What We Saw in DPR Korea Goes against Everything Western Media Wants Us to Believe
我们在朝鲜人民民主共和国看到的一切都与西方媒体企图让我们相信的相反
In the current stand off between Washington and North Korea, western governments and media almost invariably present the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) as a crazed aggressor.
在现在这个华盛顿和北朝鲜处于僵局的时刻，西方政府和媒体不可避免的把北朝鲜描绘成疯狂的侵略者。
Yet the recent confrontation comes 72 years after Roosevelt and Stalin divided the colonised Korean people at the 38th parallel, and 60 years after the US brought nuclear weapons to the peninsula. The US military still occupies southern Korea and, in the current climate, the reunification summits of 2000 and 2007 seem a distant memory.
但现在的冲突不是无缘无故，而是因为72年前，罗斯福和斯大林把被殖民统治中的朝鲜在北纬38度线，划分为南北朝鲜。而美国在朝鲜半岛部署核武器以后60年，美国的军队仍然控制着南朝鲜，在这样的前提下，像2000年和2007年那样朝鲜半岛双方举行统一问题高峰会，似乎是遥远的记忆。
Rarely do we listen to the North Korean side. Yet it should be no surprise that they have adistinct perspective on the successive Japanese and American attacks, invasions and occupations that have defined their past century.
我们很少会听一下北朝鲜的声音， 而朝鲜在接连被日本和美国打击，侵略，占领而影响了历史发展，北朝鲜人民有自己的立场和视角应该不会意外。
Even when UNcommissioned ‘human rights’ reports are prepared, it is not thought necessaryto get the North Korean view, or even to visit the country.
荒唐的是，即使是联合国在准备人权报告的时候，都不觉得有必要听取北朝鲜的声音，也不会实地去看看这个国家。
Popular western history blames North Korea for starting the Korean war (1950-53). By this storythe US is said to have intervened (killing more than 4 million, according to the DPRK) to ‘protect’ South Korea from ‘communist aggression’.
在讲到这段历史的时候，西方流行的历史观是这样讲的：谴责北朝鲜引发了朝鲜战争（1950-1953），美国介入了朝鲜战争（杀死了四百万朝鲜人-根据北朝鲜数据），保护南朝鲜免于共产主义侵略。
However the NorthKoreans themselves, and many socialist historians, point to US military planning for complete annexation of the peninsula, as spelt out by the 1949-50 head of US occupation forces, General Roberts.
然而，北朝鲜人们自己，还有很多社会主义历史学者指出，美国军方在朝鲜战争之前就计划占领整个朝鲜半岛，1949-1950年占领朝鲜的美军总指挥，罗伯特将军已经讲的很清楚了。
Let’s also remember that, immediately after the Korean War, the US backed military interventions and coups in Cuba, Guatemala and Iran and began its long war in Vietnam.
让我们记住这样的事实，紧接着朝鲜战争，美国军事干预了古巴，危地马拉， 伊朗，并且在越南进行了长期的战争。
With two colleagues I visited the DPRK in late August. It is a beautiful, lush country with warm,friendly people. I was struck by the confidence and self-assurance of the many well educated North Koreans we met, in particular the women.
今年8月份（2017年），我和两个同事一起，访问了北朝鲜，那是一个青山绿水的美丽国家，人们友好，热情。我被所遇到的很多受过良好教育的自信，自尊的北朝鲜人们所震撼，尤其是一些女性。
That self-confidence seems to reflect the state slogan ‘we envy nothing in this world’, linked to an official “Juche philosophy” which stresses human creativity and self-reliance.
那种自信似乎反应了官方的口号：在这个世界上，我们不嫉妒别人。同时，这种自信也与由金日成创立的自力更生精神紧密相连，这种精神强调人类的创造精神和自立自强。
Between visits to schools, hospitals and farms we visited meticulously documented history museums. Amongst other things they show that, in the 1950s war, Pyongyang was hit by 428,000 US bombs, at a time when its population did not exceed 400,000.
