Mao Badges

I bought my first Mao badge when I was a teenager in the early 1970s. Since then I have accumulated a collection of several hundred. I thought I'd share a few of my favorites. I'll post up more in a few days. These badges were produced for decades, starting in the 1940s before the whole of China was liberated. The heyday of Mao badges was the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976, when millions of varieties were manufactured for mass consumption: most of these were the red and silver "bicycle reflector" type made of aluminum, none of which I'm actually showing today.

The first two photos here show photos from badges of the early period, stamped out of steel and enameled. I'm told that these early pins have been heavily counterfeited, which surprises me not one bit, so who knows if this are legit originals, I don't. Notable here is the pin above with the silhouettes of Mao and Stalin, the one below dated 1948, and the one below showing a Chinese volunteer bayonetting a red blob labelled "America," issued in solidarity with the DPRK, clearly a composition like the "take that" stamps I have featured here The Cahokian.

This final batch of badges are all plastic: the heart and two of the white pins are soft, squishy, puffy vinyl.

Black lives matter.

It's become a season of open war by white supremacist America on its citizens of African ancestry. But it's also become a season of resistance. #BlackLivesMatter #ICantBreathe #HandsUpDontShoot #ShutItDown #LessVotingMoreRevolution

Art by Patrick Campbell.

Anti-Americana: Anti-Imperialist Spectacle

This is a tourist postcard from Pyongyang, capital of the Democratic Republic of Korea. While tourism is not a major industry in North Korea, it does serve a public relations role in attempting to counteract the dominant western propaganda narrative built on standard anti-communist tropes of drudges walking around in a gray slave society. As a resident of the United States, which specializes in the manufacture of such tropes, I find it hard to accurately speculate on the actual nature of North Korean society; I suspect it's a country like any other, full of people just trying to live their lives in peace. I would reject out of hand both the giant prison narrative and the competing official rainbows and unicorns one.

Back to our postcard, this seems to be a shot of a stage spectacular. There's a projection of a spinning globe and a choir bearing red flags; actors gather in clusters around the stage posed in composed vignettes that suggest the dynamic groupings of people shown on propaganda posters. What's going on here?
 

Turning the card over, we get to the crux of the matter. The caption reads: "The revolutionary peoples of the world, unite more firmly under the banner of anti-imperialist, anti-U.S. struggle, and mutilate the U.S. imperialists in all parts!" Ouch!

The card doesn't say which, but this is clearly some kind of revolutionary theater production. As in cultural-revolution-era China, in North Korea there are a number of officially sanctioned revolutionary plays, operas, dances and films. One of them, "Sea of Blood," a story of resistance to the Japanese occupation, has apparently been running continuously since 1971. Another, "The Flower Girl," also about the years of resistance to Japan, is attributed to Great Leader Kim Il Sung himself. Sadly, I can't tell what work is represented on this postcard. But I'd sure like to see the show! I'm guessing this card is from the 1970s.

Anti-Americana: Historical Optimism

 

"Vietnam Will Win! America Will Lose!" reads this Chinese poster, probably from the early 1960s. I'm not 100% sure of this poster's provenance, and would love to know more about it. The illustration shows a crowd of peasants attacking an American soldier; usually the careful compositions of Chinese propaganda art showed a measured balance between civilians, militia, and military. Also, I'm pretty sure the Chinese characters used predate the simplification engineered in the PRC in the 1950s, and there is no use of Pinyin, which seemed to appear on most Chinese posters predating the Cultural Revolution. 

As for the slogan, of course it turned out to be quite accurate. A myth of the invincibility of US imperialism emerged somewhere between the Spanish-American War and World War II, that the US always emerged victorious from war. This myth is largely preserved in popular consciousness, even though it's quite far from the truth.

The U.S. failed to make a decisive victory in its first major post-WWII engagement, Korea. Unable to defeat the North Koreans, who were heavily backed by the Soviet Union and more importantly the new People's China, the best the US could achieve was a military stalemate, easily claimed as a victory by the North. Vietnam ended in the ignominious collapse of a massive American war effort. Cuba brushed off the CIA attack at Giron in 1961. Some minor US engagements, on might call them episodes of bullying, like Grenada and Panama, ended in decisive US victories. However, its two wars in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, while victorious in battlefield terms, probably count as net political defeats. The US seemed to win the cold war, though the resurgence of no-longer-even-claiming-to-be-socialist Russia on the international scene in the last few years makes it clear that that victory might have been only politically solid, leaving a potential military opponent standing.

