The two accompanying videos feature a song by Japanese musician Imawano Kiyoshiro (あこがれの北朝鮮 – “North Korea’s aspirations”) and are a welcome antidote to the recent “Americano-Eurocentric” and anti-Communist diatribes launched against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea following the death of Kim Jong Il.
“あこがれの北朝鮮” was released in 1995. In 2003, the song was censored by Tokyo FM, which interrupted its live broadcast of the Earth Day concert at Budokan that year to excise the offending performance. The accompanying text is a translation of the lyrics of two versions of the song as performed in the videos below. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi.
This material from the online version of the progressive US magazine Monthly Review @ http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2009/kiyoshiro160409.html Check out Monthly Review for more articles and books on Korea, among many other subjects, and subscribe if you can.
Let’s go play in North Korea
Merry North Korea
North Korea is a good country
North Korea is for everyone
Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, Kim Hyun-hui, Kim Hye-gyong
If you shout, “Hey, Kim”
Everyone will turn around
Let’s go play in North Korea
Our beloved North Korea
North Korea is a good country
They get you there for free
Take a walk on the beach with your sweetheart
And they’ll kidnap you to get you there
Someday surely we’ll all get along
Someday surely we’ll live in such a world
There’ll be no discrimination, no prejudice, no borders
There’ll be no food shortage, no nuclear inspections, no spy ships, no Taepodongs
Our beloved Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Let’s go play in North Korea
Merry North Korea
North Korea is a good country
North Korea is for everyone
Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, Kim, Kim, Kim Hyun-hui
If you shout, “Hey, Kim”
Everyone will turn around
Let’s go play in North Korea
Our beloved North Korea
North Korea is a good country
Peaceful North Korea
Our beloved North Korea
Someday surely we’ll all get along
Someday surely we’ll live in such a world
There’ll be no discrimination, no prejudice, no borders
Our beloved Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
A sea change is underway in Canada as the country shifts away from traditional immigration towards a “rent a worker” policy all too prevalent around the globe. And it is taking place without public debate or official announcements.
November 2010, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico: At a majestic conference centre in this tourist mecca on Mexico’s Pacific coast, the future of one billion people, the world’s migrant workers, is being discussed at the government-supported Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD).
We are presently completing a documentary on Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program, entitled The End of Immigration (La fin de l’immigration?) to be broadcast on Radio Canada (and elsewhere we hope) in the spring of 2012. This article originally appeared in the magazine, Canadian Dimension (May 17, 2011 – http://canadiandimension.com/articles/3974/ ).
Two Filipino temporary workers with a supporter in Winnipeg, Canada. The two workers, along with a co-worker, were recently deported from Canada.
Meanwhile, hundreds of migrant workers, their families and supporters, who have traveled two days by bus from another very important but less ostentatious forum on migration in Mexico City, the International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees (IAMR), are trying to have their voices heard by the delegates to the GFMD. But riot police keep them far enough away that their cries for justice go unheard over the clink of wine glasses and opening speeches for the 700 delegates from 131 countries.
In many ways, these two conferences symbolize two sides of a crucial debate around the largest mobility of workers ever seen[i]and the “legal trade” in a global disposable workforce of 1 billion migrants, of which approximately one quarter migrate internationally and three quarters internally; a debate in which Canadian corporations and their supporters in Ottawa, far from being innocent observers, are actively participating in and profiting from.
DR. DAYA VARMA’S book, The Art and Science of Healing Since Antiquity, is fascinating, rich, and full of insights into the history, science, political economy, cultural and social aspects of medicine. It is a people’s history of medicine and a refreshingly non-Eurocentric view of medical science. It goes a long way to de-mystify medical practice with a dialectical materialist approach. It should be recommended reading for all health workers to obtain a broader outlook on their profession, as well as for anyone who is concerned with today’s health care.
Dr. Varma poses and answers two important and profound questions. “Why are there many schools of medicine when this is not true for other sciences such as physics and chemistry?” And the (Joseph) Needham question: “why modern science had not developed in Chinese civilisation (or Indian or Islamic) but only in that of Europe?”
To answer the first question, Varma through extensive scholarship, documents the development of the art and science of medicine since antiquity. The author writes, “The modern medicine, like all schools of medicine, is a child of spiritual medicine commonly known as witchcraft. It has made gigantic advances, but not enough to remain unchallenged by other streams of the witchcraft. This book is an attempt to analyze how witchcraft unfolded into its different variants and why modern medicine is its most rational expression.” He postulates that the first healers were women, mothers taking care of their sick babies using whatever spiritual or material tools they had at hand.