我们在北朝鲜访问了学校，医院，农场，我们也访问了详细记录历史的博物馆，关于1950年代的朝鲜战争，历史资料记载，美国在平壤投放了四百二十八万颗炸弹，而当时平壤的人口不超过四十万。
The capital’s museums display evidence of Washington’s use of chemical and biological weapons against the Korean people, and of 8,000 US breaches of the 1953 armistice,notably the captured US spy ship USS Pueblo.
平壤的博物馆还展示了美国对朝鲜人民使用化学和生物武器的证据，以及美国8000次破坏停战协议的证据，最著名的就是北朝鲜捕获了美国的间谍船USS Pueblo。
Carrying out ‘vox pop’ interviews with professionals, students, workers and farmers we often met statements such as that of rural co-op worker Ms Song Myong Oh: ‘of course we do not want war, but we are not begging for peace’. Most seem proud that their country is standing up to an imperial power that has occupied their country for a lifetime, while invading dozens of others.
我们还对很多普通民众进行了访谈，这些民众包括专业人士，学生，工人和农民，在这些访谈中，我们经常会遇到下面这样的叙述。农场合作社社员宋女士说：“我们当然不想要战争，但我们也不乞讨和平”，大部分人好像对他们国家面对一个长期占领他们国家，又侵略很多国家的霸权帝国顽强屹立而骄傲。
If we read the official statements carefully, the DPRK’s recent threats against the US have merely responded in kind to those of the US President. Of course, such threats carry new weight with the little country’s nuclear capability. Yet the decision to go down this road came after repeated US refusals to convert the 1953 armistice into a permanent peace treaty.
如果我们仔细阅读北朝鲜的官方声明文件，朝鲜人民民主主义共和国对美国的威胁仅仅是对美国总统威胁的象征性反应。当然，这个小国的威胁伴随着核武器的研制成功而有所增加。而且，事情走到这一步，是因为美国一直不肯从1953年的停战协议再往前走一步，签署和平条约。
North Korea fought for its independence from the Japanese Empire, fought a massive US attempt to destroy it, and is still technically at war. The little nation-state has been on a war footing for more than a century. In these circumstances it has permanently embedded the military at the centre its government; this is the Songun doctrine.
北朝鲜先是为了国家和民族独立与日本帝国作战，接着又和企图搞破坏的美国作战，技术上来说，和美国的战争仍在进行当中。这个小小的国家已经在战争当中奋斗了上百年。在这个背景下，政府采取的长久的先军策略。
The DPRK Government says its nuclear capacity is an ‘equaliser’, to deter constant US threats. US manoeuvres to disarm and then destroy both Iraq and Libya are seen in Pyongyang as clear lessons of the consequences of weakness. Reunification is only possible, they say, if the US military withdraws and they can resume serious talks with an independent south。
北朝鲜认为他们的核能力是平衡器，是为了阻赫美国对朝鲜的长期威胁。美国对伊拉克和利比亚的打击行动在平壤看来就是弱者的后果。他们认为，朝鲜半岛统一，只有可能在美国撤出朝鲜半岛，南朝鲜获得独立，南北朝鲜才有可能恢复认真谈判。
Washington is accustomed to proclaiming that ‘all options are on the table’, including apre-emptive nuclear strike. Indeed, the USA is the only country to have actually used nuclear weapons on human beings, and Hiroshima civilians at that.The North Koreans, for their part, are not inclined to lie down or ‘bargain’,in face of such threats.
华盛顿已经习惯了宣称所有选项都在考虑之内，包括先发制人的核打击。的确，美国是唯一使用过核武器轰炸过人类的国家，他们二战轰炸了日本的广岛和它的平民。在这方面，在这种威胁下，北朝鲜不准备躺下挨炸，也不准备讨价还价。
Their country is often described as a ‘Hermit Kingdom’, because of its apparent isolation and the extreme reverence given to the late President King Il Sung and his successors. But the DPRK, while practising self-reliance, does not seek to cut itself off from the world. It is the US-driven economic sanctions that do that.
