: BBC2’s programme on North Korea (screened last night) was an informative, distressing, at times chilling, study of some of what goes on in that wretched country.
Near the end, the programme turned to discussing the possibility that anything might be done about it. “In the other hermetically-sealed land”, was how the voice-over introduced a view of Washington, where, we were told, action would not be taken because, “North Korea has no oil”. Not all the brief analysis of why the U.S. appears less ready to invade North Korea than Iraq was down at this visceral anti-american level, but that these lines were spoken prompts some reflections.
The programme-makers doubtless had to imply some interest in North Korea’s version of events to be let in to film. (Honourably for them, I doubt they’ll be allowed back now this has been screened.) Were the above lines performing a similar function in BBC-land, a necessary genuflection to the BBC’s view of the U.S.? The speculation seems a more-than-fair riposte to the ‘other hermetically-sealed land’ quip.
Of course, had the BBC not already established a very solid anti-Bush record, they might never have been allowed in to film in the first place. The most enlightening (and disturbing) data came from escapees and defectors interviewed outside the country, but what we saw inside – the unanimity of remarks and the patent fear and desire to cut discussion short engendered by the slightest controversial question – also told its tale. So I leave it to the reader to determine whether the tendency of this post is to criticise BBC bias or to grant that it can sometimes serve the greater good.
Meanwhile, though the horrors the witnesses told of may not alter anyone’s view of the rights and wrongs either of BBC bias or of the many other things that we or the BBC complain about here in the west, they certainly put them in perspective.
I too enjoyed the programme last night as I have a keen interest in North Korea. I would have enjoyed it even more had the usual BBC anti-American bias not reared its ugly head towards the end. The programme certainly didn’t make any effort to highlight the fact that North Korea could quite easily blast Tokyo or Seoul into the dark ages with its extensive array of hidden armaments should the U.S decide for regime change through force. The reason according to the programme makers was that most tiring of excuses: “lack of oil”.
The BBC’s entry into the DPRK is certainly not nearly enough recompense to the people of the UK for its abandonment of objective professionalism for advocacy and political shilling.
It sounds to me the BBC is the one that’s hermitically sealed, not Washington.
I caught the last 20 minutes of the programme and was genuinely horrified and repulsed by the stomach churning evil it portrayed of the callous murder of entire famillies as a process of experimentation for biological warfare. Pure, total evil incarnate and a rare instance where a comparison with Nazi Germany is entirely appropriate.
I was also disgusted by the grim inevitability of the narrator blaming America for this too.
I mean it’s also America’s ‘fault’ that SOUTH Korea is a prosperous, free, democratic country
and without America the WHOLE of Korea would be one big prison camp.
If America had won the Korean war then North Korea would NOT be such a complete hell-hole!
Cont.
The snide remarks and digs at the Bush administration about regime change being ‘last years news’ and there being ‘no oil’ were entirely predictable and in keeping with the BBC’s hate/blame – America Weltanschauung. If Bush decided to invade North Korea the BBC would immediately change tack and start moaning about U.S ‘Imperialism’.
The practicalities of the U.S invading a country with nuclear weapons which could murder millions of South Korean citizens within minutes were also unsurprisingly not discussed.
You don’t seriously think that the BBC would actually broadcast something that hints at the existence of “evil” (itself a laughable proposition believed in only by Bush and his wacko fundamentalist supporters) without implicating America….
Since it has decided that the DPRK is an awful place, but lies about about the U.S. to advance its own partisab agenda, one wonders what the BBC would propose ought to happen? Let the North Koreans suffer while the UN leads the world in virtuous multilateral indifference and inaction?
OT: BBC error or change of heart?
In the news story at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3455019.stm
(Last updated at 03FEB04 at 12:25)
The fifth paragraph reads:
“Nejad was one of six heavily-armed terrorists who on April 30 1980 seized the Iranian Embassy in Princes Gate, London, and held 26 people hostage.”
Did you spot that use of the ‘T’ word? Surely the man is, in Beebspeak, a ‘militant’ or a ‘freedom fighter’.
In this case the BBC has it right – people who use violence (particularly against unarmed civilians) in pursuit of political goals are terrorists, pure and simple.
So why all the nonsense when it comes to describing terrorists who happen to be Palestinian?
Well, we’ve ceratinly reached a real low if we’re lauding the BBC for actually reporting that N. Korea is a brutal place. How “brave” (to borrow from what’s his names description of Gilligan’s reporting).
In a similair vein, the head of CNN has admitted that his organisation had deliberately ‘gone soft’ on Iraq in recent years, in exchange for greater access to film there, and access to (former) officials.
No news yet as to how many million barrels of oil were received in recompense!