In The Weekly Standard: North Korea’s war on women
I believe, having written this, that I’ve gotten out of my system everything I’ve ever wanted to write about Christine Ahn and Women Cross DMZ.
For this year.
I just hope Gloria Steinem doesn’t leave her feminism at home when she goes to Pyongyang. Millions of North Korean women need her support, more desperately than she’s willing to see.
On the same topic, see also this op-ed, in The Washington Post, by Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Greg Scarlatoiu.
Alas, I’ll bet you 1000 kw that your pen will be obliged to scratch on this subject again in short order.
Joshua, I’m still relatively new to your excellent site, but out of curiosity, have you ever actually interacted with Christine Ahn (online or in person)? Because I’ve seen you interact with some of North Korea’s other useful idiots elsewhere on here whom I will not name.
My assumption, when this spectacle was first announced, was that the participants (at least, Christine Ahn, and some of the other ‘notables’ who should be familiar to anyone with knowledge the Korean Studies discipline and some of the advocacy masquerading scholarship that occurs within its confines) were calculating that the South Korean government would see it exactly for what it is and refuse to allow them to cross over the DMZ. The march organizers could then turn around and pillory the South Korean government for being the oppressive handmaiden of American imperialism, and anti-peace, and anti-women, and virtually every other relevant slur that you can conceive of — all contrasted with North Korea’s sincere desire for peaceful co-existence. I would not have put it past them to follow a formal rejection from South Korea by traveling to one of the Koreas and attempting to incite a confrontation at the DMZ, though that might’ve been rather much even for them. By allowing the march to proceed, the South Korean government has actually deflated the occasion, which is certainly better than if it had refused to cooperate. I suspect that would’ve only drawn further attention to this exhibitionism and led some international journalists to question the propriety of South Korea’s decision. Unfortunately, very few people seem to have any serious objections to restricting the conduct of North Korean human rights advocates in the name of resurrecting the inter-Korean relationship, but interfere with the activities of anyone who can claim to be on the left in these matters, and that is cause for outrage.
The entire motivation of this march is ghoulish to me, but this is more about personal identification than practical politics; I suspect that is true for most of the people involved in Korean issues who still hold to a particular perspective on the causes for its present state. Of course, I shouldn’t expect any introspection from people like Christine Ahn, since according to their logic, North Korea is without fault: it paradoxically deserves unconditional support for being the independent, anti-colonial antithesis to South Korea, while being without agency whatsoever, purely reactive and victimized in everything it does.
Talk about raining on someone’s parade…People of this psychological stripe are about as likely to change their opinion as the sun is to turn to ice. But you yourself are proving that their act provides the inadvertent opportunity to shine a light under the stone of North Korea’s decrepitude. Not a single person outside very limited circles will pay the slightest attention to their march. They should do it every week.