Contemporary Buddhist Revival in Kalmykia: Survey of the Present State of Religiosity

Posted on February 6, 2012 by


Geographical and historical background

Even today, in spite of the westward expansion of Buddhism, Kalmykia remains the only ethnic Buddhist community in Europe. At present Kalmykia has a status of a republic with a presidential form of government within the Russian Federation. It is situated in the southeast of the European part of the Russian Federation in the territory of the Volga steppes. The population of present-day Kalmykia is about 330,000; of these Kalmyks comprise more than 50%, Russians around 30%, Chechens, Armenians and other minorities constitute the remainder. Ethnically the Kalmyks are of Mongolian origin; their language belongs to the Mongolian group of languages.

Buddhism began to spread among the Kalmyks in the 13th century A.D.[1] At that time the Kalmyks inhabited South Siberia and were known as the Oirats or West Mongols, comprising several ethnically and linguistically related tribes. The name kalmyk, which is a word of Turkish origin and means ‘remaining’, ‘separated’, was applied to the Oirats who in the 17th century migrated to Russia.[2]

When the Kalmyks became subjects of the Russian Empire, they brought Buddhism as their main spiritual tradition. Throughout the 17th century until the second half of the 18th century the Kalmyks had very close ties with Buddhist centers in Tibet and Mongolia. The religious policy of the Kalmyk khanate was conducted under the leadership of Tibet. However, at the end of the 18th century Russian Tsarina Catherine the Great prohibited any relations between the Kalmyks and Tibet. Kalmykia became isolated from other Buddhist centers, which had an impact on the development of Buddhism among the Kalmyks. Nevertheless, until the beginning of the 20th century the Kalmyks followed the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism.

From the 1930s to the 1980s Buddhism was persecuted by the Soviet government, and not a single prayer-house functioned in Kalmykia.[3] The most tragic event in the history of the Kalmyks was the deportation of 1943, when the entire population of Kalmykia was exiled to Siberia and Central Asia and the republic was abolished by the Soviet government. More than 40% of the exiled Kalmyks lost their lives during the years of deportation. Only in 1957 were the Kalmyks given the right to return to their home on the steppes of the Volga.

The Complexity of the Present Buddhist Revival

After almost a century of severe persecution of Buddhism by the Soviet government the traditional religious institutions of Kalmykia are being restored now. The first Buddhist community after the collapse of the Soviet Union was registered in October 1988; and since the beginning of the 1990s there has been a boom of religious revival in Kalmykia: temples (khurul)[4] have been built in almost every Kalmyk town, more and more Kalmyks receive Buddhist education, Buddhist teachers from abroad visit Kalmykia regularly, and pilgrims come to Kalmykia from all parts of Russia. However, as my fieldwork experience showed, the present situation of religious revival is very complex and differs greatly from the state of religiosity in Kalmykia before the Soviet period. The present Buddhist revival is much more than a restoration of only one Buddhist tradition. The complexity consists in the parallel development of several levels of Buddhism. Two levels of Buddhism are developing in Kalmykia now: the level of institutionalized Tibetan Buddhism and the level of folk religion; both levels are far from being homogeneous and can be further subdivided.

Community revival

 

Tibetan Buddhism in contemporary Kalmykia

The Gelugpa tradition

Historically most Kalmyks belong to the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, which is still the dominant religious tradition in Kalmykia. The first Buddhist temples and prayer houses opened in Kalmykia after 1990 belong to the Gelugpa order; and the overwhelming majority of monks in present-day Kalmykia adhere to the Gelugpa tradition.

At present the Gelugpa order in Kalmykia is centralized and interlinked: all Gelugpa monks and khurul in different regions of Kalmykia belong to the Kalmyk Central Buddhist Monastery Geden Sheddup Choskhorling. Therefore, the term ‘monastery’ in this case signifies a network of Buddhist temples and prayer houses functioning throughout Kalmykia.

