Chapter 12 - Microphone Revolution : North Korean Cultural Diplomacy During the Liberation of Southern Africa

Summary

Abstract

North Korea is an overlooked actor in studies of Afro-Asian solidarity or the Cold War, even though it developed an independent foreign policy and managed to forge connections to African liberation movements. This chapter explores North Korea’s cultural diplomacy during the liberation of southern Africa through the establishment of Juche Study Centers. Juche, the official ideology of North Korea, was marketed in Africa through public meetings at Juche Study Centers, the distribution of translated literature, film viewings, and travel opportunities to Pyongyang. Juche was a vague philosophy that resonated with African views of post-colonial nation-building. Today, few people take Juche seriously but the fraternal ties between North Korea and African political regimes have withstood the test of time.

Keywords: North Korea, Cold War, cultural diplomacy, liberation struggles, Juche

On 8 April 1975, the Council of Ministers of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) held an extraordinary meeting in Dar es Salaam to discuss the unfolding liberation of southern Africa. The fight for independence had reached a critical stage. Angola and Mozambique were in uncharted territories after the sudden collapse of the Portuguese Empire and would soon descend into civil war, while Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe), South West Africa (modern Namibia), and South Africa were subjected to white-minority rule. African national liberation movements (NLMs) were at the forefront of the struggle, which was fought on two fronts: the diplomatic arena and low-intensity guerilla warfare on the ground.

“This, for us, is a crucial meeting. The Southern African crisis for us is a matter of life or death”, said Vernon Mwaanga, the Zambian Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the assembled OAU Council of Ministers. “Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia have written the history of their independence struggle in blood. Zambian blood is part of the ink with which that history is being written.” The explicit transnational nature of southern Africa’s liberation struggles was particularly felt in Zambia. As one of the Frontline States, Zambia harbored freedom fighters from all over the region and suffered therefore from imperial pressure, violence along its borders, and the influx of refugees.

At the end of his speech, Mwaanga made an interesting observation about the character of the liberation struggles: “A very strange form of revolution seems to be emerging in our ranks and that is ‘Microphone Revolution’, based on making nice speeches for public consumption at home.”