Justin Trudeau’s UN Address was a Meaningless Speech to a Worthless Body

Rex Murphy: Telling it like it is

    Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesPrime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses the United Nations General
    Assembly at UN headquarters, Sept. 20, 2016 in New York City.

Given the chance to address, say, the local numismatics society, or even the rotary club, the wise citizen would gladly choose either of these over the opportunity to speak in front of the ill-named United Nations. The stamp collectors and the Rotarians at least have the virtue of being what they say they are, and when they offer the podium to an outsider, they do so with the honest belief that the speaker will have something interesting or useful to say, and that he or she will actually be listened to.

The United Nations, on the other hand, though it is nothing if not diverse (dictators and kleptocrats rub shoulders with democratic presidents and prime ministers), it is so crosshatched with rivalries, intrigue, devious diplomacy and hypocritical posturing, that to speak of it as “united” is a contradiction in terms.

Consider its Human Rights Council, on which some of the most gruesome theocracies and grinding dictatorships on our tormented planet have held sway, thus undermining the supposed reason for its existence. Once in a while, the body does manage to come to an agreement, but only when its members unite to condemn the state of Israel (the detestation of Israel being something of a ground bass for UN sanctimony).

When the UN, with its posturing and deal-making, is not actively making things worse, or turning a blind eye to atrocities, it does have moments of pure play-acting and harmless diversion. At such moments, it takes on the atmosphere, minus the dignity, of the Ted Talks. These usually coincide with visits from the leaders of the world’s democracies. It is a favoured venue of U.S. President Barack Obama, for example.

Obama favours this meretricious chamber because it allows him to smugly lecture the rest of the world on being on the “right side of history” and the “moral arc” of our times. Meanwhile, the ravages in Syria continue unabated and North Korea, under its sovereign tyrant, Kim Jong-un, continues ramping up its nuclear program. The truly wretched of the Earth grow more wretched and the world, as they say, marches on.

This week, it was our dewy-fresh prime minister’s turn to address this esteemed body and, either out of vanity or innocence, he didn’t turn down the invitation. As to the substance of his effusion, one would need an intellectual Geiger counter to find any. The speech was described by the National Post’s John Ivison as “thin as soup made from the carcass of a starving pigeon.” And that’s being generous.

The address easily could have been passed off as a high-school valedictorian speech: it was trite, without being testy, and full of false equivalencies. It bore the now-ineluctable stamp of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s compulsion to hymn, yet again, the all-ranging virtues of diversity.

Fluffing a pillow in front of the UN delegates

would have had more of an impact

This word “diversity” has something of a clamp on Trudeau’s brain. He seems to think that merely to pronounce it out loud is to add to the sum of human insight, that its four flat syllables compress all the wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount, Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address and the best of Norman Vincent Peale into one handy little word. Yet fluffing a pillow in front of the UN delegates would have had more of an impact.

It’s a pity that, even in that forlorn venue, Trudeau was unwilling to let go of that rhetorical Linus blanket and say a few things about what is really going on in the world. He could have offered some meaningful analysis on the situation in Syria. He could have uttered some truths to those who rarely hear them. Instead, it was the usual mush about “modest Canada” and how we’re back and ready to help.

It really is time to stop bragging about how modest we are, as one cannot honestly brag about being modest. And besides, it’s unseemly. Let other countries pay testimony to our worth if they are so moved to do so. And as for diversity, yes it is a fine virtue as far as virtues go, but so are unity, coherence, national identity, fiscal competence and the rule of law. Saying the word “diversity” is not like waving a magic wand that somehow rids us of all tribulation and want. Nor is it, by any test, the only metric for a healthy and admirable society.

But it was a UN session, and perhaps it is understood that to scatter anything but clichés and self-congratulations before that august convocation would be a breach of its worthless protocols.

National Post

North Korea Defector Realized Her Country is a Lie

BY ADRIAN HUMPHREYS, NATIONAL POST

Watch Hyeonseo Lee

“It is ridiculous, the hairstyle he has, everything,” says Hyeonseo Lee.

She is talking about Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea and in her old life, before her defection from the tightly controlled regime, saying such a thing would condemn her and her family to prison or to death.

“I could kill three generations of my family,” she says.

Lee defected at 17, embarking on a perilous journey. Now 34, she has finally written her account of life and escape from the Hermit Kingdom in a new book, The Girl With Seven Names.

The woman was raised in a relatively privileged manner, a middle-class existence because of her stepfather’s job with the North Korean military, but even so she attended her first public execution at the age of seven — a stark lesson in obedience.

Seeing a man hanged under a railway bridge — one of many such public executions that are mandatory for people to see, she says — was only one of the grotesque means of control the regime waged against its citizens.