The head temple of the monastery is The Golden Abode of Buddha Shakyamuni[5] or the Central Khurul as it is often called. It was constructed in only nine months of 2005 and now it is the largest Buddhist temple in Kalmykia and in Europe. The Central Khurul is an important cultural centre and a famous pilgrimage site in Kalmykia. The khurul has a center of traditional Tibetan medicine and a Buddhist library with a large collection of scriptures.

The head lama of the Kalmyk Centralized Buddhist Monastery and the Shadzhin Lama (the ‘Supreme’ Lama) of Kalmykia is Telo Tulku Rinpoche (Erdne Ombadykov), an ethnic Kalmyk and a citizen of the USA.[6] He was recognized by the 14th Dalai Lama as the 7th incarnation of Tilopa, the 11th century Indian yogi. The tradition of recognized reincarnations (tulku) was lost already in Kalmykia already in the 17th century; therefore, the establishment of tulku is an innovation for Buddhism in Kalmykia, indicating a significant change in religious authority under the influence of Tibetan Buddhism. As a result, the head lama acquired additional power in the eyes of the laity: home altars of many Kalmyk lay believers also have images of Telo Tulku Rinpoche.

A need for trained monks is a serious issue for Kalmykia. At present there are 22 monks in the Central Khurul and about 20 monks working in other Gelugpa temples throughout Kalmykia. Most monks are neither Kalmyks nor Russians, but Tibetans, mainly from Tibetan exile communities. Nevertheless, new generations of Kalmyks receive their monastic education abroad, mainly in Tibetan monasteries in India. The usual place for the training of Kalmyk monks is Drepung Gomang Dratsang monastery in Karnataka (South India), which adheres to the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism.

Telo Tulku Rinpoche supports the tendency of unification of Buddhist practice and orientation towards the Tibetan Buddhist heritage and the Tibetan government in exile. It is obvious that Tibetan monks play a very important role in the contemporary Buddhist revival in Kalmykia. However, some Kalmyks believe that it is not the traditional ethnic Kalmyk religious heritage that is being revived in the republic at present. For many lay Kalmyks, especially for those of older generations, is it very important to see the restoration of the regional form of Buddhism that had developed in the Kalmyk steppes during the 17th – 19th centuries, which is regarded by many Kalmyks as different from other regional forms of Buddhism. Telo Tulku Rinpoche, however, refutes the notion of “Kalmyk Buddhism”, arguing that Buddhism as religion overcomes all ethnic and national borders and cannot be divided into Kalmyk, Tibetan or Mongolian variants.

Other Tibetan Buddhist schools represented in Kalmykia

The Nyingma stupa and temple

Apart from the Gelugpa order, other schools of Tibetan Buddhism are present in Kalmykia now. Of special interest are the Nyingmapa communities developing in Kalmykia now. Whereas the Kagyupas and the Sakyapas are represented in Kalmykia only on the level of Dharma centers, the Nyingmapa tradition functions on the level of khurul; which gives it additional importance in the eyes of believers.

In contrast to the Central Monastery, the Nyingma communities try to give Buddhism a Kalmyk flavor, which is very appealing for some Kalmyk laity (especially from smaller towns and villages). As Padma Sherab, the abbot of the first Nyingma khurul in Kalmykia and Russia, said, “Our community is a synthesis of the Tibetan Nyingma tradition and Kalmyk Buddhism”. The Kalmyk Nyingmapas position themselves as being much closer to lay people than the Central Khurul. All sutras and most ritual-texts used in the Nyingmapa khuruls have been translated into the Kalmyk language; so far they have been the only ones to use Kalmyk as ritual language in Kalmykia. As mentioned above, most monks in the Central Monastery are Tibetans and do not speak Kalmyk or Russian, although I was told that one of the main reasons for lay people to go to khurul is to discuss their problems with a lama or a monk. Some lamas even see themselves more as psychologists than ritual experts.