Surely the US is hungry for a clear military success. Let's hope that proves elusive in Syria... or Iran.

Anti-Americana: Remember Norman Morrison, I Am Today and You Are Forever

I don't usually run two Anti-Americana features in a row, but the onslaught of pro-war propaganda as the Obama regime and his bipartisan allies attempt furiously to drum up support for their apocalyptic attack on Syria seems to demand it. Shown is a stamp from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or North Vietnam, issued in 1965 to honor "Noman Morixon," otherwise known as Norman Morrison. The stamp shows Morrison's smiling face, shown above an apparently American anti-Vietnam war demonstration with signs in English.

Morrison would be eighty this year had he not sacrificed his own life to protest the Vietnam War, then rapidly escalating. Morrison was a devout pacifist Quaker; in November of 1965 he doused himself with gasoline and burned himself to death in front of Robert McNamara's Pentagon office in Washington, D.C. Self-immolation has, of course, a long and tragically noble tradition, from the South Vietnamese monks who Morrison was probably emulating, to Mohammed Bouazizi of Tunisia who set off the Arab spring with his own supreme sacrifice.

Morrison became a folk hero in Vietnam. An incredibly moving poem about Morrison, his daughter Emily, who he carried along with him on the day of his death, and his act of political and social protest, was written by Vietnamese poet To Huu. I tracked down the poem, in its original Vietnamese with English translation, on a Vietnamese blog of poetry, Tay Bui, which I repost below. It's angry, profane, and really evocative of both the moment of Morrison's sacrifice and the horrible murderous moment in Vietnam he was protesting. Be sure to go to the original blog and thank the blogmaster for making this powerful poem available. Tay Bui offers some further information on Morrison in English and in Vietnamese.

I weep that once again, as warships steam toward Syria, this refrain of tragedy has the ring of now. It's past time to rid the world of the scourge of U.S. aggression, once more under the false flag of humanitarianism. How many more will die this time?

Emily, Child (Ê mi-ly, con)

Ê mi-ly, con đi cùng cha
Emily, come with me
Sau khôn lớn con thuộc đường, khỏi lạc...
Later you'll grow up you'll know the streets, no longer feel lost
- Đi đâu cha?
- Where are we going, dad?
- Ra bờ sông Pô-tô-mác
- To the banks of the Potomac
- Xem gì cha?
- To see what, dad?
Không con ơi, chỉ có Lầu ngũ giác.
Nothing my child, there's just the Pentagon.
Ôi con tôi, đôi mắt tròn xoe
Oh my child, your round eyes
Ôi con tôi, mái tóc vàng hoe
Oh my child, your locks so golden
Đừng có hỏi cha nhiều con nhé!
Don't ask your father so many questions, dear!
Cha bế con đi, tối con về với mẹ...
I'll carry you out, this evening you'll going home with your mother...
Oa-sinh-tơn
Washington
Buổi hoàng hôn
Twilight
Ôi những linh hồn
Oh, those souls
Còn, mất
That remain or are lost
Hãy cháy lên, cháy lên Sự thật!
Blaze, blaze the Truth!
Giôn-xơn!
Johnson!
Tội ác bay chồng chất
You fucker, your crimes accumulate
Cả nhân loại căm hờn
All humanity detests
Con quỷ vàng trên mặt đất.
The yellow demon upon this earth.
Mày không thể mượn nước son
You cannot borrow the crimson waters
Của Thiên Chúa, và màu vàng của Phật!
Of God, and Buddha's yellow.
Mác Na-ma-ra
McNamara
Mày trốn đâu? Giữa bãi tha ma
Where are you hiding, asshole? In the burial yard
Của toà nhà năm góc
Of a five corner building
Mỗi góc, một châu.
Each corner a continent
Mày vẫn chui đầu
You still squeeze your head
Trong lửa nóng
Inside hot flames
Như đà điểu rúc đầu trong cát bỏng.
Like the ostrich buries its head in the scorching sands

Hãy nhìn đây!
Look over here!
Nhìn ta phút này!
Look at me right now!
Ôi không chỉ là ta với con gái nhỏ trong tay
Oh it's not only me with my little daughter in my arms
Ta là Hôm nay
I am Today
Và con ta, Ê-mi-ly ơi, con là mãi mãi!
And my daughter, oh Emily, you are forever!
Ta đứng dậy,
I stand awake,
Với trái tim vĩ đại
With the great heart
Của trăm triệu con người
Of a hundred million
Nước Mỹ.
Americans.
Để đốt sáng đến chân trời
To flame, light up the horizon
Một ngọn đèn
A light
Công lý.
Of Justice.

