Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist
(cont: North Korea) On our way to breakfast, they informed us that as soon as we finished, the cars would be waiting for us to go to Nampho. Again, I could hardly believe my ears. Nampho was their strategic port city, and for reasons of security and defense, I don’t believe any other American had ever been allowed to visit the spot.
We headed west through Pyongyang and a little south toward Nampho.
Nampho is about sixty-five or seventy miles out of Pyongyang. We passed the
tight security checkpoint line that encircled the city, about ten miles out.
The checkpoint ensured that no one would wander outside the city, but more
important, if you were just a worker, you could not have access into the city. You
could only go into the great city if you were requested, and then only with an
official pass. You had to be the best little street sweeper, or the best crew
worker before you were privileged to go into the city. Travel, even across
town, was never encouraged, and if for some reason you needed to meet with
other family members who lived in the city, those members would, more than
likely, have to travel outside the great city to meet with you. (And they say
that Socialism is classless!)
The farther we got from the city, the more we saw the ox carts
carrying loads and the oxen pulling the plows in the field. In preparation for
winter, the villagers were spreading their kernels of corn on the concrete road
to dry them in the September sun. The display reminded me of a huge yellow
quilt bedspread.
We passed the famed North Korean iron-ore mountains and steel
mills. I was shocked at the deferred maintenance everywhere. They had the
plants operating with bellowing smoke, but the metal buildings and structures
were badly rusting, the machinery was out of the 1950s, and the crawler
tractors were probably left over from the Korean War. And everywhere I looked,
things were old and unpainted and in bad disrepair.
Driving through Nampho, I saw the docks where our cargo container
of medical goods would be unloaded. It would have been fun to be there the day
of its arrival.
We drove on west and out of Nampho along the Taedong River toward
the sea. As we approached the sea, there were several miles of partitioned salt
fields between the road and the sea where they were processing their own salt. As
we came around a small mountain and past an old, rusted-out concrete batch
plant, there loomed two more giant marble gateways that formed an arch effect
across the road. The huge statues that faced each other were of workers being
led by Great Leader Kim Il-Sung, depicting the conquering of the sea and the
victory of the Worker’s Army.
In 1981 the government decided to build a sea barrage some eight
miles long to span the mouth of the Taedong River. The idea was to not only
make a land bridge to connect the northern province to the southern province
and eliminate the long trip inland around the wide mouth of the river, but also
to separate the seawater from the fresh river water. High tides on the sea
would send damaging waves back up river and wash out crops and dwellings. By
building the sea barrage, it also allowed the separated freshwater to be stored
at a designated level and pumped back up the river as far as needed for
irrigation. But the sea barrage did not allow the ships to move up and down the
wide river, so a series of four sets of locks was designed to handle the boat
traffic. The sea barrage was wide enough to accommodate not only a highway but
also a rail line. Estimates were that it would take a minimum of ten years to
accomplish the construction. But one advantage of being a dictator was the
option Kim Il-Sung would have to throw as many of his twenty-seven million workers
as possible at any project he might choose. Thirty thousand workers and five
years later, the job was completed. It had become one of the strategic
developments of the recent past. However, one of the weaknesses of the Socialist’s
division of labor was that when you take rice farmers and have them build huge
concrete structures, you may have a problem with quality control. The structure
in just this short time already showed signs of flaws and was in need of
repair.
We got lots of good pictures of the project and were even shown a
chronicled video of the process. (It was surprising, but this time our
overseers had not been so fussy about our picture taking. Last time they hadn’t
wanted me to take pictures of buildings, common people, or vehicles, and especially
not anything that had to do with the military or the Korean People’s Army.)
On the return trip to Pyongyang, I had time to do some
reflecting. I had now been in so many of the developing countries, which for
the past fifty years had tried every variation of Socialism imaginable—Zimbabwe,
Kenya, Zambia, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Romania,
Russia, Mexico, Cuba, China, Germany, Austria, Israel, Denmark, Belgium, India,
and others, and even in some measure Ireland, Canada, England, and the USA—and
all had gotten caught up in social projects, wealth redistribution, reversal
agendas, and welfare markets. In their feverish pitch to create a brand-new
world of absolute dreams, they had all neglected one thing: the power and basic
principles of economics. And now, once the wealth of previously created
establishments had all been redistributed and they had discovered that you
couldn’t keep dividing up nothing, the grand and glorious revolutionary dreams
were coming unraveled, and to greater or lesser degrees, the experiments were
now falling apart while the drivers tried to double their futile efforts to
keep the ungreased wagon wheels from falling off the wagons.
I watched hundreds of North Koreans on my way back to Pyongyang
walking along the roads or sitting along sides of the fields, or in groups
under trees—not a car or a bus in sight, not a shovel or a hoe in their hands,
no place to go, and absolutely no motivation to get there if they could go. And
really, why should they be motivated? Their group leaders gave them food,
government clothes, a house, parades and dances, signs with slogans of hope,
and the assurance that they had it better than anyone else in the world. It is
true, in one sense, that there is no unemployment. But the other side is
equally true: There is no employment either.
Pyongyang is a gorgeous propaganda city with no graffiti and very
little crime, but outside the city, it’s ox carts, candles, and cholera. Oops!
Sorry for the musing … back to work!
When we returned to the hotel, my good friend Chun Song Gap, the
senior man at the Department of Disarmament and Peace, was there. It was so
good to talk with him. He had already received the transcripts of the Los
Angeles summit I had attended, and we talked in detail about the positions
taken by the DPRK as well as the US State Department. We talked about the
embargo and the need for Project C.U.R.E. to continue to ship the terribly
needed medical supplies. He related to me some incidents indicating that his
government was now very serious about getting the liaison offices set up in
Pyongyang for the US, and Washington, D.C., for the DPRK as the next step for
lifting the embargo.
He said, “We are very much looking to you to help build those bridges
of friendship.”
© Dr. James W. Jackson
Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House
Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson.
To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com
No comments:
Post a Comment