 

The role of the Kalmyk government and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in the religious and cultural revival in Kalmykia

The present religious revival in Kalmykia is not just the result of missionary activities, but also the result of the governmental support. Of special importance is the role of the first president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, an eccentric and charismatic figure. He was first elected the president of Kalmykia in 1993 at the age of 31; at that time he was already a millionaire businessman, promising prosperity and development to the republic; he even refused to accept his salary of the republic’s president.  Ilyumzhinov occupied this post until 2010, having been reelected three times.[7]

Ilyumzhinov is popular with the Kalmyks for his support of all religions and of Buddhism in particular. Himself a devout Buddhist, he once mentioned in a television program that he may want to become a lama one day. Though the Constitution of the Russian Federation separates religion from the state, from 1993 to 1995 religion and church was declared by Ilyumzhinov an essential part of the state policy of Kalmykia. During these years a special Department for Religious Affairs functioned as executive agency subjected to the president of Kalmykia. Large subsidies were collected by the department and donated for the building of Buddhist temples as well as Christian churches; moreover, Ilyumzhinov sponsored the construction of temples and churches from his private funds. The first initiative to build the Central Khurul also belongs to the first president.

The Kalmyk culture-of-heroes approach to the leader has been employed in creating the image of the president. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is perceived by many Kalmyks as a national long-awaited hero corresponding to the image of a leader in Mongolian legends and epic: young, charismatic, claiming to be of kinship with Chingis Khan, oriented towards spiritual development, supporting Buddhism and other religions. In spite of his authority, Ilyumzhinov is democratic in his attitude and accessible for common people.

Playing up to his image of a mythological ruler from a spiritual land, Ilyumzhinov became known outside Kalmykia and the Russian Federation for some of his sensational announcements. Thus, for example, in 1997 he openly confessed in a television programme that he had seen a UFO and had been kidnapped by aliens for a two-hour tour around their spaceship. Some Kalmyks I talked to during my fieldwork believe in Ilyumzhinov’s ability to see spirits and aliens, but most people that I had a chance to interview see it as the president’s unique sense of humour. Nevertheless, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has been endowed with mythological properties and has become a near-cult personality in contemporary Kalmykia, he is even worshipped as bodhisattva by some Kalmyks.

 

The level of folk religion, “folk Buddhism” and the ancient cult of the White Old Man interpreted anew

The White Old Man statue

Besides schools of Tibetan Buddhism other Kalmyk religious traditions that are dynamically revitalizing at present can be referred to the level of folk religion. This level is not institutionalized; it is represented by religious experts (of both genders and of different ages) who perform various rituals for the benefit of the laity. In Kalmykia folk religious practices, beliefs and movements are often called “popular” or “folk” Buddhism, because they combine elements of Tibetan Buddhism with Oirat-Kalmyk pre-Buddhist, folk-religious spiritual traditions. Some scholars and representatives of the Kalmyk Buddhist clergy reject the notion of “folk Buddhism”, arguing that contemporary folk religious practices in Kalmykia have nothing in common with Buddhism and the teaching of Buddha Shakyamuni.

Kalmyk folk religious practitioners do not have monastic education, but receive knowledge and power from their guardian deities of Buddhist as well as pre-Buddhist origin. The most important deity for them is the White Old Man (Tsagan aava), a pan-Mongolian pre-Buddhist deity, the owner of the land and water, included in the Buddhist pantheon in Kalmykia with the function of a dharmapala, i.e. a defender of faith, in the 18th century.

The scope of practices of Kalmyk “folk Buddhist” ritual experts is very wide: they heal illnesses, tell fortune, have prophetic dreams, remove curses and bad luck, carry out love magic rites and calendar rituals. They use various methods and implements, ranging from Buddhist prayers to animal sacrifice depending on the individual practitioner.