Hỡi tất cả chúng bay, một bầy ma quỷ
Hey all you fuckers, pack of devils
Nhân danh ai?
In whose name?
Bay mang những B 52
You bring B52s
Những na-pan, hơi độc
Napalm, poison gas
Từ toà Bạch Ốc
From the White House
Từ đảo Guy-am
From Guam
Đến Việt Nam
To Vietnam
Để ám sát hoà bình và tự do dân tộc
To liquidate peace and national freedom
Để đốt những nhà thương, trường học
To incinerate hospitals and schools
Giết những con người chỉ biết yêu thương
Murder people who only know love
Giết những trẻ em chỉ biết đi trường
Murder kids who only know going to school
Giết những đồng xanh bốn mùa hoa lá
Murder green fields, four seasons of leaves and blossoms
Và giết cả những dòng sông của thơ ca nhạc hoạ!
And even murder rivers of poetry, music and art!

Nhân danh ai?
In whose name?
Bay chôn tuổi thanh xuân của chúng ta trong những quan tài
You bury the bloom of our youth in coffins
Ôi những người con trai khoẻ đẹp
Oh, those strong, handsome sons
Có thể biến thiên nhiên thành điện, thép
Who can transform nature to into electricity, steel
Cho con người hạnh phúc hôm nay!
For people's happiness today!

Nhân danh ai?
In whose name?
Bay đưa ta đến những rừng dày
You bring me to dense jungles
Những hố chông, những đồng lầy kháng chiến
Spiked pits, muddy fields of resistance
Những làng phố đã trở nên pháo đài ẩn hiện
Villages that become fortress that disperse to reappear
Những ngày đêm đất chuyển trời rung...
Nights and days where the heavens and earth shake and jolt
Ôi Việt Nam, xứ sở lạ lùng
Oh Vietnam, a strange land
Đến em thơ cũng hoá thành những anh hùng
To the children who become heroes
Đến ong dại cũng luyện thành chiến sĩ
To the wild bees who train to be warriors
Và hoa trái cũng biến thành vũ khí!
And the trees and flowers become weapons!

Hãy chết đi, chết đi
Go ahead and die, die
Tất cả chúng bay, một bầy ma quỷ!
All you jerks, a pack of demons
Và xin nghe, nước Mỹ ta ơi!
And I ask that you listen, my America!
Tiếng thương đau, tiếng căm giận đời đời
To the voices of pain, of eternal hatred
Của một người con. Của một con người thế kỷ
Of a child. Of a person of this century

Ê-mi-ly, con ơi!
Emily, oh child!
Trời sắp tối rồi...
It's beginning to get dark...
Cha không bế con về được nữa!
I can carry you no further
Khi đã sáng bùng lên ngọn lửa
When I ignite, light up as a flame
Đêm nay mẹ đến tìm con
Tonight, your mother will come find you
Con sẽ ôm lấy mẹ mà hôn
You'll hug her and kiss
Cho cha nhé
Her for me
Và con sẽ nói giùm với mẹ:
And tell your mother this for me:
Cha đi vui, xin mẹ đừng buồn!
I left happy, mother don't be sad!
Oa-sinh-tơn
Washington
Buổi hoàng hôn
Twilight
Còn mất?
Remains or is lost?
Đã đến phút lòng ta sáng nhất
It's come, the moment when my heart's brightest
Ta đốt thân ta
I set fire to myself
Cho ngọn lửa chói loà
So the flames dazzle
Sự thật.
Truth.

Anti-Americana: Kids Do the Darnedest Things

 

An Anti-Americana twofer today, with two North Korean images of unknown provenance. Both show cartoonish militarized children — an airman, a nurse, a soldier, and a seaman — using the tools of their trade to stick it to the man, in the form of a helmeted U.S. soldier. In the top image, the U.S. imperialist is joined by a Japanese imperialist: the North Koreans have long memories, not easily forgiving the brutal, forty year occupation of Korea in the first half of the 20th century.

I recognize these classically composed propaganda images cross the line from archetype to stereotype; still, I can't get enough of 'em. Frankly, with all the hypocritical sabre-rattling against Syria, I can't think of a nicer target for derision than U.S. imperialism.

