northern california hosts the hourlong event. >> it is a miracle that i am here because i was in washington d.c. a couple days ago and my publisher said why don't you try to run the storm. i drove south anyway and got the plane out. i live in tucson which is a harbor town on the south coast of south korea and i never see snow. i don't care if i never see any snow again. ..

>> and i don't think you are all that interested in how many calories his kids are getting every day. you're probably more interested in what he thinks, how he sees himself, what he is teaching his kids. this is what i find it so baffling that in the united states, although we fought one war with the north koreans, losing 54,000 people in the process, and although we came close to fighting another war in 1993 and 1994, and although we've been and locked in this standoff with the north koreans, we still are not interested in what ideology they have and why they are doing all this. and in the meantime, we are so

compulsively accumulating hard facts. then we wonder why we still don't understand this country. it's almost as if we didn't know that iran was an islamic country. it really wouldn't matter how much intelligence were able to gather about iran. its behavior would still baffle us. this is the problem have in north korea and this is why today i would like to talk to you about north korean ideology. i realize that sounds like a dull topic, so i have chosen the parts of my book that i think lend itself more to official visual presentation like this. there is some heavier stuff in the book as well, but i felt like this would be the talk today that ideology is especially important because this regime and this man that you see on the picture into a much higher degree of mass support than we tend to assume. we tend to think of north korea as a country that's a prominent lockdown, that survives purely by its repressiveness alone. that's just not the case. i think the evidence for this

lies in the north korean border and sell. on the left you have the east german border which i remember very well. i was a student in west germany. and i would go to berlin quite often on the train and we would have to go through this border. on the right to have the north korean border. and you can see they're very different that this is the border to china and not the dmz to south korea. but still, it's a very easy border to cross. and the very interesting statistic is 50% of those who do cross the border into china brought their way back into the country. now, no way tried to bribe their way back into soviet union or back into east germany. so i would warn you against taking the hyperbole of a lot these north korean refugee ngo's seriously. they like to talk about the underground railroad that is helping north korean migrants to safety. i don't know if any slaves bribing their way back onto the plantation. so we need to realize this is a

country that survived not by repressiveness alone but because it is able to inspire its people still. so that's where want to talk to you about is how does it inspire its people. i want to stay in here now but we need to go back into history a little bit and i want to talk about duce, it is not the main ideology in north korea. it was a reaction to man here, to the chinese personality cult which began explode in the mid 1960s that the north koreans felt the need to match this cold claim for clay. mao zedong claimed he was a poet and he enjoyed quite a deal of renowned for his poetry. so the north korean personality cult suddenly remembered place which kim il-sung had allegedly written in his youth which no mention had been made and tell them. mao zedong had a long march for which he was very famous on which he led his troops. and the north korean historians suddenly remembered the arduous march that kim jong-il had taken

his troops on. mao zedong had my wisdom. this is kind of a dry topic that i've written a lot at the academic papers about it but it doesn't lend itself to a talk like this i want to give you an example of what this sham doctor looks like because it is a shame doctor. it exist to be praised and not to be read. and exist really only to enable the claim that kim il-sung is a great dialogue. this is an excerpt from a. a representative excerpt i might add. i recognize this pro stockers this is how i used to write in college when i had a term paper the next day. and i had to fill 10 pages and at the same time, make sure that the professor didn't actually read them. [laughter] >> so i would just repeat things over and over again and make it as dull and stodgy as possible. that's what you see in the so-called juche thought. the regime when it has a message that it wants to put across a can do this very well.

these are the best propagandist in the world. this is the most ingenious propaganda in the world. and it knows what it wants to get a message across, that's not the way to do it. this is the prose they used to fill those books by so people can look at those books and say our kim you jong-il is as great as mao zedong was. but it was not learn from leaders about the leaders. in other words, what people talk in so-called political sessions are the fantasy biographies of the two games. it's not so much kim said as what they did in other words. just one more interesting fact. the entry on the juche doubt is quite as long as the entry on juche thought that that tells you all you need to know about juche thoughts which i don't really want to talk more about today. now to go back a little bit into history, do we have any koreans here today? any koreans? are you guys koreans?

okay now, if you live in korea, as i do then you may well be a fan of the historical korean tv dramas, and if you watch them you will have people maybe a thousand years ago talking about the korean nation, the korean race. and actually the word did not appear in the korean light which enter the japanese brought to the korean people and as the professor of harvard university has said there was no strong sense of belonging to a korean nation until very late in the 19th century. in other words, the koreans were not nationalists. they were xenophobic but there's a difference. as you can see from this map this is a korean map from 1402. the koreans at that time you leave their country to be on the outskirts of this great chinese cultural well that they saw themselves in sort of a permanent student positioned to the great chinese teacher. so in 1910 korea was annexed.