It is difficult to state the exact number of folk religious practitioners in Kalmykia now because of their unofficial status. However, some ritual experts form communities. Thus, a community of ritual experts was registered in Kalmykia in 1999 under the name the Buddhist Community «Revival», though the application of the term Buddhist in this case is very debatable. The name “Revival” reflects the main aim, which is to revive traditions and ceremonies of the Oirat-Kalmyks and to restore the faith in the White Old Man. The cult of Tsagan Aava is seen by the community as the true ethnic Kalmyk spiritual heritage. The head and the founder of the community is a fifty year old Kalmyk woman, Galina Muzaeva. The community believes that Galina is Maitreya, the future Buddha; she is called the Bakshi (which means ‘teacher’) and all other members in this organization are her students.

The community largely draws inspiration from Buddhism as well: they venerate Buddhist deities, use Buddhist ritual objects, and perform rituals that traditionally have been conducted by Kalmyk Buddhist monks. The employment of Buddhist as well of Kalmyk folk religious elements attracts lay Buddhists to the activities of the community. However, Buddhist and traditional Kalmyk pre-Buddhist elements are mixed with new (at least for Kalmykia) ideas and aims that have nothing in common with Buddhism or shamanism. The final goal of the community is to unite the world religions and to create one faith in the White Old Man. Besides Buddhist deities, the community venerates Jesus Christ, Mother Mary and other Orthodox Christian saints. Thus, in the prayer house outside Elista, built in 2004, I saw images of Buddhist deities, the 14th Dalai Lama, Jesus Christ, Mother Mary and other Christian saints, a big poster of Prophet Muhammad and even a picture of the first president of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

The old Mongolian cult of the White Old Man, however, has been reinterpreted, rather than revived by the community: Tsagan Aava is identified as the Highest Cosmic Intellect; therefore, this movement is also called “cosmic religion”. All ritual texts (numerous offering-prayers, healing prayers, etc.) the members of the community claim to have received telepathically from space in the “sun” language. The “sun” language is another invention of the community, which they believe to be “the sacred language of the White Old Man”. It is written in the Russian Cyrillic script and rhythmically may resemble Tibetan.

The community is actively involved in missionary activity, publishing books and a newspaper Maitreya. So far the community has published seven volumes of the cycle The Sacred Precepts of the White Old Man.  

 

Concluding remarks

In the context of Kalmykia it becomes rather problematic to use the word ‘revival’ with regard to religious and cultural developments; only if talking about a revival in a very broad meaning (as of religious activity in general). To what extent can these processes be called a revival? Buddhism in contemporary Kalmykia is not just revived but reinvented with new levels developing and new elements being added to what is believed to be “traditional Kalmyk Buddhism”. These new reinvented forms of Buddhism present a multifaceted material for ethnographic and anthropological research.
Valeriya Gazizova

PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Humanities (the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages) at the University of Oslo Study Areas: Buddhism and folk religion in Tibet, Mongolia, Kalmykia, Buryatia and Tuva.

[1] However, there is another opinion that the Oirats came into contact with Buddhism as early as the end of the 10th century through the neighbouring peoples.

[2] One of the main motives of the Oirat exodus was internal feuding over a shortage of pasture land created by continuous subdivision of the feudal domains.

[3] In the beginning of the 20th century more than 100 monasteries with about 2000 monks were registered in Kalmykia. But after the prohibition of Buddhism all monasteries were destroyed, the majority of monks were arrested, some even murdered.

[4] In Kalmykia Buddhist monasteries and prayer houses are called khurul.

[5] Burkhn Bagshi Altn Syume

[6] Telo Tulku Rinpoche was born in 1972 in a family of Kalmyk immigrants in the USA and studied in Drepung Gomang Dratsang monastery in India for twelve years.

[7] In November 2010 Aleksey Orlov became the second president of Kalmykia. Nevertheless, political life in Kalmykia to a certain extent is still focused on the figure of Ilyumzhinov, though he is no longer the president.

