Kimilsungism at Home and Abroad
This story is making the rounds over here in Korea: Kim Il-sung a Hero to Africa's Downtrodden: Academic.
[The same conservative daily bashes the above idea in this editorial: Calling the Great Leader Great Is Mere Stupidity.]
Said academic is English Literature Prof. Jang Shi-ki, on sabbatical in South Africa from Dongguk University, a Buddhist university and the same institution that produced Prof. Kang Jeong-koo, who recently praised North Korea and spearheaded the effort to tear down the statue of General Douglas MacArthur.
The GI calls a spade a spade in a post entitled Useful Idiot: Jang Shi-ki, - Kim Il Sung, African Hero?
Antti Leppäsen, in a post entitled Great Korean National Leadership, suggests that "it is true that many African nations still have a true friend in the North, even if the assistance is more in the form of congratulatory messages than in concrete things."
I have to strongly disagree with Mr. Leppäsen. The "congratulatory messages" he talks about are meaningless. They might serve to make leaders feel good about themselves, but nothing more, just as the Socialism espoused by Kim Il-sung made people feel good, but only produced hunger and poverty. North Korea was no "true friend" of Africa, but rather a sinister false friend, like the ones who put pressure on kids to try hard drugs.
Kim Il-sung, along with the other leaders mentioned by Prof. Jang as heroes to Africans, Fidel Castro, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mao Zedong, were murderous thugs* who left their countries mired in poverty due to their foolish embrace of Socialism. Those African nations who followed their example are now the poorest in the world. The countries of Africa that followed free market principles are at least now beginning to pull themselves up by their boot-straps. Socialism was, and is, a deadly poison, but it looked sweet in the 1960s. I'm sure the majority of the Africans Prof. Jang talked to were '60s has-beens, like the Socialist tercermundistas who taught Spanish at my university.
*Mao alone was responsible for as many as 50,000,000 deaths.
This story is making the rounds over here in Korea: Kim Il-sung a Hero to Africa's Downtrodden: Academic.
[The same conservative daily bashes the above idea in this editorial: Calling the Great Leader Great Is Mere Stupidity.]
Said academic is English Literature Prof. Jang Shi-ki, on sabbatical in South Africa from Dongguk University, a Buddhist university and the same institution that produced Prof. Kang Jeong-koo, who recently praised North Korea and spearheaded the effort to tear down the statue of General Douglas MacArthur.
The GI calls a spade a spade in a post entitled Useful Idiot: Jang Shi-ki, - Kim Il Sung, African Hero?
Antti Leppäsen, in a post entitled Great Korean National Leadership, suggests that "it is true that many African nations still have a true friend in the North, even if the assistance is more in the form of congratulatory messages than in concrete things."
I have to strongly disagree with Mr. Leppäsen. The "congratulatory messages" he talks about are meaningless. They might serve to make leaders feel good about themselves, but nothing more, just as the Socialism espoused by Kim Il-sung made people feel good, but only produced hunger and poverty. North Korea was no "true friend" of Africa, but rather a sinister false friend, like the ones who put pressure on kids to try hard drugs.
Kim Il-sung, along with the other leaders mentioned by Prof. Jang as heroes to Africans, Fidel Castro, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mao Zedong, were murderous thugs* who left their countries mired in poverty due to their foolish embrace of Socialism. Those African nations who followed their example are now the poorest in the world. The countries of Africa that followed free market principles are at least now beginning to pull themselves up by their boot-straps. Socialism was, and is, a deadly poison, but it looked sweet in the 1960s. I'm sure the majority of the Africans Prof. Jang talked to were '60s has-beens, like the Socialist tercermundistas who taught Spanish at my university.
*Mao alone was responsible for as many as 50,000,000 deaths.
Redeemed by Our Savior, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling in Pohang, South Korea, where I live with my wife, daughter, and son and teach English at a science and technology university. Baptized a Methodist and raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran in Buffalo, NY, I spent six years as a guest of the Anglican Communion before being received by the Grace of God into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the Feast of Saint Andrew, my patron, anno domini 2002.
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