Balázs SZALONTAI

10.18399/acta.2024.27.1.006

North Korea Algeria Tunisia Morocco Mauritania propaganda narratives

The paper examines the formative phase of Pyongyang’s diplomacy toward Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania through the lenses of North Korean propaganda. It points out that the DPRK leaders' initial views of this distant and little-known region were heavily shaped by the information transmitted by their Soviet bloc allies, and they showed less interest in the Maghreb than East Germany and North Vietnam. When they did develop a more distinctive attitude, the peculiar features of their propaganda narratives often indicated a narrower and less empathetic perspective than East Germany’s. Subsequent North Korean claims stressing the DPRK's historically rooted solidarity with other colonial and post-colonial countries were partially contradicted by Pyongyang’s own propaganda, whose wide swings between vocal solidarity and deafening silence revealed the conditional and selective nature of North Korean solidarity. The prolonged news blackouts imposed upon Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania implied that the DPRK leaders attributed no intrinsic news value to the events in the Maghreb, and even to the very existence of these nations, unless they could be presented in such a way that buttressed Pyongyang’s narratives of militant anti-imperialist struggle. That is, the main thrust of North Korea’s solidarity was directed toward certain specific actions of the Maghreb countries, rather than toward the countries as such. The contrast between Pyongyang’s strong preference for armed struggle and its limited ability to provide economic assistance played a major role in that the DPRK managed to overtake East Germany in Algeria, but lagged behind it in Morocco and Tunisia.