Posted in Buddhism, Folk religion, Lamaism, religion | Leave a comment

China in Global Climate Change Politics

Posted on January 18, 2012 by

One of the paradoxes that COP17 left us with to solve is that of how to really understand China as a global climate change player. China has become more and more sure of herself both politically and economically  in any global setting. But when it comes to global climate change politics, we see a very careful and non-committing China. At home China is, however, doing quite a lot to transform the Chinese economy from brown growth to green growth as the recent five-year plan revealed as well as the figures for investments in renewables, where China is among the biggest investors in the world and leading in some technologies. Why is it then so difficult for China at the global stage to act more in accordance with national actions? The world would surely welcome it! More than that, the world expects it, and is not late to shame China for any failures in global negotiations as happened after the breakdown of COP15. Here, it is not so important whether or not China was to blame, the point is, that Chinese leaders were very surprised and had a hard time understanding this negative campaigning. At COP16 and COP17 it was clear that China had done a lot to prevent a similar negative campaigning. Chinese public statements about Chinese climate policies has since become very positive and open – but they still sound hollow as only national not global action is taken by China. And the world has become increasingly aware that other important players should also be held accountable for the lack of success in global climate talks; namely the USA, Canada, India and Russia.

Much of the confusion over China can be found in misperceptions over Chinese international policies and priorities. (Communist) China is still a relatively young actor in global politics, and on many issues, the Chinese position seems to be: leave domestic matters for ourselves to work out. A question of classic sovereignty as defined by Morgenthau. Chinese leaders make us believe that China is indeed a unitary actor. So when China is put under international pressure to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and commit to a global legally binding agreement, many fail to understand how fragmented China really is, and how difficult it is for China to undertake a needed transformation from a coal based to a sustainable economy.

And although climate change politics is one of the Chinese leadership’s main concerns, it is primarily a domestic concern related to three interlinked issues; energy security, sustainable economic development, and social stability and progress. China’s primary international concern is, however, to protect China’s sovereignty. Within China there are many diverging interests and understandings of climate change. Regions, cities, Chinese and foreign companies as well as NGO’s each play their different part in China’s economic, social, and environmental development. Officially these non-state actors cannot play a role in Chinese foreign policy, but they are still part of what frames the international understanding that China is becoming greener, because the green actors and the central government have an interest in showcasing their green development – thereby attracting investments or gaining other co-benefits such as better public health.

Other actors in the coal industry and the majority of the production economy dependent on cheap and accessible energy should also be taken into account. These actors protect their vested interests and fight against moving too fast from a brown to a green economy. And coal is still by far the largest energy source in China.

So there are many incentives for the Chinese leaders to present China as green and going green, but it is far harder to achieve, because of the fragmented domestic scene.

The major reason, however,  for Chinese lack of global commitment is that an eventual implementation of a global legally binding climate change agreement will clash with priority number one: sovereignty. And it will furthermore have enormous consequences for China’s role in the developing world.

In the global institutional framework being negotiated there is a pressure from most of the developed world, including USA and Canada, to agree on a global standardisation of how to measure and report GHG levels and reductions. The argument is simple and persuasive: If we don’t have the same measures globally we will not be sure that we’re doing enough – we won’t even be sure about what needs to be done. This principle is called MRV – Measure, Report, Validate – and this clashed with the Chinese understanding of sovereignty in such a degree, that China is fighting the principle of MRV with all means. The Chinese leaders all to vividly imagine what the consequences would be, if an international corps of GHG-controllers were allowed to enter China and validate the Chinese statistics with access to even the smallest coal plant and factory. This in itself is not so scary, but the dangers are many; Chinese statistics could be full of mistakes (deliberate or not), which would mean more international shaming, but the biggest danger is that the principle of the international community gaining access to China to validate progress on a certain policy area means that soon enough, human rights would be mentioned as the next area.