here you see the korean soldiers. for the first two years of the japanese occupation of korea, the japanese ruled their subject so heavy-handed they that the korean nationalism bubble over into a big demonstration in 1919, which frightened the japanese. after that the japanese relaxed some of the policies that had inflamed the koreans. they decided to go out korea national instead of a stamp it out. they did it in an inching his way. they did so with a campaign called, which means japan and korea as one body. you see from the map on the left japan and korea both painted the same color on the school that. the message that the japanese spread in korea was that you koreans and we japanese, we may have drifted apart over the millennia, but we are actually

one people. we go back to the same divine. we all have this uniquely pure racial bloodline him and his bloodline makes us uniquely pure, makes is also uniquely pure hearted and morally superior to people in other races. so this is another postcard. this is a postcard from the period. on the right to have japan and on the left you have korea in a three-legged race around the world. the legend says let's cooperate together. is anybody here from texas? you're from texas. great. the reason i ask, i'm not losing my mind, the reason i ask is i used to live in new mexico, and the texans would come over in the summer and two to the bumpersticker's would have, the flag of texas and the united states like him and the slogan was proud texan, proud american. this is really the kind of attitude that the japanese were aiming for in korea. they wanted the koreans to be

proud of their korean is. they urged him to take pride in their history, and their culture, in the dialect that they did want to call it a language. but at the same time they wanted him to be proud of the longest greater region. this idea went down much better than south koreans today, and north koreans today would like to acknowledge. by the end of the 1920s, most educated koreans in big cities were voluntarily speaking japanese in their own homes, they which are in japanese newsreels, which of the victories over the chinese and so on and. of course, the average, the average korean at that time was uneducated, illiterate that he didn't have a radio. so those people have to be brutally coerce into complying with japan's demands for prostitutes or soldiers, or things like that. and i don't mean to downplay the brutality, but the middle and upper classes which were deriving the benefits of this new order, they subscribe to it fully.

so here you see those two groups. they have the average korean peasant on the left and on the right you have a very famous korean dance that i don't know if anyone knows who she is. she introduced the short hairstyle to korean women in the 1930s. you can see your that although she was a collaborator, although she donated enormous sums of money to the japanese emperor, to the embryo army, i'm sorry, you can see from her child's korean dress that she was so proud of her korean is at the same time. okay, in 1945 as you know, the korean peninsula was divided and there is the common misperception in the west and in south korea that while south korea was ideologically tainted by maintaining so many pro-japanese former collaborators, north korea started out completely fresh. north korea purged itself of all

these former pro-japanese collaborators and made completely new store. that's just not true. in fact, north korea was more welcoming a former intellectual collaborators. at least and sold some of them went to prison in north korea, nor former pro-japanese intellectual collaborators ever went to prison. and, in fact, these people, these really egregious pro-japanese propagandists went to north korea in 1945 and were welcomed with open arms and they took over leading position in the culture of characters in north korea. basic significant because no kind of denazification process ever took place. they did not receive any kind of an doctor nation in marxism and leninism because the workers party itself did not know anything about marxism. it isn't until about 1948. in the meantime these propagandists were expected to start inspiring the people with

the love of the regime. they did this quite naturally in the same way they had been doing it under the japanese. so basically the japanese ushered the koreans into this uniquely pure race. in 1945 the koreans kick the japanese out of it. korean eyes in the japanese symbol that they had learned during the colonial period. that's it for the host or go part of my talk. i want to get into the present now. with a worldview. the worldview to which the north koreans subscribe derive primarily from a race there. , a notion of the race as being unique. and severity of all of the ones. so when i say they korean eyes the japanese symbol, japan had his mount choose the, and the koreans decided to sacred status which had not enjoyed before 1945. many south koreans say wrongly think they've always been, they

only start this quite recently. and the emperor who starred the korean race allegedly, thousands and thousands of years ago, he became a historical figure almost overnight. and there you see the same bloodline extended by thousands and thousands of years. them is being that despite the numerous invasions which the peninsula endured over the centuries, the korean race was able to preserve its pure bloodline, its unique homogeny of the. and you can see that homogeny pictured below. i would've been but it recognizes where the picture comes from? anybody from reading the news recently. it's from the new north korean currency. you can see from those faces, those people look like close. that really is kind of the message, because according to the north korean regime the unique strength and unity of north korea derives from homogenate in of the korean

race. and these mass games i think of all seen on tv and maybe some have seen it documented, and state of mind, they are they are, we must proceed in the west as a stalinist exercises and anti-individualism but we think the goal is to stay about the sense of self to make them all behave in the same way. these mass games are very joyous, celebrations of the racial homogenaty from which the strength of the race divides. the north korean looks at these displays and seized thousands and thousands of girls of the same height, same build, same skin color, same hairstyle. and feels a pride in the homogenaty of the race. >> the logic is a little funny for us. to think that because the race is homogenous, it is uniquely pure. this is kind of the logic. because koreans are all alike, they are much kinder to each other than people in more heterogenous nations.

