Many overenthusiastic tankies claim that LGBT people are accepted in the DPRK, while your average lib will tell you that Kim Jong-Un will shoot you out of a cannon if you hold hands with the same gender. The reality is neither of these.
First of all, homosexuality is socially looked down upon by the DPRK. A simple search on KCNA will show homophobic comments about Michael Kirby. However, any such article from KCNA should be taken with a grain of salt since it has crazy articles once in a while that don’t accurately depict the official position of the state. Rodong Sinmun is party-run while KCNA is more independent as a state-managed enterprise, so it’s a better way to judge the government’s position on a topic. Rodong Sinmun seems to be absent from any articles discussing this. However, this analysis from Kim Il-Sung university shows that being homosexual is frowned upon in academia; given the importance that social science academia plays in the governance of the DPRK we can understand this is likely reflected some degree in the policies of the government.
Another claim I hear is that while homosexuality is frowned upon in the DPRK, it is not legally punished. Indeed, the DPRK criminal code does not explicitly mention any punishment for homosexuality at all. However, the criminal code does have this rather vague article:
Article 194 (Conduct of Decadent Acts)
A person who watches or listens to music, dance, drawings, photos, books, video recordings or electronic media that reflects decadent, carnal or foul contents or who performs such acts himself or herself shall be punished by short-term labour for less than two years. In cases where the person commits a grave offence, he or she shall be punished by reform through labour for less than five years.
If being gay is considered a decadent act by the government, which it likely is, it is possible that one could face 2-5 years of jail time for this.
I am a big fan of the DPRK and consider it the best example and execution of socialism on Earth. But critical support is still critical, and we must be knowledgable about the DPRK’s shortcomings.
If being gay is considered a decadent act by the government, which it likely is,
Source: This was revealed to me in a dream
If being gay is considered a decadent act by the government, which it likely is, it is possible that one could face 2-5 years of jail time for this.
Everything was pretty decently evidenced up until this point. I’m not even defending the DPRK’s stance on homosexuality. I just don’t think that we have evidence that they’re imprisoning anyone for being queer.
I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, westerners just don’t do well with the existence of contradictions. We tend to have a hard time understanding that things can be both good and bad at the same time. For many of us, even for well-meaning leftists, it has to be either one or the other. If something has even one bad aspect to it then it cannot possibly be good, or conversely if something is good it cannot possibly have bad sides to it. There is a kind of infantile, Marvel comic book way of thinking that has infected far too much of western society.
Perhaps it is because of the dualistic, (good vs evil) nature of western religions as opposed to eastern philosophies which more often consider two opposing aspects to be able to coexist in the same thing (Yin-Yang)…anyway, i don’t want to get distracted with metaphysics here. Point is we need to learn that it is possible to admire the many good aspects of a society like the DPRK while rejecting the problematic ones. The same goes for having critical support of other, even more problematic countries but which nonetheless fulfil an important anti-imperialist function and which do not deserve to be the target of western orchestrated hybrid warfare, coercive economic measures or color revolutions. Purity fetishes will get us nowhere.
We have to accept that not all contradictions of a society can or will be resolved immediately, especially when that society is facing existential external threats and is still struggling materially. Yes there are also exceptions such as Cuba which has admirably managed to institute some of the most progressive social legislation in the world even while suffering under a brutal blockade, but in general we should expect that most societies need first to resolve their primary contradictions before being able to resolve their secondary ones.
A lot to say without much actual proof. Those things COULD be used to persecute the LGBTQ+ community but that doesn’t mean they are. As could many things, a country could selectively enforce all kinds of much more neutral sounding laws exclusively on gay people as a means of persecution.
I’m sorry but without any proof I’m not ready to go throwing them out and cede to liberals and reactionary anti-communist rainbow-washing forces that they are actually indeed so. There’s so much misinformation about the DPRK it’s not even funny.
If being gay is considered a decadent act by the government
That one IF is doing a huge amount of lifting, your argument falls apart when you take it out.
which it likely is,
Proof, we need proof, not “I feel like it is”. And yes all countries have persons in them, including those attached to the party who hold backwards views on a variety of things.
In particular I’ll note Eastern notions of frowning on something are not the same as western active persecution. There are also issues of things lost in translation. China doesn’t criminalize being gay but they very much crack down on LGBTQ-CIA organizations (we need a Buttigieg rat emoji) that advance a western, liberal slant.
I make no claims they are some bastion of rights for queer people as they’re likely not given their history and material circumstances but I think this whole post is making a mountain out of a molehill of evidence. You can’t just leap from one conclusion to another more severe one.
At the end of the day cfgaussian’s take is mine but I think OP jumped the shark with a sweeping and unsupported by evidence alarmist proclamation.
100% agree. A few articles on KCNA and a vague legal reference is not enough evidence to make any claims about either the government or citizen’s stances on LGBT ppl and how they are treated and viewed.