If you enjoy these images, Anti-Americana is a regular feature here on the Cahokian; see old entries here. You can also subscribe to my pinterest feed of Anti-Americana by going here and clicking "follow." Also, check out the "Anti-Imperialist League" on facebook, in which I'll be trying to contextualize and historicize today's struggles in the long annals of organized popular resistance.

Anti-Americana: Common Interests

Dating from the 1960s, when the Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) was a little more self-identified with the socialist camp, this poster shows an armed Korean and and a very Che-looking armed Cuban bayoneting a cowering American figure in the corner who seems to look a lot like U.S. President Lyndon Baynes Johnson (LBJ). The flags are those of North Korea and Cuba, and sadly, once again my ignorance of Korean means I have no idea what the caption says. It's a classic distillation of the North Korean anti-American propaganda style.

North Korea and Cuba have of course both defied the presence of the strongest anti-Communist military power camped out right on their borders for decades. The threat to the Cuban and North Korean governments is evident every day still in 2013. Solidarity apparently actually helps!

In 1960, Che Guevara actually visited the DPRK on behalf of revolutionary Cuba, and here is a brief clip of him sitting down with DPRK leader Kim Il Sung. 

Stop the U.S. Attack on Syria!

It seems like it's finally about to happen. In the aftermath of an alleged poison gas attack on Syrian civilians, President Obama and his government are finally making noises about directly attacking Syria. There is widespread speculation in the press over so-called surgical cruise missile strikes against Syrian infrastructure and American naval forces in the Mediterranean are already steaming toward Syria. This, despite the fact that there is zero clarity over the nature of the supposed gas incident and what exactly happened and who exactly is responsible. The U.S. has even poo-pooed the fact-finding visit by U.N. weapons inspectors as "too late." It's deja-vu all over again, with flashbacks back to Iraq in the early part of the last decade.

The U.S., the biggest threat to world peace, now sets its sights on Syria. Let it be said: the U.S. cares nothing about the Syrian people suffering in a civil war, it cares only about geopolitical advantage and removing any threats to the State of Israel. The result is predictable: more Syrian people will die. There will be more terrorism and less stability. This is not a "humanitarian" anything, it will be murder, plain and simple, no different than the murders of Syrian people committed by the Assad dictatorship and the U.S./Saudi-backed Islamist rebels. The cruise missiles of the United States are a deadly threat aimed at anyone in the world who doesn't bow down to the brute force of imperialism. The record of American aggression is clear.

The attack must be stopped!

Anti-Americana: Unwelcome Visitor

I'm not entirely sure of the provenance of this image. It started appearing on my Facebook feed after the massacre of Ikhwan supporters in Egypt after the military coup. It shows a deadly spectre leaving a trail of blood as it moves along a hallway with doors marked "Pakistan," "Iraq," "Libya," "Syria" and "Egypt." The spectre is decked out in the stars and stripes, and its scythe is wrapped in the colors of the Israeli flag.

It is remarkable to me that the U.S. has, at least among its own citizens, preserved the laughable notion of being a benevolent, pacific world power gently using its influence for the greater good of the world's people. President Obama has displayed a remarkable clumsiness in foreign policy, as his speeches full of moral platitudes and lofty sentiment collide with American realpolitik, self-interest and remarkably self-evident hypocrisy. Sooner or later, all empires fall.

Anti-Americana is an ongoing series of anti-American propaganda art and caricature.

Anti-Americana: You Don't Scare Us

"You Don't Scare Us" reads this Russian-language Soviet poster, vintage 1984. It shows a burly Soviet worker, with hammer and sickle on his hardhat, getting his job done, while a wormy looking American politician threatens to push "the button" while military jets labelled "US" scramble in the background. "Pushing the button" was of course shorthand for launching an apocalyptic nuclear attack against the Soviet Union.

The occasion for this poster was no doubt the disturbing "joke" played by the senile U.S. president at the time. On August 11, 1984, cold warrior Ronald Reagan made this quip during a soundcheck before his weekly radio address: "My fellow Americans I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." The audio was subsequently leaked. While it had no apparent effect on his landslide reelection in a few short months, some of us were shocked.