他们的国家经常被描述成封建王国的遗物，因为很明显他们很孤立，还有对已故领袖金日成和其继任者的崇拜。但在朝鲜人民民主主义共和国，尽管实行自力更生政策，他们并没有打算将自己孤立，他们的孤立，是美国对他们进行经济封锁造成的。
We visited a new 300 bed Children’s Hospital, across the road from Pyongyang’s Maternity Hospital. A boy was having a cranial CT scan with a German Siemen’s machine.That test, like all health services, is free and at state expense. But the new sanctions regime means that the DPRK can no longer buy such machines or parts for them. North Koreans put a brave face on their self-reliance, and they do produce most of their essential medicines; but individual doctors expressed outrage.
我们访问的一家新的300张床位的儿童医院，儿童医院就在平壤妇女医院的马路对面，一个男孩正在用一台德国西门子公司生产的CT扫描仪经行颅脑扫描。这项服务，和其它医疗服务一样，被服务者不需付费，是由政府的财政系统支付的。美国的经济封锁，意味着朝鲜人民民主主义共和国不能再购买这些仪器和仪器的零件。北朝鲜的确采取自力更生政策，他们的确生产大部分基本机器。但很多医师还是表达他们的愤怒。
Dr Kim Un Song, for example, with two young children of her own, said she was ‘very proud’ of her country’s ‘free, universal and comprehensive’ health system, while expressing anger at the sanctions. Dr So Yong in the TeleMedicine section, which arranges video conferences with all major hospitals in the country, said he ‘strongly protests these inhumane sanctions which affect even children’
Former regional allies have proved unreliable. The DPRK suffered a great depression after the collapse of the USSR and its linked economic relations. The China relationship has also changed, with Beijing became more businesslike.
譬如，有两个孩子的金安松医师讲到，她为他们国家的全面，免费，全民保健系统感到骄傲。当然，她也表达了她对美国经济封锁朝鲜的愤怒，另外一位，在远程医疗部门工作的宋阳医师，负责安排与全国所有大医院的远程医疗工作，强烈抗议美国的这种不人道的经济禁运政策，美国的经济禁运已经影响到了孩子的安危。以前的地区盟友也不可靠，前苏联倒掉和北朝鲜断掉了与苏联的经济联系后，朝鲜人民民主共和国经历了一场巨大的经济危机。与中国的关系也发生了变化，北京变得更加经济导向。
An alarming feature of the US-led assault on this little country is that it has virtually no public face. Western politicians can say almost anything about the country and get away with it. Foreign experience and understandings of the country are shallow.
由美国领导的对这个小国北朝鲜的打击，还有一个特别隐忧的地方，就是西方的政客对北朝鲜的事物几乎可以信口开河，怎么说都可以，他们可以拍拍手走人，不付责任，无需承担后果，北朝鲜以外的人对这个国家的经历和理解也非常肤浅。
Further, from 1 September onwards US citizens are banned from visiting North Korea (as they are still banned from visiting Cuba) without a US Government license. Such controls have long been part of the ‘land of the free’.
更进一步，从9月1日开始，除非获得美国政府特别许可，美国政府禁止美国公民访问朝鲜 （美国政府一直禁止美国公民访问古巴）。对公民如此的控制措施，一直，长期在被称为自由之国的美国实施着。
For the rest of us,a visit to North Korea can be an eye opener. The contrast between the one dimensional western image and the reality of a visit with directperson-to-person contact is quite striking.
对我们大部分人来说，访问北朝鲜让我们大开眼界，西方对北朝鲜的单方面刻画所造成的印象，和我们直接的个人对个人的，面对面的接触所看到的现实太令人震撼了。
作者： Tim Anderson 悉尼大学政治经济学高级讲师
译者： 薛彬 澳大利亚华人学者
原文链接：
http://www.4thmedia.org/2017/09/what-we-saw-in-dprk-goes-against-everything-western-media-wants-us-to-believe/
原文发表于 September 15, 2017
