By Neo Paul Retrieved from Le Point, from © KCNA VIA KNS/AFP / STR DPRK’s 3 secrets to stop the Covid-19: definitely not clickbait. (May or may not resemble a high school marketing presentation on Powerpoint completed the night of the deadline) “The whole world is watching in amazement and disbelief.” So says Un A, a young, unassuming and sharply dressed korean woman that looks like any other korean woman of her age. Except Un A proudly sports a small lapel pin (1) or ‘loyalty badge’ emblazoned with the image of the late but Eternal President, aka Kim Il Sung. Un A is the new face of the North Korean Propaganda Bureau, reflecting a trend towards the proverbial ‘Hip’. Gone are the days of choreographed goose stepping soldiers, roaring masses who sing praises to the Kim Dynasty and scream for the destruction of America. Well, gone for international audiences that is. Recently, DPRK apparatchiks have opted for a more, well, ‘normal’ approach. YouTube. Yes, that’s right North f*cking Korea has a YouTube Channel for propounding propaganda. Their aim is simple: To portray North Korea and its people as just like you and I. Started in 2017, the channel boasts a not unsizeable (for an authoritarian agitprop organ) 30k subs- all foreigners presumably (North Korea has an intranet, viz. An internal internet) and their videos are mostly in english, with a few korean ones but with subtitles available in German, French, Russian and Chinese in addition to English. Some videos have garnered over 100,000 views, with one exceeding 640,000! (2) I, being a McGill student and thus possessing a lot of time to procrastinate, perused some of the videos. The two on COVID-19 and the DPRK were the focus, and shed some light into their imaginary portrayal of it. One of them was just comical: A short video in the T/F format: “True or False(Panic Buying): Un A’s Pyongyang tour series: #northkorea” Wherein she pretended to film a store (the only store she features in her videos) undercover and in her bag and ask clients and employees on whether or not North Koreans were panic buying as here in the Imperialist pig-headed west. Of course not a single one admitted there was, but one did interestingly state that “except for imported goods(whose price had gone up), but who needs them?” evincing the fact that, due to COVID-19 and the cordon sanitaire around the DPRK imported goods have shot through the price glass ceiling, but that your ‘average’ North Korean thought it was their patriotic duty to ‘buy local’ and help facilitate the goal of autarchy as enshrined in the national ideology Juche. The other videos attempt to explain that North Korea is barely affected by the Coronavirus. “If there were not people wearing masks, there’s no sign of any unusual situation.” Allegedly, according to Un A 씨 toilet paper is among the top three most popular products. This can mean one of two things: either that North Koreans are not impervious to panic buying toilet paper like we capitalists, or that this new bourgeois invention is a necessity and beats ‘the revolutionary rags'(3). “As you can see all the shops are fully stocked with products and food to satisfy (sic) people’s demand.” So this is an attempt to parry the facts away: According to a US intelligence report, 60% of North Koreans are expected to go hungry by the end of 2020 (4). Shopping with Un A in Pyongyang is not an option for the majority of the DPRK’s denizens. Hunger should never be something anyone should have to think about. But, according to the USFK Commander Abrams, North Korea has imposed a new ‘Shoot to Kill’ order following the imposition of a 2 mile wide ‘buffer zone’ from the Chinese Border. Now this literally shoots two birds with one stone: Not only does this ostensibly allow the North Korean SOF to shoot people crossing over from China and potential vectors of the Coronavirus, but also smugglers and human traffickers who seek to enrich themselves by selling western goods or women into sexual slavery. Now, shooting anyone who crosses the border may seem intense, but it fits in perfectly with the regime’s track record. Especially since North Korea exhibits one of the most backwards and decrepit medical systems in the world. A COVID outbreak would not only result in thousands if not hundreds of thousands of deaths but could potentially cripple the regime’s monopoly on power. The Dear Leader and Marshal Kim Jong Un in a rare admission of a weakness states the same: “Frankly speaking, at our Party Plenary Meeting the country’s health and medical treatment sector’s current state of reality was thoroughly, scientifically, and honestly evaluated, and it pained my heart to criticize the fact that our country’s own capital does not wholly have modern medical treatment facilities,” an excerpt from a transcribed speech published in the Rodong Sinmun (5). Retrieved from Le Point, from © KCNA VIA KNS/AFP / STR Supreme Leader and The First Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and Marshal of the Republic, Ph.D, seen here birdwatching. Building a state of the art hospital in 7 months may seem insane, because it is. No doubt workers motivated by potential terms in a gulag will be able to finish it in time, but North Korea has a big shoddy construction problem. No one knows exactly, but recently hundreds died when an apartment block collapsed in Pyongyang. Remember: This is the capital, Pyongyang, where only the crème de la crème of Kim sycophants are allowed to enter. Wonder what it’s like elsewhere.
So, North Korea is cut off, starved, and no significant medical infrastructure to speak of. Naturally, (aside from shooting people) North Korea has been testing its people; a little over 30,000 people have been tested as of the start of the pandemic. Contrast this with South Korea’s envied 2,000,000- even accounting for the difference in population this is still a ratio of 33:1 roughly speaking. According to UN Special Rapporteur for North Korea Tomas Quintana, “The whole operation of the international community inside North Korea has been completely blocked," So we don’t have any reputable sources of enquiry, nor can we trust their message of ‘zero cases’. But wait: Maybe Un A has an explanation for this apparent miracle. And surprise surprise she does: Un A tells all in her video where she points to three main reasons why North Korea has been able to propitiously avoid ANY COVID-19 cases.
Thanks for reading my article, but it seems like everything I wrote is just fake news. Sorry for wasting your time folks shoulda remembered that Kim Jong Un would have prognosticate the Pandemic. (1) These badges are required for every loyal North Korean citizen, but unobtainable to ‘undesirables’ and sold at the jangmadang (장마당) or black market. (2) It was about North Koreans eating Pizza- akin to a bunch of aliens saying I too, fellow homo sapiens like democracy and freedom) (3) This is not actually factually correct, and this is true: it’s a joke. (4) “An estimated 59.2 percent of North Korea’s population is food-insecure in 2020, rising slightly to 59.8 percent when the effects of the COVID-19 macro shock are taken into account.” (5) Rodong Sinmun: The official State Newspaper in the DPRK (6) May be an understatement, if by ‘suggestion’ Un A is referring to 7.62 calibre bullets then yes, it is a ‘suggestion’.
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