A different kind of consequence of a Chinese commitment to a global legally binding agreement is that of a change in definitions of equity. One of China’s main arguments against Chinese commitment is framed as common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) meaning basically that climate change is a global problem and common for all to share the burden, but the developed world must bare the biggest burden and do most since historically and per capita the developed world is more responsible, etc.

China is still aligned with the developing world on this issue. But if China really opened up for discussions on binding commitments, equity and CBDR would have to be reinterpreted; by asking if equity is the same for all developing countries – are there not a substantial difference between the small island states and e.g. China, which would then – more true to China’s economic size and growth rates categorise China as an emerging economy? It would split up the world in many more categories than just the developed and developing countries with a much more differentiated understanding of responsibility than is currently attached to the principle of equity and CBDR.

Furthermore, a China with a different global identity will probably lose her ability to act as a leader of the developing world in international forums like the UN. And China would lose her status as a developing country within the WTO, which would mean losing benefits of subsidies, the ability to keep tariffs. And maybe China would also be more easily pressured into letting the currency float. This is in this light we must understand Obama’s phrasing of China as a grown-up.

So for all these reasons and Chinese imaginations of “what could go wrong”, China is doing what is possible domestically but resisting a global legally binding agreement on fighting climate change.

Lau Blaxekjær
PhD Student
Department of Political Science
Copenhagen University

Posted in China, environment, International relations, politics, renewable energy | Leave a comment

Nordkorea og os: Farcen at græde i kor – bag om mediedækningen

Posted on December 22, 2011 by

 Af Ida Zidore, medlem af U-landsnyt.dk’s redaktion og MA of Journalism and Media.
This article was published in Ulandsnyt.dk on Thursday 22 December 2011.

 
Nordkoreas “Kære Leder” er død. Tilsyneladende er historier om grådkvalte studieværter og Kim Jong-Ils feticher nogle af de mest interessante for de danske nyhedsmedier.

Hvis der er noget, vi danskere ikke er opdraget til, er det at tilbede despotiske ledere og totalitære systemer. Der skal være plads til det rimelige og det sandhedssøgende.

Og fremfor alt skal der være plads til det enkelte menneske.

Mediernes parodiske fremstilling af Nordkorea i disse dage trykker på nogle farlige knapper. Hvis man ikke allerede havde fordomme liggende om nordkoreanere som en flok imbecile verdensbenægtere, kan man hurtigt få dem.

Det kan undre, at farcerne får lov at dominere mediebilledet. For hvor sandhedssøgende og væsentlig er nu egentlig dén form for journalistik?

Selvom der også foreligger politiske analyser og kommentarer til lederskiftet, er vigtige elementer udeladt fra dækningen. Den nordkoreanske befolkning fremstår aldrig som andet end en identitetløs og grinagtig masse.

Det er ikke helt ufarligt. Sprog og billeder skaber distance, så farcerne får en konsekvens.

En identitetsløs flok

I mit kandidatspeciale undersøgte jeg, hvordan fjendebilleder af Nordkorea bliver skabt gennem sprogbrug i vestlige medier. Helt konkret undersøgte jeg en række lederartikler bragt i Politiken, The Guardian og The New York Times i løbet af år 2010.

I artiklerne var befolkningen stort set aldrig fremstillet som andet end identitetsløs – og derfor tenderende til ligegyldig – masse. Noget af det samme synes at have gjort sig gældende i de danske medier siden mandag.

Det er klart, at Nordkorea er et særligt tilfælde for journalister. Bare at komme ind i landet som reporter kan som bekendt være en udfordring. Men gengivelsen af de officielle nordkoreanske billeder af grædekor er stadig et valg, der ikke kun kan skyldes manglen på alternativ kildemateriale. Mange nordkoreanere lever i eksil, men kommer sjældent til orde.

Pointen er, at når de grinagtige billeder af befolkningen ikke får en modvægt, skabes distance. Set i et humanitært perspektiv er det ikke helt ligegyldigt. Distancen får nemlig konsekvenser. Kim Jong-Ils død går ind i rækken af episoder, der medvirker til et afstumpet billede af et helt land.

