These songs of freedom

If Kim Jong-Un’s twenty-something year-old little sister really has taken control of the manufacture of North Korea’s production of propaganda and mythology, she has begun her work with a powerful tacit admission: the state her brother leads has much in common with the feudal oligarchs past generations of North Koreans sang about overthrowing.

In an attempt to root out elements that can lead to potential political instabilities in the country, North Korea is stepping up music censorship and scrapping all cassette tapes and CDs that contain state-banned songs even if homegrown. Kim Jong Un is believed to have issued such orders out of concern that certain songs could instill people with criticism or resistance against the leadership, Daily NK has learned.

“Recently, the Central Party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department has drawn up a list of ‘songs of no origin’ and ‘banned songs’ and is circulating it throughout homes,” a source based in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on Thursday. “Included on the list are songs from the North’s own movie ‘Im Kkeok Jeong (leader of a peasant rebellion in the 16C).”

These songs, she explained, have titles like “Take action blood brothers” “To get revenge” and the list also includes the song “Nation of no tears” from a made-for-TV movie “Echoes of Halla.” Some of these tunes were already banned a few years ago, like “Take action blood brothers”, but this is the first time the state has actively taken forceful measures to wipe out any means of immediate access to them. [Daily NK]

The Daily NK claims to have multiple sources for the story from different regions. It reports that people are angry that the state is coming into their homes and stealing their tunes, and that merchants are angry that the state is confiscating and burning their merchandise.

It’s true, of course, that music can be a powerful galvanizing force for resistance movements. More than two hundred years after the Irish rebellion of 1798, people are still signing “The Rising of the Moon” in bars from Dublin to San Francisco. Here is another promising avenue for those who would flood North Korea with subversive content.

When I lived in Korea, not quite as long ago as it seems, the P.A. system on the saemaul express trains would play this jaunty old tune by Patty Kim every time the trains crossed the old, battle-scarred Han River bridges into Seoul, as they arrived from the southern cities of Taegu and Busan. Some North Koreans find the newer K-pop to be as vacuous and irritating as I do, but there is something agelessly hopeful about Kim’s song, in spite of its seventies ethos. I’ve always thought it would make a good anthem for those on both sides of the DMZ who yearn to be a nation once again.