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Dictators rely partly on a version of emperor’s new clothes. If you force people to publicly show loyalty, even if 80% are privately disloyal individuals won’t speak up because they believe the false loyalty of others. Here’s where accents can be a subtle weapon of the weak. (
) https://twitter.com/reutersus/status/1351779034678628352
) https://twitter.com/reutersus/status/1351779034678628352
Many North Koreans privately watch South Korean films and dramas smuggled on USB sticks, and fantasise about richer, better realities - demanding political change tho is of course too risky, a non-starter.
But mimicking South Korean accents and words learnt from smuggled media falls in a relatively safe spot between fake loyalty and full on dissent. It is public, but is subtle and intangible enough to get away with. And it makes the speaker sound cool.
When enough (esp young) NKoreans in a city mimic SKorean accents in this way it becomes common knowledge that many other people are privately engaging in illegal, subversive behaviour - watching South Korean media at night - and may not buy in fully to the official ideologies.
In NK then, use of SKorean accents is a bit like (to stretch the analogy) a quiet, whosaidthat murmur of doubt about the emperor’s threads. It degrades the dictator-friendly effects of preference falsification and pluralistic ignorance, to use terms that make me sound learned.
All of which means it might make sense for Kim Jong Un to try to crack down on people speaking funny, excessively saying oppa etc.
Difficult in practise tho. “Hey you! Did you just use a south chosun accent?!” “What me?! No sir I don’t even know what they sound like!”
Difficult in practise tho. “Hey you! Did you just use a south chosun accent?!” “What me?! No sir I don’t even know what they sound like!”
