Thread by @BonicMichael

I believe that North Korean youth know their history b/c as a people they lived thru it.
"Pyongyang has continued teaching children behind the scenes or w/ coded language in state media to hate the U.S. for its alleged war crimes during the Korean War."
nknews.org/2022/01/death-…

2/The ideological divide acts as a barrier that prevents Westerners & South Koreans from seeing North Koreans as people just like them but who have a socialist identity & want to feel safe.
“We have to defend our sovereignty, our identity.” - Yun So Hyun

https://twitter.com/bonicmichael/status/1477757075295850497?s=21

3/Koreans w/ heart:
Hundreds gather in Seoul on 70th anniversary of the Jeju Uprising which saw tens of thousands of “SOUTH Korean leftists, anticolonial activists & supporters of a unified Korea” [Tim Shorrock] killed by South Korean military
[3 Apr 2018]
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5…

4/North Koreans are masters at the performing & music🎶arts. What then are we seeing in👇?:
The “Death to the American Imperialists” (미제에게 죽음을!) slogan appears on the left, and the drawing of a U.S. soldier on the right | Images: KCTV (Jan. 2, 2022)
nknews.org/wp-content/upl…

5/The US & South Korean narrative is reflected in: "Pyongyang has continued teaching children behind the scenes or w/ coded language in state media to hate the U.S. for its alleged war crimes during the Korean War."
This requires a suspension of disbelief:

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1478577525030723586?s=20

6/The amazing artistic dance performance enacted by these gifted North Korean students aren't a validation of Western belief (& dogma) that NK youth are "[taught] to hate the U.S. for its alleged war crimes during the Korean War", but an expression thru dance-theater on stage of

7/of the experience of those who died in the Jeju Uprising and subsequent Yeosu-Suncheon rebellion.

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1477750522450898946?s=20

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1477747854810632193?s=20

Tell me these aren't 👇the descendants of those Koreans who went on to become the DPRK, students of art & dance, bringing to life

8/the imperial boot 👆of the US-led counterinsurgency that lead Syngman Rhee's soldiers in the slaughter of those in the Jeju Uprising. Or that this woman👇isn't the spirit of the DPRK motherland which rose to fight the imperialist forces that wanted to divide the peninsula.

9/Western countries & media & South Korea seem to have closed their eyes to the reality that the people of DPRK have just as much right to live peacefully and in security while maintaining their socialist identity. The "Death to America" dates to the Korean War; it is historical.

10/The homage and empathy for the victims of the Jeju Uprising that South Koreans displayed commemorating its 70th anniversary is an expression of South Korea having a sense of solidarity w/ their northern brothers and sisters and the injustice they underwent under Syngman Rhee.

11/If one can set aside the US's dogmatic Cold War propaganda narrative that only portrays North Korea as "the enemy", and see in this performance👆by North Korean youth the great grandchildren of the Koreans who suffered in the Jeju Uprising 👇& Yeosu-Suncheon rebellion, then

12/this could be a step toward South Koreans recognizing their kindred selves in their northern brothers and sisters. I'll venture to say that although Koreans are divided by two ideologies, they have one heart, and it's a heart worth mending and healing.

@threadreaderapp compile