In time-honored tradition, President Reagan joked about committing nuclear genocide. Some of us didn't find it so funny. The poster below (I had a copy) was soon popular on the left. This was the climactic height of the cold war, an era of renewed nuclear terror when the threat of apocalypse seized the popular imagination. Check out the films "Threads" (viewable on Youtube!) and "The Day After" (Youtube link) for a taste of what it was like to live with that terror.

 

The cold war and threat of nuclear destruction were even repeating themes of popular music. There was Nena's "99 Luftballons" (English or original German versions) which speculated about a war being triggered by misunderstanding, or the brutally cynical "Two Tribes" (when two tribes go to war, a point is all that you can score) by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Different versions of the Frankie song were released, but here's one video version from 1983:

This all seems timely with mildly-renewed tensions between the United States and the now post-Soviet, utterly de-socialized Russian Federation. Authoritarian (elected) strongman Vladimir Putin seems to relish posturing against western imperialism, despite the fact that Russia is now far from the twin superpower it once was. One wonders whether tension over Iran and Syria, or Russia's granting of temporary asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden are markers of a sort of renewed cold-war style tension. Obama and the U.S. are pretty clear that they're holding the stronger hand of cards and so have reacted at least publically temperately, but it's also clear that the U.S. won't suffer real competition for world hegemony.

The bullying foreign policy of the U.S. is one of the reasons I've been slow to make a public stand on the developing Stoli Vodka/Olympics boycott over outrageously repressive anti-gay laws being passed by the Russian government. I'm heartened to see clarity on the part of New Zealand revolutionary queers organizing support for the boycott under the slogan "Neither Washington nor Moscow but international queer liberation." Homonationalism is a real threat in the U.S., especially given the Obama government's pro-gay posture. The Wellington Queer Avengers slogan makes it really clear that cheering on imperialism isn't a road to liberation. I'm sure I'll have more to say on this subject later.

Anyway, cold war 2? Fun times ahead, again?

Anti-Americana is a regular feature of Anti-American art from around the world here at The Cahokian.

Anti-Americana: Anti-Imperialist BFFs?

Back in the early 1960s the People's Republic of China seemed firmly committed to the anti-imperialist camp. In 1963 it issued a series of stamps "in solidarity with revolutionary socialist Cuba." This value of the series is entitled, "Support Cuban People's Patriotic and Just Struggle Against U.S Imperialism." It shows a solidarity with Cuba rally being held in Beijing. Other values in the series showed a rally in Habana, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and some stellar cartoonish images of Cuban revolutionaries.

As the Sino-Soviet split worsened, Cuba and China grew apart. By the late 1970s, Cuba and China wound up on different sides of a number of proxy conflicts. In Angola, for instance, Cuban troops backing the MPLA government fought an extended civil war with the forces of the rival UNITA faction, armed by China, Apartheid South Africa and the American CIA. The moral of that story? Realpolitik is never good for revolutions.

Anyway, remembering this stamp is a good way to mark today's date, July 26, the date of the failed 1953 revolutionary attack on the Moncada Barracks in Cuba, and the namesake of the revolutionary movement that would go on to kick out the Batista dictatorship and its U.S. sponsors in 1959. The Movimiento 26 de Julio had a beautiful black and red banner that served as an inspiration for later revolutionaries in Chile (the MIR) and Nicaragua (the FSLN).

While we're at it, here's an LP from China in the 1960s having something to do with a celebration of the Cuban July 26th Movement. I don't read enough Chinese to get more than that, but that's pretty clearly an illustration meant to evoke Fidel. They don't make record covers like that anymore!

Just Do It.

US Imperialism Is A Paper Tiger
Excerpts from a speech by Mao Zedong, 1956

The United States is flaunting the anti-communist banner everywhere in order to perpetrate aggression against other countries.

The United States owes debts everywhere. It owes debts not only to the countries of Latin America, Asia and Africa, but also to the countries of Europe and Oceania. The whole world, Britain included dislikes the United States. The masses of the people dislike it. Japan dislikes the United States because it oppresses her. None of the countries in the East is free from U.S. aggression. The United States has invaded our Taiwan Province. Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam and Pakistan all suffer from U.S. aggression, although some of them are allies of the United States. The people are dissatisfied and in some countries so are the authorities.

All oppressed nations want independence.

Everything is subject to change. The big decadent forces will give way to the small new-born forces. The small forces will change into big forces because the majority of the people demand this change. The U.S. imperialist forces will change from big to small because the American people, too, are dissatisfied with their government.