Varma masterfully dissects and skilfully navigates through the various schools of medicine from the ancient empirical medicine of Egypt; transitioning to the materialist Indian Ayurveda and Chinese medicine systems; the Greek school of medicine upon which Western medicine inherited the Hippocratic oath; to the Islamic Unani-Tibb medicine. Along the way, he deals with other branches such as Allopathy and Homeopathy. The author delves in depth into the social, political and material conditions that gave rise to each of the ancient schools of medicine. All of these schools paved the way to the emergence of modern scientific medicine as cultivated in the West the past 200 years.
The author, a lifelong Marxist, shows that the reason for the uneven development of medical sciences around the world is mainly due to the state of the productive forces in the various societies. The three great rivers of the world, Yangtze, Ganges and Nile allowed China, India and Egypt to be self-sustaining and insular and “did not allow for despondency.” Whereas, Europe overthrew the yoke of feudalism. Through its exploitation of labour, and especially through its plunder of the overseas colonies, it accumulated the capital to push forward the Industrial Revolution with the required scientific and technical breakthroughs (Needham question). In the aftermath of feudalism, America inherited all the innovative characteristics of the Industrial Revolution to make its own advances in medical sciences, especially medical technology.
This excellent article was written by Toronto-based BAYAN-Canada spokesperson, radio host and photographer, Alex Felipe.
*this note is written as a response to a Coke viral ad titled “Coca-Cola Where Will Happiness Strike Next: The OFW Project.” Unfortunately the video cannot be attached on to this note, so I am adding screenshots for images, to watch the video please go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_9fQEqZCWs
by Alex Felipe on Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 11:11am
Let’s get the obvious over with: This is a FANTASTIC advertisement. It has a strong emotional pull, high production values, and connects the product to family, struggle, and how hardship can be overcome by the simple things, like a Coca-Cola.
Well done Coke. [insert ironic soft clap here]
I hate this ad. I hate it with a passion. And it seems from a casual viewing of the comments related to this viral video, that I am somehow virtually alone in thinking this.
In the ad, Coke sends a handful of overseas foreign workers (OFWs) back to the Phils to reconnect with their families. Its central message seems to be: Coke cares about the plight of OFWs.
And there for me is the disconnect.
While I appreciate this piece of propaganda for what it is I know that in reality, instead of helping OFWs, Coca-Cola is actually part of the problem. Like other multinational capitalistic ventures in the Philippines its policies are actually facilitating poverty and migration–in other words, Coke helps create the OFW phenomenon and therefore the ad is an insult.
Moreover, I know that most viewers also know this to be true. They may not know the specific details, but they know that multinationals have NOT been good for the majority of the people in the global south, including in the Philippines–so why all the love for the ad?
I want to explore this.
Coca-Cola has had a long history in the Philippines, its primary economic connection is tied to the Philippine sugar industry. Coke bought Philippine sugar, and so indirectly supported the sugar haciendas that ‘employed’ Filipino peasant farmers.
Philippine sugar was one of the main reasons for the American invasion in 1899. President McKinley was backed by The Sugar Trust, the 6th largest US corporation which controlled 98% of the sugar refining interests. The RP economy was set up to supply American sugar needs with ‘locally’ produced sugar. Before WWII sugar made up 60% of the value of all Philippine exports. Continue reading Untangling OFWs, Happiness, and Coke . [Or Why a Coca-Cola Advert is Short Circuiting My Brain]
Le Centre d’appui aux Philippines (CAP/CPC) est heureux d’annoncer la première d’une une série régulière de conférences/discussions à Montréal en vue de nous informer et nous rappeler des questions contemporaines et de l’histoire des Philippines qui influencent nos luttes et notre travail de solidarité.
Nous invitons tous les membres du CAP/CPC et des organisations affiliées à nous joindre pour la première séance, qui portera sur la Guerre Hispano-Américaine de 1898. M. Antonio Artuso présentera cet événement historique de l’impérialisme.
Soyez des nôtres
vendredi, le 11 novembre 2011 de 18h30 à 20h30
au CTI, 4755 av. Van Horne, Suite 110, Montréal. (Métro Plamondon)
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We are glad to announce that the Centre for Philippine Concerns (CAP-CPC) will start to have a regular discussion meetings in Montreal in order for us all to be refreshed and be updated about certain past and present issues concerning the Philippines that have impact on our ongoing struggles and solidarity work.
We are inviting members of CAP-CPC and allied organisations to join the first session which will focus on the Spanish-American war of 1898. Mr. Antonio Artuso will be the resource speaker as we go back to this important history event of imperialism.
This will be held on
Friday, November 11, 2011 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm
at the IWC Centre, 4755 Van Horne Ave., Suite 110, Montreal, H3W 1J1. (Plamondon Metro).
We are political activists and filmmakers in Montréal, Québec. For a number of years we have shared our thoughts and opinions mostly through our activist film making. But the films take a long time to produce and we go through such an intense rich process to make them… we thought it might be fun to share our thoughts and experiences along the way.