here's another interesting slogan from a north korean magazine. i always had north korean propaganda is a bit like a fascist idea what time is propaganda should look like. because you've got the left wing terminology being used to put across a race-based message which is incompatible with marxism, leninism. i can't stress that enough. this is not a nationalist tinge marxism like you had in yugoslavia. this is a way of looking at the world in almost exclusively racial categories. and nothing could be further removed than marxist basic idea of workers of the world unite. now, these are not nazis, mind you. no claim is made to physical superiority, or anything like that. rather, just like the japanese before them in the colonial period, the koreans claim a moral superiority. they claim they are inherently better, purer, more moral than people in other countries.

the difference to japanese nationalism is this. where the japanese believe that their virtue had protected them over the centuries, as you can see here in this depiction of the divine wins which destroyed the mongolian fleet, korea of course had a very different history from japan. korea had been invaded very often so the koreans believe that their virtue had made him an easy prey over the centuries. they believe that they had been invaded so often and abused so often by foreign powers because they were just too good. to kind to survive in such evil geopolitical surroundings. and, of course, this way of this inclination to look at themselves as the children on the world stage is tied together with the perceived need for a parental leader who will protect them and indulge them and allow them to be themselves without fear of invasion. so this brings us to the leader. again, just to make clear, the personality cult is not the

basis of this world do. the worldview comes out of the chemical comes out of the worldview it's a. logically, organically so to speak. this kim cold is quite obvious a derivative of the propagated in the 1920s and 1930s and korea. i could give you lots of examples but here's one i can show you quite easily on a slide. there have this guy on the white horse. and, of course, kim il-sung was also shown on a white horse. if in the terminology is the same. both lives were referred to as great martial. and in korean, the word was the same as well. it was striking to me they didn't feel the need to change the terminology. and, of course, kim jong-il is also shown on a white horse, although his sunglasses kind of ruined the effect a little bit. [laughter] >> but he is often a videotape

in pictured riding on horses as well. now, stalinism is another word for marxism, leninism. what is marxism, leninism rex marx himself said that communism was inevitable. he said the cap wasn't was doomed to collapse. no matter what. so the revolution was going to happen anyway. and lenin came along and said i don't think so because the masses are not particularly intelligent that they are not particularly critical thinkers. so if they're left to their own devices, these workers will fall very easily into the trap of trade unions. into the trap of demanding wage increases and getting a little bit more every year from the capitalists. so in order to keep the masses on message, so to speak, in order to keep the masses fighting for the revolution they need a communist party. and this idea is at the heart of culture under stalin as well.

the party's role is to make a spontaneous masses grow up, in other words, two is a revolutionary consciousness into the. and that's why stone and the congress party, the soviet union were always depicted as fatherly teacher figures. and as you can see from this picture, what do you think is the focal point here in the picture? what part of stalin's face are you supposed to be looking at? the eyes, rite aid because the eyes are the symbol of his unique mastery of dialectical mattila's and. where as in korea in north korea the believe was and is that the korean people should remain naïve. it's only logical if you are born pure, if you are born better than everyone else you don't need to be tampering your instinct with book learning. that way you will only dilute them. so it's better for the people to stay true to their pure instincts, for which reason can ill song and the workers party are not fatherly teacher figures

instead there protect to figure that as you can see it from this picture, the focus is not on kim ill sung's eyes, the focus is on or his boom to use the korean war. if you read north korean poultry, the poets are often talking about the desire to wrest their faces against this expansive chest and be and both indie parental leaders embrace. here's another example. this is what stalin does at night. he gets ready to teach the people the next day. and that's what kim ill sung does late night. [laughter] >> i showed a slide to one of my classes in south korea and again at the back of the classic navy is taking the coat off. [laughter] >> but he is not. what you find a a lot of the north korean studies, unfortunately very few people in

these think tanks in washington, d.c., can read korean. i'm not saying my korean is in any great shape, but i find it odd that you can be anything thank going and huge salary for expertise on north korea and not be able to read the korean language. a magic being in an italy think tank and you can't read italian that i don't think that would be acceptable. one of the mistranslations that you find to often and riding on north korea is this phrase, father there. that doesn't mean father, doesn't? it is apparent day. so kim il-sung is not referred to as the fatherly. is referred to as the paradigm. that is quite odd pick either referring to a man not as a father but as a parent. it's obvious you're trying to play up his maternal side. that's what they do in north korea. kim jong-il himself is on record as saying that kim il-sung smuggling qualities were the key to his success. so when people say that north

