observation to all totalitarian regimes. It is a very useful term 
that makes details otherwise attached to singled-out institutions, 
structures, or even people (as in your comments below) fall into place. 
Under conditions of Gleichschaltung whoever runs an institution does 
not matter, as it is not the one running it--exactly this is the 
purpose of Gleichschaltung! And what we have there in North Korea is a 
perfect example of Gleichschaltung, a school book example of it. Those 
single-institutional or even personal "actions" are embedded and 
overwritten by Gleichschaltung. (And the clownesque-dramatesque TV 
performance of its president shows that--you do not have to be an 
expert in human nature to see that: "Oh yeah, I was 42 days in prison 
for espionage, but now I am free, can you believe that, I am so darn 
free, they even allow me to run around the campus within 150 meters, 
they just shoot me if I try to leave the hamster wheel." Wasn't that 
what he was saying?)

A very good and well written explanation of Gleichschaltung can be 
found in the below book (I think you can even read these six pages via 
'Google Books') -- many of the details there will remind you, I think, 
of North Korea (by no means ONLY of North Korea though). 
  Alan E. Steinweis, _Art, Ideology, and Economics in Nazi Germany: The 
Reich Chambers of Music, Theater, and the Visual Arts_ (Chapel Hill: 
University of North Carolina Press, 1993), pp. 32–37.
--> http://books.google.com/books?isbn=0807846074

To your question: I found absolute everything depressing in this 
documentary, starting with the repetitive and stupefying phrases of 
that BBC reporter, talking while on the plane, soon to land in a 
brutalizing, mysterious land behind the iron curtain: Transylvania. I 
will make a video installation from a thousand of those 
On-the-Plane-Intros to North Korea and show it at the next 50 
international art biennales (but even for that purpose it would be 
stultifying and outdated I fear). It is depressing because everyone 
plays with everyone (the reporter, the students, the president, the 
church-going extras, the state, and those you do not see in the film.) 
Even seeing these students IS depressing--and in what other country is 
it depressing to see young, eager people, with the life ahead of them? 

Best,
Frank