In my own lifetime I myself have witnessed such changes. Some of us present were born in the Ching Dynasty and others after the 1911 Revolution...

Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn't. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.

History as a whole, the history of class society for thousands of years, has proved this point: the strong must give way to the weak. This holds true for the Americas as well.

Only when imperialism is eliminated can peace prevail. The day will come when the paper tigers will be wiped out. But they won't become extinct of their own accord, they need to be battered by the wind and the rain.

When we say U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, we are speaking in terms of strategy. Regarding it as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal. For instance, if it has ten fangs, knock off one the first time, and there will be nine left, knock off another, and there will be eight left. When all the fangs are gone, it will still have claws. If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end.

Strategically, we must utterly despise U.S. imperialism. Tactically, we must take it seriously. In struggling against it, we must take each battle, each encounter, seriously. At present, the United States is powerful, but when looked at in a broader perspective, as a whole and from a long-term viewpoint, it has no popular support, its policies are disliked by the people, because it oppresses and exploits them. For this reason, the tiger is doomed. Therefore, it is nothing to be afraid of and can be despised. But today the United States still has strength, turning out more than 100 million tons of steel a year and hitting out everywhere. That is why we must continue to wage struggles against it, fight it with all our might and wrest one position after another from it. And that takes time.

It seems that the countries of the Americas, Asia and Africa will have to go on quarrelling with the United States till the very end, till the paper tiger is destroyed by the wind and the rain.

To oppose U.S. imperialism, people of European origin in the Latin-American countries should unite with the indigenous Indians. Perhaps the white immigrants from Europe can be divided into two groups, one composed of rulers and the other of ruled. This should make it easier for the group of oppressed white people to get close to the local people, for their position is the same....

What use is imperialism? The Chinese people will have none of it, nor will the people in the rest of the world. There is no reason for the existence of imperialism.  

___

Also, gotta love The Onion. "US Flag Recalled After Causing 143 Million Deaths."

Anti-Americana: Take That, Redux

As it has done regularly since the 1950s, the DPRK (North Korea) has issued a new propaganda postage stamp depicting Korean resistance to US aggression. In the familiar "Take That" tableaux used on dozens of similar North Korean images, a soldier in a helmet labelled "US" cringes with his nuclear weapons in the corner of the design, while an angry Korean soldier towers above him. While previous images have shown workers with sledgehammers or clubs, or soldiers with bayonets, this one shows a soldier gripping the barrel of his rifle about to slam the unlucky American with the gun's stock.

I'm guessing the design is based on a a street poster, but I'm not sure, and sadly I don't read Korean so I can't guess at what specifically the slogans on the images say. The release of these stamps obviously corresponds to the current heightened tension between the DPRK and the United States.

Similarly-themed DPRK stamps from 1971 and 1969

Click on the "stamps" link here to see many more examples of how postage stamps have been transformed into tiny propaganda statements.  Here's two more from decades past.

Previous propaganda poster issue from 2010

In 2010 the DPRK reminded us not only of resistance to US imperialism (right) but also the long history of resistance to Japanese imperialism (left). It's not widely remembered here, but Japan colonized Korea in 1905, doing its utmost to destroy indigenous Korean culture and turn Korea into a source of cheap labor for the rising Japanese military-industrial complex. Though Korean communist forces and the Russian Army brought an end to Japanese occupation in 1945, many have accused Japan of continuing to cast a covetous eye on the peninsula.

Click on the images to see them larger. For more in the "Anti-Americana" series of propaganda images click here.

Anti-Americana: Enemy of Humanity

From 1983, a poster from the Cuban "Anti-Imperialist Tribunal of Our America." Bearing completely still-relevant text, it reads:

WANTED

Charge: Enemy of Humanity

Reward: Peace, Sovereignty, Freedom

In a country where the media narrative routinely suggests down is up and up is down,  it's worth remembering how warped American perspective is. Things look different from outside our borders. U.S. foreign policy isn't quite the gift to world progress it's made out to be.

In compiling the beginnings of a reading list on the Occupy movement, I ran across this brilliant passage:

"The American population, the 1% of the world, is wrapped in a skin filled with memory we must shed. Memory of false historical narratives, of manipulations we knowingly uphold, of dreams about “making it” and of an existence that seems to have stopped evolving. These false memories require our collective insomnia. We are not at the end of history, as some would have us believe. Our current society does not represent the best we can do. There is nothing inherent to human beings that allow some to achieve financial success by their own volition and others to remain stagnant in reaching an acceptable quality of life."

