For peace in Korea

Andy Brooks opening the meeting

 by New Worker correspondent

Friends of Korea returned to the Marx Memorial Library last weekend for a solidarity meeting to discuss the current efforts for peace and reunification that have taken place on both sides of the divided peninsula since Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s historic talks with Donald Trump, the leader of US imperialism in Singapore in June.

            The meeting, called by the Friends of Korea committee, was opened by NCP leader Andy Brooks who welcomed everyone in the hallowed hall whose boards had, as he said, once been tread by Harry Quelch and Lenin.  Michael Chant from the RCPB (ML) followed with a talk that focused to the current efforts for peace by the people’s government in the north and the new southern administration and the need to raise the question of peace on the streets of Britain in this, the hundredth anniversary of the end of the first world war.

            This was followed by Dermot Hudson of the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) who spoke about his recent visit to Democratic Korea and the giant strides that the people’s government is taking at home and abroad for the cause of peace and socialism.

            The panel then took part in a wide-ranging discussion that covered all aspects of the campaign for peace in Korea in Britain and across world. The meeting ended with the adoption of a solidarity message to Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea supporting the right of the Korean people to self-determination, independence and peace that was adopted by acclaim.

The Friends of Korea committee consists of the New Communist Party of Britain, Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (ML), Socialist Labour Party, European Regional Society for the Study of the Juché Idea and the UK Korean Friendship Association. Meetings are open to all friends of the Korean revolution and the committee organises events throughout the year which are listed by the supporting movements and on the Friends of Korea blog.

Korean solidarity in Belfast

Dermot Hudson speakng

By New Worker correspondent

Irish supporters of Democratic Korea met in Belfast last month to hear Dermot Hudson of the UK Korean Friendship Association (KFA) talk about his recent visit to north Korea and discuss future solidarity work in the north of Ireland.

The struggle for Korean reunification and the role of US imperialism came up during the discussion that followed. Inevitably comparisons were made between the division of Korea and the partition of Ireland by imperialism. Some great ideas came out of the meeting such as increased KFA Ireland activities and a proposal to have the works of great leader Kim Il Sung and dear leader Kim Jong Il translated into Gaelic.

DPRK: the future works!

By New Worker correspondent

Kim Song Gi addressing the meeting

Korean solidarity activists met last weekend to hear a report back from members of a recent delegation to Democratic Korea that took part in celebrating the 70^th  anniversary of the foundation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Pyongyang. The meeting at the Kings Cross Neighbourhood Centre in the heart of London was organised by the Korea Friendship Association (KFA), whose chair, Dermot Hudson had headed the UK KFA delegation that visited the DPRK last month.

            It was a first time visit for one of the delegates who said: “as the American journalist Lincoln Steffens said after spending time in the early days of the Soviet Union ‘I have seen the future, and it works’”.

 The meeting also commemorated the foundation of the Workers Party of Korea by great leader Kim Il Sung on 10^th October 1945.Kim Song Gi ,  a diplomat from the DPRK embassy in London,  addressed the meeting saying that the anniversary was a great event as the Party is the force leading the Korean people forward . He said thanks to efforts of the WPK and respected leader Kim Jong Un  another successful inter-Korean summit had taken place. Moreover the WPK is pursuing people-orientated policies and is taking care of people's lives.

Theo Russell spoke on behalf of the New Communist Party and a message from the RCPB (ML) was read out.

            A lively Q & A followed with questions about industrial democracy and workers control in the DPRK , sanctions , public transport fares , and free beer rations!

Palin in Juche land

By Ray Jones
 

Michael Palin in North Korea: Channel 5 TV 

‘Eerie’ music in the early morning over the capital, Pyongyang. Not a good start for an attempt to depict the true Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) I thought, as I had stayed in the same fine hotel as Palin some years before and I had not heard it.

“Do you think they put in the music afterwards?” asked my mother-in-law.  Probably not I thought, that seemed a bit too blatant and it has been a long time since I was there.

But somehow that incident seemed to set the scene – as perhaps it was meant to. What we saw could hardly be faulted: modern Pyongyang with its excellent schools, health care and leisure facilities, people enjoying themselves in their time off.

But we were kept aware of the ‘restrictions’ placed on Palin by the ‘sinister State’ behind the apparently affable guides and unseen minders. The implication being that there were all these terrible things going on behind the scenes but they were not allowed to show us them.

They could not show us them because they did not exist – whether they believed they existed is another matter. Towards the end of the second programme, Palin himself seems to have his doubts.

The DPRK is different from Britain and the West, and it may seem strange to many people here. One of Palin’s guides tried to explain the different attitude to their leaders. Our ‘leaders’ in the West are the result of the chaos and strife of capitalism, where dog eats dog and the devil take the hindmost.

Their leaders are the result of the collective struggle of a people who have thrown off imperialism and then capitalism and its drive for ever more profit. Yes, they have had immense problems and made many sacrifices, and they still have problems, but their great successes have forged a collective socialist society quite different from our own.

I don’t think Palin really understood this, which is a great pity, but if he had would the sinister powers of our society have allowed him to show it?