As in many authoritarian countries, for example, Lee’s family displayed portraits of the ruling family in their home, first Great Leader Kim Il-sung, then his son and heir Dear Leader Kim Jong-il and, later, his son and heir Kim Jong-un. The government gave them a special cloth for cleaning the portraits and nothing else. The pictures had to be the most prominent in any room, hung the highest, perfectly aligned and on a wall containing no other adornment.

Kim Jong-un

Once a month, Lee says, officials wearing white gloves would visit every house in her neighbourhood to inspect the portraits. If one was dusty or improperly hung, the family would be punished. It was with the portraits, one under each arm, that her stepfather emerged — blackened and coughing — after running back into their burning house, risking his life for their preservation.

“It was genuine (respect) and fear mixed together,” says Lee.

“They had to show they were loyal to the regime in order to survive.”

But people also knew no other life, had no access to information beyond what they were told by the state and dissent was absent from any discourse.

Things changed when famine struck in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At first, Lee was shielded from its effects, both because military ties allowed her family access to food and because of the propaganda of the regime, she says.

The government initiated a wide public education campaign — “Let us eat two meals a day” was the slogan, accompanied by information on how eating less was healthier.

As food distribution worsened and after the death of her stepfather, who had been arrested by military police on suspicions about his business deals and apparently killed himself while in hospital, the intense impact of famine became obvious.

“I saw people dying on the street. I was shocked. If we went near the train station or under the bridge we can easily see those dead bodies everywhere and the smells of decomposing bodies,” she says.

It troubled Lee not just emotionally, but intellectually.

All her education and the propaganda told her North Korea was the greatest country on Earth, its leader could change the weather and her homeland was a beacon of light in a world immersed in darkness.

“I believed we were the most privileged human beings — but they are dying from starvation on the street? It didn’t make sense to me at all,” she says.

When her family moved to the northern city of Hyesan, just across the Yalu river from China, the lies became irreconcilable. Stray signals from China could be captured on her television set and, in a locked room with blankets covering the windows, she would watch and see a different world.

Then there were the lights, twinkling across the river in the Chinese town of Changbai.

“We were suffering severe power shortages every night, but China has brilliant lights at night and even neon signs. I wanted to find out the answer myself by seeing the real life in China with my own eyes and I was very young, naive girl at the time so I was brave. I took the huge risk by crossing the border.”

She did not intend to defect.

One thing I could never handle was being separated from my family. It was very sad; living in South Korea — so close but very far away

The frozen river was narrow near her home and could be crossed with ease. She intended a “sneak visit,” she says, to see China, visit her father’s relatives there and return.

But in China she saw her upbringing had been a lie. For the first time, she heard people speaking openly about the North Korean regime. She heard Kim Jong-un called a “bastard” and the country’s starvation blamed on his failed economic policy.

“It was shocking to me; how can you make fun of our Dear Leader like that?” she says. And at first it was hard to accept, she still wanted to respect her country — a common thing, she learned, for those who have just fled North Korea.

She says now she knows how naive she was, about that as well as how hard her journey would be. Walking across the river was perhaps the easiest part.

In China she lived illegally, moving from place to place, taking on waitressing jobs, dating a policeman for her protection. She changed her identity several times. (She chose the name Hyeonseo Lee when she reached freedom. “Hyeon” means sunshine, she explains, “seo” means good fortune.)

Even when finally living in South Korea, settling in its capital, Seoul, she was tortured by constant thoughts of her mother and brother still in the north.

“(They) suffered a long time in North Korea because of me,” she says. They weren’t sent to prison but struggled under censorship and restrictions, with spies sending reports on her mom’s schedule to officials every day.

“One thing I could never handle was being separated from my family,” she says. “It was very sad; living in South Korea — so close but very far away.

“The farthest place.”

She decided she must try to free her mother and brother. Their escape, however, was not as simple as a walk across a frozen river. Lee was held by a smuggling gang and forced to pay large fees as she tried to arrange their passage.

When her family finally made it across the border into China, they narrowly escaped arrest and deportation. Leaving China, they were arrested in Laos and could not pay the bribe demanded for their release until an Australian man hearing their ordeal went to a bank machine and paid it for her.

They are almost the forgotten people

After that Lee and her family, like many defectors, were silent for a long time, fearing for others still in North Korea.

But in 2013, she decided to share some of her story in a TED Talk — a rare public account of life in the secretive country told directly in English. It caused a sensation.

There have been other accounts, usually mediated by translators. One of the most prominent defectors, Shin Dong-hyuk, told an eye-popping story of being born to two inmates in a notorious prison camp, where he lived, worked as a slave and was tortured until his daring escape.

It was an account he revised this year, however, with an admission he had exaggerated and fabricated parts of his story.

That hurts all defectors, says Lee.

“The original story is good enough without embellishment,” she says. “Western media want to hear very shocking stories … (and) some defectors are exaggerating or making up stories or taking other people’s stories as their own.”