That's by Sandra Mae Nurse, from the article "On Losing Fear and Complacency" in issue 2 of the Occupy Wall Street theoretical journal Tidal, downloadable here.

"Anti-Americana" is a series featuring Anti-American propaganda art here at The Cahokian.

Anti-Americana: The Glorious Spring Victory

April 30 is the anniversary of the victory of the combined forces of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the People's Army of Vietnam over the United States and its Republic of Vietnam puppets in 1975, as tanks bearing NLF flags crashed the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon. This beautiful Vietnamese poster gets to the heart of the matter: vastly outgunned, a determined people defeated the most powerful military on earth and ended a conflict that had cost millions of lives. Human resilience won over military might. We do well to remember that conflict.

Anti-Americana: We'll Sink Your Battleship

2013 stamp and postcard from the DPRK

Fresh off the presses in February of this year, this new stamp and postcard from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (that's North Korea in popular parlance) honoring the vigilance of the DPRK military. Just in time for this year's Spring sabre-rattling, it shows a hypothetical artillery blow against an attacking American battleship. Designed in glorious North Korean agitprop posterese, this bright and colorful design is part of a series of four, though the only one to visually note whom the Korean military is defending itself against.

Speaking of sabre-rattling, this year's episode is marked by unprecedented amounts of bullshit from the US government and its media parrots. Every news report in the American media is full of talk of "threats" from North Korea. I'm amazed that the US can send high-tech bombers to actually practice dropping bombs over North Korea right in neighboring South Korea, and the North Korean response is called a "threat" with a straight face. I call that self-defense.

The repulsive neoliberal New York Times has even run an OpEd piece called "Bomb North Korea, Before It's Too Late," which calls for going ahead and starting a way. Never mind the genocide. Never mind the previous time, 60 years ago, when the USA literally flattened every city in North Korea and still couldn't defeat the North. What the heck, what's another 3 million lives lost?

Counterpunch recently ran an interview with some unnamed North Koreans. It should be required reading for all the Americans buying into the narrative of North Korea as some kind of crazed renegade bully. (As if a tiny poor country could bully the largest military power on earth). Here's a few choice extracts, quotations from DPRK citizens:

"The DPRK negotiated with the U.S., but the U.S. broke agreements, and increased sanctions five times. When the DPRK would agree to some terms, the U.S. would raise the ante. The U.S. had said we cannot have nuclear power, because we could use it for bombs. We cannot have satellites because the missiles we send them into space with can be used as military missiles. These they these things can have dual purpose, one civilian, one military.  They deny us food because they say it can be used to feed the military. If we kept going along with this, they would say we cannot have kitchen knives because we could use them for fighting.
There are slave states and noble states. Noble states develop their own technological infrastructure, GPS, weather reporting, etc., so need satellites. These days satellites are used for many things. If your country doesn’t have your own technology, you end up a slave state, dependent on other countries.  Noble countries are in control of their own development and have a future.
Maybe without nuclear weapons we could already have been attacked by the US in a war. Now our people can live more peacefully. The people of the DPRK are proud we have nuclear weapons, they are a guarantee of peace.  Only we on our own can safeguard the peace.
The US has over 1000 nuclear weapons in South Korea – nuclear artillery, nuclear missiles, nuclear bombs, nuclear landmines.
The DPRK has called for a nuclear free Korean peninsula, but this call has been ignored. Now that we saw no choice but to develop nuclear weapons to defend ourselves, we are sanctioned. This is a double standard insulting to our people."

Once again, the issue is not whether or not the government of the DPRK is more or less repressive than our own; the issue is whether North Korea has the right to stand up, as a sovereign nation, to provocation from the U.S. To me, the answer is clear, and an unqualified yes. 

Defend North Korea against imperialist attack!
 

Anti-Americana: Picasso's "Other" Massacre Memorial

Pablo Picasso's "Massacre in Korea," 1951

Mention Spanish artist Pablo Picasso in the context of political art and everybody thinks of "Guernica," right? His brilliant, massive canvas memorializing the bombing of the civilians of Guernica during the Spanish civil war by Nationalist forces is justifiably famous. Its haunting, angularly abstract imagery depicts the cruel murderous chaotic intensity of a bombed village in ways that are immediately affecting and unforgettable. "Guernica" is a painting that is rightfully taught to students (at least it was when I was in school), and rightfully holds a central position in the annals of 20th-century political art.

