What would your flyer say?
By David Tizzard
David Tizzard
Imagine the scenario: you are given access to a university-sized printing press, thousands of people who will work for free to create your flyers, and the ability to then drop the flyers on to a country with a population of more than 50 million people.
What would your flyers say? What would you want made known to all and sundry?
Before we consider some of the options, let's look at the reason for the question.
North Korea has released a series of articles and photos demonstrating its readiness to send thousands of recently printed flyers across the Demilitarized Zone and into South Korea. If you are interested in seeing these huge collections of propaganda pieces, I recommend checking out NK New's Jeongmin Kim on Twitter, who has done excellent reporting on the subject.
The North is readying to “terrorize” the South with information and broadcast its unadulterated views of President Moon and his administration. A Vice Dean from a department of Pyongyang University, Hwang Myong-do, said the country was going to “pour leaflet bombs of justice to the residence of the despicable scum” while going on to say that there were no limits to the amount of these that they could create.
The South's Unification Ministry has decried such plans and said that the actions would likely be in danger of violating inter-Korean agreements. Yet the ministry itself is in some degree of disarray with Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul having had his resignation accepted on Friday following the recent demolition of the inter-Korean liaison office in Gaesong, failing to meet the North Koreans for any significant meetings, and not finding a creative way around the sanctions imposed on Pyongyang by the United Nations Security Council.
To the corresponding dismay and delight of conservative and progressive onlookers, the President's Chief of Staff Im Jeong-seok is being touted as the new point man for all things North Korean. In 1989, Im was convicted and sentenced for arranging illegal visits to Pyongyang, so his views on the situation are well known to many in the country.
But while the administration has tried hard to accommodate the North for the past three years, its “nunchi” firmly glued on Chairman Kim Jong-un and the ruling family, it is now being shunned with hotlines shut down and its leaders berated in a series of personal scathing messages.
In a weird turn of events, the messages coming out of both North Korea and the South Korean conservative camp seem to be in line with each other. Most uncomfortable bed-fellows but possibly giving further support to the adage of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Neither the South nor the North seem capable of communicating with each other. If I were a relationship councilor, I would certainly be encouraging not only separation but also court orders enforcing distance between the two and restrictions on contact.
And this also applies to South Korean NGOs, some of which are operated by North Korean defector activists and seem to be funded by a degree of American taxpayers' money. They have been blamed for the current situation for their sending of balloons filled with rice, bibles and messages for the citizens of North Korea.
South Korea has designated “danger zones” around the Korean border and banned the sending of any further balloons following a chilling rebuke from Chairman Kim Jong-un's sister Kim Yo-jong. Her own position in Pyongyang is a matter of intense speculation as people believe the current show of power is to reinforce her military credentials and capability to manage the country should the situation occur.
But while the above is all very serious, it raises important questions about the effectiveness and suitability of the Moon administration's North Korean policy, and fuels speculation about what is happening in the chambers of power in Pyongyang; to many people today is simply Sunday and there are far more pressing issues.
So you are given a country-sized propaganda machine to bombard South Korean citizens with leaflets ― what would you say?
Would you demand economic reform and greater equality among citizens? Or more freedom and respect to the invisible hand?
Would you demand more protection for minorities in the form of the recently tabled anti-discrimination laws aimed at prohibiting the distasteful rhetoric and actions of some groups? Or a return to traditional values focused on celebrating the nuclear family?
More or less social distancing as numbers of infected Covid-19 patients remain at worrying levels?
Bombing Japan? Or reconciling with a potential democratic ally in the region to try to thwart the rise of Xi's China?
Shutting down Twitter for a few months just to get everyone to decompress and experience real life for a while? Or programming Twitter inside everyone's glasses so we can have a 24-hour constant stream of tweets?
Everyone would definitely say something different. There are advocates of all of the above and more. And that is the point.
It is these differences that make South Korea great. It is not a monolith. It is not one unified acting body that pushes in a single direction. It is no longer joined in an epic struggle to march north and liberate the North.
South Koreans do not say or do anything. The lives and answers of people here vary as dramatically as one can imagine.
It is now trying to work out how people with different views can live together peacefully and respectfully. There is a way to make that happen but it is a difficult path to tread and requires constant maintenance.
I hope that South Korean citizens see it as a path worth keeping on; a path on which everyone gets their own flyer and respects the flyers of others.
Because the alternative is, you know, a little bit Orwellian.
David Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) is an assistant professor at Seoul Women's University, where he teaches Korean Studies, and he is an adjunct professor at Hanyang University lecturing in World History and Political Science. He discusses the week's hottest issues on TBS eFM (101.3FM) on "Life Abroad" live every Thursday from 9:35-10 a.m.