korea is a confucian patriarchy, they really couldn't be further from the truth. this is not a confucian society at all. kim jong-il as well, even when his depicted in military uniform, he comes across more as salvation army matron. he looks very feminine, and in photographs he looks like a south korean housewife. [laughter] >> here of course you have him with his expansive breast as well as holders want to lay the face against. [laughter] >> we tend to think that this personality cult is so absurd because it doesn't look like our idea of a general. you say general to an american and we think macarthur and eisenhower. we think people don't look at all like this. but actually this image has an appeal on the people of north korea. just to make sure i'm not reading anything into these pictures.

because north korean propaganda is not so. when they want to make a point they come right out and say it. so they do say literally our great mother, general kim jong-il. that's not all they call him of course but they do call him on occasion father leader as well. he's also been referred to as the parent increasing and also his paternal qualities are at the forefront. he is worrying about whether the soldiers are one of, whether they are eating enough insulin. he is not in educating figure. the party is also referred to quite literally as the mother party. this is the attitude that is expected of north korean citizens. i cry out for ever in the voice of a child. mother, i cannot live without mother. one of the signs that's held up during parades is we cannot live away from his breast, ending kim jong-il. so the symbolism really could not be more explicit.

so here is pretty much at the top have the motherland. then you have the mother general, then the mother party, and then you have this child race underneath it. if you were to show this slide to a social psychologist, even to someone that no idea about north korea, he would say i see an absence of bothersome is that i said absence of a father pencil. i see only authority figures. i would expect this to be a country which behaves very spontaneously and distinctly on the world stage. that is what we see with north korea. we see this pattern of events from the acts were in 1976 when north koreans rested taxes on the american soldiers that the bombing in 1983 in which the north koreans in the mid-one of their few remaining friends on the world stage, the burmese and then this bombing of the korean airliner, south korean airline in 1987, via before the olympic

games. all of this behavior which really is nothing at all likes of behavior that we expect from our cold war adversaries, can only be understood in the context of this race-based ideology which stresses the need to follow the instinct of the korean people. the outside world ever talk about there's a misperception among a lot of people that the north korean only hate the americans that they only discussed the americans. that's not true because if you believe your race to be uniquely pure, it follows from that that all other races are inferior to you. this is the message they get across. they get it across a little more subtly than other things. if you can look at this picture, unfortunately it is in black and white but i think you can make out quite well. this is a depiction of the 1989 youth games in pyongyang. these are funny foreigners who have visited pyongyang and archer and his fantastic city. the first thing is there's only one korean in that crowd.

namely the guy. so in other words, the cleanest race has to be kept apart from the foreigners lest they be defiled. the other thing that strikes you is the address of the people that you have those two african women, they could become occasion women in the foreground. they are dressed in ways which even today in north korea are considered very indecent. you have these two blonde women in the foreground. they look normal and attractive, but in north korea wearing a hair like that is considered a sign of bad morals. the other thing is about no matter which direction the foreigners are looking at, their faces are partially obscured by sort of his menacing shadow that the only person in the crowd his face is evenly lit, who's attracted my korean is the only korean person in that crowd. but, of course, the americans are the real villains in north korea off again. kim jong-il has been pressing just as a jackal cannot become a lamb, the yankees cannot change this average make your. now you couldn't get a less marked his ideas than that.

the sulleys are always very careful to draw a distinction between american capitalist and american, white americans and black americans, between men and between american women and children when they were talking about military topics. you don't see any of this in north korea. all americans are inherently degenerate. due to the raised according to the north koreans that the interesting thing about this is although they have caucasian facial features, they have black skins. and i think that this is because north korea does not want to alienate its few remaining friends in the world, most of whom are in africa like zimbabwe. at the same time it wants to communicate the contaminated nature of the american racial talks to his people. easy depictions like this. here's another one to show they demonize women and children as well. this is a depiction of a korean woman trying to confront the

american missionary family which murdered her child. you have the big noses and the something i said so on. here's the poster that i started off the slideshow with. the legend reads 100,000 times revenge on the yankee vampires. i put the year in which this post appeared next to it because that was the year in which north korea was american, they were sitting in enormous sums of money from the united states at that time, and ironically that was when they ramped up their anti-american propaganda. i think the implications of that are pretty clear. that they need this in any figure in order to ride the people around the regime. they take this deficit is a. i went to the resettlement facility for north korean refugees in seoul and i was walking down