Turns out there is another work by Picasso that is not so widely taught or recognized, hanging in the Picasso museum in Paris. It's called "Massacre in Korea," dates from 1951, and depicts the massacre of Korean civilians at Sinchon by American forces early in what is misleadingly called in the United States "the Korean War."

I confess to having seen photographs of this painting before, but never questioned its subject matter until I read its title. I suspect that's no accident. Although it's acknowledged that Picasso was a leftist for much of his life, it's obvious that Picasso's truth-telling about the uncomfortable comparison between the murderous forces of Spanish fascism and US imperialism is anathema to popular art critics. How coldly hypocritical that this painting brilliantly depicting the murder of civilians by a robotized, dehumanized military machine would be quietly ignored because it runs counter to the official myths about what US imperialism was up to in Korea.

I've written repeatedly that North Korea's government is hardly the model of an egalitarian, forward-thinking socialist society. But whenever you hear the DPRK demonized on American TV, or read some fearful screed about the threat posed by the North Korean nuclear program, remember this painting. Remember who did what to whom. Guernica, Sinchon: Exactly the same things. Don't be fooled by the whining of bullies.

Anti-Americana: Burn, Baby, Burn

Two more stamps from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), from 1971 and apparently produced but withdrawn or not officially issued. These are some kind of rarities; I copped the graphics from ebay. I don't know the theme or circumstances of this issue, but the top value clearly shows the Statue of Liberty and the US Capitol engulfed in flames so it's not hard to guess what these stamps are about. The foreground figure is breaking chains of oppression, and is probably a South Korean revolutionary. The bottom stamp shows a militiaman slamming a US soldier whose helmet has gone flying; in the foreground is an industrial worker. These are all common archetypes in North Korean iconography. World anti-imperialist sentiment was at its height in 1971; the American war against Vietnam having taken a particularly ugly and genocidal turn.

Anti-American art is an irregular feature here at the Cahokian: for more click here.

Anti-Americana: Trouble Starter

According to the New York Times, the Arabic portion of this sign reads, "Death to America, trouble starter and war starter." This is a protester from a pro-democracy rally in Bahrain. The pro-democracy movement in US-ally Bahrain was sold out by the US-Saudi alliance (see this post here in The Cahokian) last year. Good on these protesters for figuring out who wasn't on their side.

Barbarians R Us

International solidarity campaigns have long been an activist staple. Citizens of countries who think themselves above barbarism appeal to the sensibilities of people who share their values and campaign against some ugly outrage on a foreign shore. While international solidarity campaigns have applied pressure to many just causes over the years, it's safe to say that most international solidarity campaign are of course the product of a web of complex ulterior motives usually rooted in geo-political reality. I remember the massive campaign of the 1970s and 1980s, "Save Soviet Jewry," which conveniently married the Zionist and anti-Communist agendas under a little righteously humanitarian umbrella. And as actually righteous as I believe the world campaign against South African Apartheid in that same period was, there's little doubt about the role the Cold War played in that struggle since the "West" largely supported South African racism and the pro-Communist world largely opposed it.

Which brings us to this fascinating postcard from the Soviet Union, vintage 1931. With its mailing instructions printed in eight Soviet languages, this postcard mobilizes international solidarity around the murderous reality in a particularly backward, barbarian corner of the world... the American South: "долой суд линча! да здравствуют негритянские рабочие!" "Down with Lynching! Long Live the Negro Workers!" The accompanying illustration shows a mob of root-tooting gun-waving, club-wielding, stetson-wearing, flag-waving yahoos stringing up a black man on a gallows.

It's funny how in retrospect that pre-war period is remembered as a succession of outrages about which international solidarity was mobilized: the Nazification of Germany and criminalization of the Jews, the Japanese attack on China, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the civil war in Spain. In 1931, it seems, the barbarians were right here at home.

Why do you think there was such massive African-American migration to northern cities in the first half of this century? Here's the answer: Because the American South was the Darfur of its day. On this day of the 2012 South Carolina primary where Republican dog-whistle racism is rising to audible levels (some would say "air-raid siren levels") it's worth remembering the not-so distant past even as it conflicts with our own carefully cultivated image as a liberal-minded bastion of civilization.

Related reading: Charles Blow today in the New York Times. Chauncey DeVega at We Are Respectable Negroes.

Click on the image of this postcard to see it larger.