Da Bomb

It's been an interesting past few days here on the peninsula in the globo-political sense, what with shots being fired across the DMZ on Saturday (actually not such an uncommon event), Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon's impending appointment as UN secretary-general any minute now, and of course, the confirmation of North Korea's first successful nuclear test earlier today. I'm not an expert in Asian politics, or East Asian military strategy, and my knowledge of Korean history is amateurish at best, so I won't take this opportunity to simply rehash what I've read in the news and heard interchangable talking heads waste a lot of hot air over. I do however, know a little bit about media analysis and linguistic ideologies, so I can offer my take on what is being (and has been) said about North Korea and nuclear weapons. My daily pre-work routine inevitably includes tuning into CNN World (tangential note: I'm not a big fan of CNN, but it is the only English language news station we have on our cable plan, and they also broadcast "The Daily Show Global Edition" late night Saturdays), which is how I first heard about the nuclear test. What stood out most for me was that, between what amounted to asking the same question worded slightly differently of correspondents in Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing, the CNN anchor in Atlanta took time to remind the viewing audience that "only CNN" has the "global reach" to be able to cover this story properly. I started to think, am I watching the news or a commercial for CNN? Also, what would BBC World have to say about that claim? But more seriously, each of the talking heads used similar language to describe North Korea: "isolated," "reclusive," removed from the "outside world," and even "pain in the butt." It wasn't so long ago that North Korea had attained "rogue state" status, or that Der Fuhrer was bestowing the "axis of evil" distinction on Kim Jong-il's Juche paradise. Statements like these are all strategic methods of marking North Korea, in the Jakobsonian sense. My personal opinion is that until we begin speaking about North Korea differently, the sense that there is a problem will persist indefinetely (but of course, in no way do I mean to say that allowing 2 million of your own citizens starve to death and doing little-to-nothing about it isn't a problem). In other words, the "fact" that North Korea (and its nuclear ambitions in particular) is a "problem" is partially embedded in the language we use to talk about North Korea, and therefore of our own doing.

One more note about my current neighbor to the north: in one of my classes a few weeks ago, I was discussing recreation with my students, specifically skiing, and one of the students related a story about a ski trip to a mountain in the north, near the DMZ. He added, excitedly, that he had "seen North Koreans" across the border when he was on top of the mountain. Some of the other students seemed impressed by his story, clearly exhibiting the "that-doesn't-happen-every-day" face. The way he described the experience was similar to the way other students have described a trip to the zoo, fascinated by catching a glimpse of the "exotic" and "rare."