But that should not detract from the real stories of defectors and, more importantly, of those still living in the Hermit Kingdom.

“Millions of North Koreans are … suffering under the dictatorship and not knowing of the reality of the outside world,” she says. “They are almost the forgotten people.”


National Post

Be Careful Around Kim Jong-un, He's a Little Touchy

North Korea Defence Chief Hyon Yong-chol 'executed'

From BBC Asia

North Korea's Defence Minister Hyon Yong-chol has been executed, South Korea's spy agency has told parliament, according to media reports.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that MPs were told Mr Hyon had been killed on 30 April by anti-aircraft fire.

Anti-aircraft fire? Wow! I guess Kim wanted him really, really dead.

He is believed to have been accused of showing disloyalty to North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un.

Reports from North Korea are impossible to independently confirm.

There were few details of the reported execution, but Yonhap - quoting South Korea's National Intelligence Agency briefing - said Mr Hyon had fallen asleep during an event attended by Kim Jong-un.

In a normal country, you might get 'fired' for that, not 'fired at'.

Mr Hyon became military chief in 2012 following a purge of officials.

He is believed to have been a general since 2010, though little is known about him.

He served on the committee for late leader Kim Jong-il's funeral in December 2011, an indication of an influential role within the political elite.

Meanwhile:

A High-Ranking Defector Predicts Kim Will Fall within 3 Years

Seoul, South Korea (CNN)While the late Kim Jong Il imprisoned his enemies, his son and current North Korean leader simply executes them, says one of the highest-level officials to escape the isolated country in years.

A man we are referring to simply as Park to protect his identity tells CNN, in his first-ever interview, that Kim Jong Un's cruelty is shocking those around him.

He says, while his father and grandfather Kim Il Sung were both considered cruel by many around the world, Kim Jong Un is taking ruling by fear to a new level.

"During his first three years in power, hundreds of the elite have been executed," Park says, adding this brutality is shaking an already weak support base.

Much of what Park tells us cannot be independently confirmed, as North Korea is one of the most closed and repressive countries on Earth.

Regime defector claims Kim Jong Un poisoned aunt (right)

Execution claims
However, Park says, within three months of taking over from his power, seven of Kim's closest aides were killed, along with their entire families, he claims, including the children.

One of those close aides was his own Uncle. When his Aunt complained, he had her poisoned.

South Korean intelligence believes Kim has already executed 15 senior officials so far this year.

"A lot of top officials in North Korea are not sure which direction Kim Jong Un is taking them in," says Park. "He doesn't know how to be a leader. He doesn't know politics, economy, culture or diplomacy."

Initial plans for a more open market economy modeled on China was soon dumped, says Park, once it became clear opening up could jeopardize Kim's iron grip on power.

"People are struggling to survive and are trading on the black market so the official economy is barely functioning." Park adds "a lot of people are trading foreign currency and running small businesses but the power of the state to control that money is weakening."

On a rare visit to North Korea, CNN put the claims of high-level executions to Park Yong Chol, the deputy director of the DPRK Institute for Research into National Reunification -- a think tank with links to the highest levels of North Korea's government.

He dismissed the claims as "baseless and groundless," but did not deny executions had occurred in North Korea. "It is very normal for any country to go after hostile elements and punish them and execute them."

Uncle being taken to firing squad

Tenuous grip on power?
Park predicts Kim's leadership may implode within three years. He says he does not know what or who would follow.

Park is not the first North Korean defector to predict Kim's days in power are numbered although many experts cast doubt on those forecasts.

Park also claims senior officials are increasingly questioning Kim's claim to the throne. Many believe his mother was born in Japan, an historical enemy of the Kim dynasty, which obsesses over a pure regal bloodline. Park says many doubt he ever met his grandfather, the founder of the country, Kim Il Sung.

"Kim Il Sung was the leader of the Paektu bloodline, but there is not a single photo of them taken together. That is why people suspect Kim Jong Un was never recognized by his grandfather."

Senior officials are also concerned by Kim Jong Un's move away from its main ally and sponsor, China. Park claims when Kim learned Chinese President Xi Jinping was visiting South Korea last July, he gave a directive to stop government-level interaction with China. (see - touchy).

"The blood alliance with China which lasted for decades became neglected. China chose South Korea for its strategic partnership. North Korea has become very troublesome to China. This is how Kim Jong Un has isolated the country even further."

This should make North Korea more vulnerable to sanctions or other action at the UN. China has been vetoing most attempts to deal with the Kims, but they may be more open to change now. 

On the other hand, as we know, when leaders are in serious decline in public favor, one of the best tools to remedy that is to start a war. This could be a very dangerous time for southeast Asia.

Kim Jong-un - A boy in man's clothes who takes himself far too seriously