Dennis Rodman's North Korea trip trivialises the horrors in the country

[umbertino]

What is frustrating is how the spectacle of Dennis Rodman in North Korea has again trivialised the ongoing horrors in the country, bending the narrative towards comedy once more.

 

 

By Malcolm Moore

2:29PM GMT 20 Dec 2013

 

 

 

"Yes it is all very WTF!?"

 

That is how Paddy Power accurately describes an event that the Irish bookmaker has chosen to name "The Bang in Pyongyang".

 

On Friday, Dennis "The Worm" Rodman, a 52-year-old former NBA basketball star with a flair for drawing attention to himself, brought his money-spinning carnival back to North Korea.

 

Sponsored by Paddy Power, he is trying to organise a match in January between NBA stars and North Korean basketball players. It has not been an easy sell.

 

"You know, they're still afraid to come here," Mr Rodman said, explaining the difficulties of persuading more level-headed athletes to fly to the rogue state.

 

 

"But I'm just telling them, you know, don't be afraid man, it's all love, it's all love here,"

 

Paddy Power, which is advertising the contest with the catchline "Hoops, not nukes", is spinning a line that sport can "rise above the news agenda and current affairs".

 

Just look, said Rory Scott, the company's spokesman, at how ping pong helped break the detente between China and the United States, how Nelson Mandela united South Africa for the 1995 Rugby World cup and how British and German troops laid down their weapons for a game of football on Christmas Day during World War One.

 

He did not mention the Nazi Olympics in 1936.

 

More appropriately, he also compared the "Bang in Pyongyang", as he hopes the game will be known, with the Rumble in the Jungle between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire in 1975, paid for by President Mobutu, "The Helmsman, the Redeemer, the Father of the Revolution and the Perpetual Defender of Property and People".

 

Mobutu, according to Norman Mailer's account, rounded up 300 of the worst criminals he could find ahead of the fight, imprisoned them in cells underneath the stadium and executed 50 of them in order to scare everyone into good behaviour for the bout.

 

Dictators love to use sport for propaganda, and in this instance, it has proven an excellent publicity vehicle for Paddy Power, Koryo Tours (which has sold out its near £5,500 tour package to see the match, at quadruple the price of a regular tour), and for Mr Rodman himself. It has also helped newspapers generate a wave of clicks on the internet, as they scramble to hype up the trip and win money from advertising.

 

Kim Jong-un may win some popular support at home, though I do not think he has much to gain, in terms of improving his international image, by associating with Mr Rodman.

 

All of which seems to me to be reasonable, if distasteful in a country where a bloodthirsty regime executes people at whim and keeps 80 per cent of its population underfed. As Paddy Power points out, there are certainly precedents.

 

But what is frustrating is how the spectacle has again trivialised the ongoing horrors in North Korea, bending the narrative towards comedy once more.

 

It is not right for Mr Rodman to declare that a country whose labour camps are expanding and where the majority of children are desperately undernourished is "all love".

 

We belittle and laugh at the Kim family, and see the regime as eccentric and ridiculous rather than as a six-decade-long nightmare, to absolve ourselves of having to think seriously about a solution.

 

Shin Donghyuk, who was born into a North Korean labour camp and who saw his mother, brother and indeed his six-year-old classmate killed in front of him, has made the most sense this week.

 

Writing an open letter to Mr Rodman, he said: "It is your right to drink fancy wines and enjoy yourself in luxurious parties, as you reportedly did in your previous trips to Pyongyang. But as you have a fun time with the dictator, please try to think about what he and his family have done and continue to do.

 

"I want Kim Jong Un to hear the cries of his people. Maybe you could use your friendship and your time together to help him understand that he has the power to close the camps and rebuild the country’s economy so everyone can afford to eat."

 

 

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10530727/Dennis-Rodmans-North-Korea-trip-trivialises-the-horrors-in-the-country.html

 

[Kandi77]

I think the USA should just deny Rodman coming back, if it's so great over there, let him stay!!!

[SgtFuryUSCZ]

***///

 

Wait until that fat little swine kim junk ill makes that mental midget rodman dig HIS own grave

like those other poor folks there have to...

 

then we'll see how much "love" there is under the regime there....

[dog53]

Rodmans a moron