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A major scandal recently hit Korean politics. Newly-elected Assemblywoman Lim Su-kyung found herself in the spotlight for going ballistic during a chance encounter with a North Korean refugee.
The backbencher of the left-leaning (and moderately nationalist) Democratic United Party described the person as a ``traitor.” Lim soon expressed her regret about the incident and claimed that her remarks had been ``misinterpreted”.
Predictably, the conservative press had a field day whilst more left-leaning media habitually cried wolf (by that I mean McCarthyism).
But I do not want to get involved with the dispute ― as noisy and dishonest as most of these kinds of things are. I always remember that Lim once made a great contribution in changing the worldview of North Koreans and making many of them more skeptical about their government. This is an interesting paradox since it was likely not her slightest intention ― as the recent scandal has confirmed, Lim herself is not renowned for her critical attitude toward the North Korean family dictatorship.
In the summer of 1989, North Korea hosted the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students ― a pompous gathering of left-leaning youth organizations from across the globe. A South Korean student group decided to send Lim ― then a prominent student activist ― to represent the South Korean ``progressive” students group in Pyongyang. The South Korean government ― still dominated by unrepentant Cold Warriors ― banned the trip, but she went anyway.
The North Korean authorities granted the girl royal treatment. She spent her time there in endless meetings with North Korean students and the general public. She was presented as a quintessential South Korean student whose sole desire was unification of the country under some form of left-leaning government (it was implied, but not explicitly stated, that such a government should be dominated by Pyongyang).
Lim created a sensation among common North Koreans. In the last decade I have talked with hundreds of North Koreans and her name has been mentioned countless times. However, her actions did not back up official propaganda, but rather had the opposite result. Her behavior, clothes and her statements told the average North Korean about the superior standards of living and social freedom in the South.
As a refugee in her 60s recently put it in a conversation with me, ``I used to think of South Korea as a poor and brutal dictatorship, but then Lim Su-kyung came and I realized that this could not possibly be the case.” Predictably, out of politeness or conviction, Lim did not say anything that could possibly embarrass her handlers. She said what she was expected to and sounded as positive as she could be about her hosts (whether she secretly harbored some doubts or not is a different slippery topic, which I would rather avoid here).
At the same time, however, her speeches were clearly unscripted and sincere. Lim improvised frequently and she expressed her moderate disappointment about things that were unspeakable to the average North Korean (like the excessive security at political events).
Lim would return South via the Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom. Upon crossing the border, she was immediately arrested because the National Security Law, an unfortunate remnant from the Cold War era, criminalizes all unofficial/unauthorized interaction with the North.
Common North Koreans assumed that Lim would die in prison since that is what would happen in the North. They were very surprised to see North Korean TV broadcasting an interview with Lim’s family who continued to reside in an apartment in the South Korean capital of Seoul. This was a major blow to the officially proscribed North Korean worldview since in the North Korea of that period, the entire family of a political prisoner would normally be shipped to a prison camp.
This, as well as news of Lim’s release from prison clearly demonstrated to many North Koreans that the alleged ‘fascist, pro-imperialist and crypto-colony’ is unusually permissive in dealing with political prisoners (and Lim’s fashionable attire further testified to the high income of allegedly suffering political activists).
Obviously, the North Korean propagandists realized that a gross mistake was made, so references to Lim suddenly disappeared from the official North Korean media. Nonetheless, the damage was done.
The story of Lim’s 1989 visit once again demonstrates that almost any type of exposure to the outside world influences North Korea. Lim’s actual views are surprisingly irrelevant. She might secretly be critical of the North Korean regime, or she might be one of its zealous admirers, but it does not really matter. What is important is the fact that her 1989 visit was a seismic event in the cultural and social history of North Korea – and it brought results completely opposite to the expectations of those people who once planned and encouraged this visit.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. You can reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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