Ifølge FN er omkring 6 millioner mennesker i Nordkorea lige nu ramt af hungersnød. Det er måske ikke tilfældigt, at der ikke løftes mange danske øjenbryn. For hvem bekymrer sig om de, der ingen identitet har?

Den gamle “vi mod dem”

Ifølge mit speciale har distancen rødder i et sprogligt forsimplet modsætningsforhold mellem Nordkorea på den ene side og den vestlige verden på den anden.

Flere steder i lederartiklerne forekom det, at en underliggende præmis var et lighedstegn mellem ordene ‘Vesten’, ‘os’, ‘vi’ og tilmed ‘Verden’ på den ene side, og ordene ‘de’ og ‘Nordkorea’ på den anden.

Man kan vel næppe forvente, at læserne skal kunne identificere sig med andre end “vi i Verden”? Nordkorea bliver altså hurtigt en fremmet størrelse.

Der er nu ikke noget nyt i den dikotomi. Modsætningsforholdet er et sprogligt levn fra den Kolde Krig, hvor den kommunistiske blok blev portrætteret i medierne som den ‘Frie Verdens’ onde alter ego.

I det hele taget findes der adskillige historiske eksempler på, at binære modsætninger i sproget har været brugt til at skabe eller fastholde fjendebilleder.

Den græske historiker Herodot beskrev allerede omkring år 450 f.v.t. fjenden i Orienten som den direkte modsætning til den suveræne græker. Fjenden var portrætteret som irrationel, svag, tom og fremmet. Ikke langt fra det billede af Nordkorea, min analyse viste.

At præmissen stadig gør sig gældende i en tid, hvor liberale, vestlige medier hævder at være neutrale og upartiske, kan være forstemmende. Ligesom det kan være forstemmende at være vidne til den unuancerede og farceagtige dækning af Kim Jong-Ils død i disse dage.

Episoden gør det bare endnu mere aktuelt at fastholde den tåkrummende banale pointe, at det vi ser er billeder og forestillinger. Det er ikke sandheden. Der bor 23 millioner mennesker i Nordkorea.

Når fjenden bliver et umenneske

At Mission Øst er den eneste danske nødhjælpsorganisation, der uddeler mad i det sultramte land, kan være tankevækkende.

Generalsekretær Kim Hartzner har udtalt, at hungersnøden er en af verdens mest oversete katastrofer. Nordkoreanerne har desperat behov for hjælp.

Men humanitær bistand forudsætter jo helt grundlæggende en bevidsthed. Social, politisk eller økonomisk. Derfor må første skridt mod hjælp være bevidstheden om, at nordkoreanere er andet end en “ond, identitetsløse masse”.

Man danner sin egen sandhed på baggrund af det, man ser og hører. Lige siden verdens første krigskorrespondent William Howard Russell rapporterede fra Krim-krigen har journalister vidst, at vinkling betyder alt, når parterne i en konflikt kommer til orde.

Samtidig er umenneskeliggørelse via sproglig praksis helt grundlæggende for dannelsen af fjendebilleder.

I de artikler, jeg analyserede, blev Nordkorea – bevidst eller ubevidst – fremstillet som overvejende utroværdig, barbarisk, destruktiv og irrationel. Det modsatte af det ‘gode’. Menneskelighed var helt udelukket.

I disse dage kan danskerne primært se det nordkoreanske folk som en farce af et grædekor. Det er ligeså forsimplet og farligt.

Ida Zidore er uddannet MA i Journalism and Media within Globalization: the European Perspective fra Swansea University, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Danmarks Medie- og Journalisthøjskole og Aarhus Universitet. D. 15. December bestod hun sit afsluttende speciale Beyond the Enemy: North Korea and Iran in Western Newspapers.

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