North Korea says the U.S. is doomed just like the Roman Empire
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Version 0 of 1. On Nov. 15, President Obama was speaking at the University of Queensland in Australia when he began to talk about the present day's place in history. "I often tell young people in America that, even with today’s challenges, this is the best time in history to be alive," the president said. The president's speech was then followed by one by then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who explained how the U.S. military would need to reform to keep this place in history. Weeks later, these speeches may be forgotten by many, but not in North Korea. In a new commentary published by the state-run Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday, these two speeches are described as the "poor shriek of those facing ruin” and a “recognition of the dark reality in the U.S. as it is a reflection of extreme uneasiness and horror-phobia.” As KCNA grandly puts it, the speeches "reminds one of the old Roman Empire that was buried in history after facing a ruin for coveting for prosperity through aggression and wars." "The poor fate of the U.S. reminiscent of the ruin of the Roman Empire is a due outcome of its history of aggression and arbitrary practices," the article then repeats. North Korea is, of course, no stranger to hurling inventive insults towards Americans. In 2009, KCNA reported that a North Korean official had labelled Hillary Clinton a "funny lady" who was "by no means intelligent." Just earlier this year, in light of a U.N. report on human rights in North Korea, the country released its own human rights report on the United States. It concluded that the United States was "a living hell." The comparison to the Roman Empire is slightly unusual, however: North Korean propaganda rarely steps outside of its own mythology to think about other histories, let alone those of empires that finished millennia ago. Defectors from the country have said they are taught a "general history of the world" in schools, though the emphasis appears to be on 20th century history. Comparing the U.S. to the Roman Empire is hardly a new concept — it's been around for decades if not far longer. "Americans have been casting eyes back to ancient Rome since before the Revolution," Cullen Murphy wrote in his 2008 book "Are We Rome?" Murphy points out that most of the American allusions to Rome ignore the complexity of the actual history (some historians argue that Rome didn't really fall), and depending on who is doing the talking, Rome "serves as either a grim cautionary tale or an inspirational call to action?" In recent years, with America wracked by internal political divisions, economic uncertainty and geopolitical enemies of all sorts around the world, the former option seems to have become more popular — especially among America's geopolitical rivals. For the ascendant ones, it seems like good news: China's CCTV state broadcaster commissioned a huge TV series titled "The Rise of the Great Powers" a few years ago, in affect announcing their ascendance and declaring the end of America. KCNA's commentary takes a darker angle. "The U.S. is now thrown into confusion as its uni-polar domination system called world order is getting out of control," the unnamed writer notes, later pointing to the problems in Ukraine and the Middle East. "Its military muscle and dollar's position that have propped Washington's moves for world domination are now sinking rapidly." "The U.S. has now the hardest time in its history," KCNA state. It's a grim assessment, but it begs the question: If the U.S. is the Roman Empire, who is North Korea? The Vandals or some more obscure German tribe? According to James Romm, the James H. Ottaway Jr. professor of classics at Bar College, the Hermit Kingdom resembles ... the Roman Empire. "In the century or so following Caesar's assassination, his successors achieved a power so absolute that they were worshiped as gods on Earth, as the Kims are today," Romm wrote for the Los Angeles Times earlier this year. "Yet they, again like the Kims, suffered chronic insecurity about their legitimacy, and that fear led to terrible abuses." |