Rodney Dangerfield may no longer be with us, but we still have Norbert Vollertsen to kick around.
I’d hate to be this man’s insurance company.
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This entry was written by Robert Koehler, posted on March 20, 2005 at 6:32 pm, filed under North Korea. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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32 Comments
i think the guy is a hero. I dont think he is a wacko because he does wacky things. He is just not a politician.
i think that what dr. vollersten is trying to draw attention to needs and deserves a lot more attention. but, and i know this is sort of hearsay, i know some people who know him and they do tend to think he’s sort of nuts.
i don’t know if the grandstanding is the only way for him to get his message into the media, but i don’t think he needs to exaggerate his treatment by the u.s. authorities just to get press (if that’s what he’s really doing).
Han Jin-kook, a South Korean detective who handled the case at Yongsan police station, dismissed Vollertsen’s claim as “exaggerated.”
Wow. If a Korean detective is describing Mr. Vollersten’s accusations of mistreatment by Americans as “exaggerated,” then it must have been either quite a spectacle or quite a big lie on behalf of Mr. Vollersten.
I think it is likely they did cover his mouth with their hands, and this may have led to a finger or two slipping into it, because the Guardian as well as CNN report that “security officers literally muffled Vollertsen while wrestling him to the carpeted floor.” Now those are not his words, but the words of the journalists present. So I find it likely he was roughed up. You can also imagine the rage on the part of the American heavies who carred him out - they’re gonna get in trouble because the guy got in in the first place, so yeah they maybe got a little aggressive with him.
I know more than this but cannot comment right now because, frankly, I like the guy and am worried about him. Maybe it has all gotten to him. Maybe he is somewhat disturbed. I hope he isn’t. I take Nora’s point that grandstanding is not the only way to get subjects into the media, but maybe every serious issue needs one grandstander - and Norbert is it, for good or ill. I think that he has (at least until now) served a useful function doing that.
But I guess you can also imagine how he feels - he was in Pyongyang when Madeline Albright visited there in 2000. He took the journalists around and showed them “the other side” of life to what was being shown officially. He comes to South Korea, where the government and mainstream society no lnoger want to hear about how bad life is in the North. Five years on, and he sees no significant changes. And South Korean businessmen are setting up factories in Kaesong, saying (some of them) “I don’t care how bad the regime is up there - labour is cheap and conditons are good.” That’s disturbing.
I find it regretful and yet admirable that it takes a foreigner rather than a Korean to fight so vehemently for the human rights of their countrymen.
Hamel! Right on! I think you hit the nail on the proverbial head. In regards to Norbert and Doug Shin, one word “Pre-meditated”. This is not the first instance and it won’t be the last.
“I??d hate to be this man??s insurance company.”
Don’t understand, are you referring to his life being threatened and by whom (US? NorK? both?)
Article said he freelances for “Asian World Street Journal”, is this an actual publication or did they mean to say “Wall Street Journal”? I know he’s published articles on their editorial page in past years.
sometimes i feel about norbert vollersten the way i do about the people who hacked off their digits: they are putting an extremist face on an issue that needs to be taken seriously. okay, so dr. vollersten is not hacking off pinkies (it would be inflammatory for me to say “not yet, anyway”), but the grandstanding makes him look like he can’t be reasonable.
if i were to crash a closed event with the secretary of state, i can expect the bodyguards to jump on my 1-1/2-meter frame and knock me to the ground (attack of the five-foot lesbian!), and i’m sure he’s close to twice my size. what else are they going to do? he knew this was going to happen, so complaining he was roughed up is a bit disingenuous, dontcha think?
there must be other, more productive ways to draw attention to the plight. i was disappointed that the media seemed to ignore the north korean snuff film, much the same as japan gets heavily criticized for its whitewashed history, but china gets a free ride for telling everyone _south_ korea started the war.
hey, didn’t the chinese kill tens of thousands of koreans during the korean war?
asian wall street journal is the asian edition of the wall street journal. it’s easy to find in hotels, airplanes, and hong kong.
??????????, Nora, that old ?????????? will get you every time.
i want to know how many korean doctors would give up a lucrative practice, move to a foreign country and fight for the human rights of a foreign people (while being harrassed, threatened, beaten by police, etc.) I’m going to take a guess and say the number is ZERO.
eileen, there are korean doctors putting their lives in danger on medical missions in africa and southeast asia.
You won’t find too many Korean human rights workers who will risk their lives fighting abusive regimes - maybe exception is China where many Korean underground workers are helping NK refugees to escape NK and China. It’s Korean mentality that you shouldn’t get involved in other peoples’ politics. On the other hand there are Korean aid workers and missionaries though, working in Asia and Africa under humanitarian missions.
Fighting for human rights is a noble cause, let’s just not lose the perspective that not all actions are justifiable because the the cause is noble. (or how can we differntiate ourselves from terrorists)
And this includes eileen stating there are ZERO Korean doctors who live up to Mr. Vollertsen’s standard. It is great of you to defend someone you respect, but please do it in a manner that will earn you friends, not enemies. And I think most posters agree with Mr. Vollertsen’s noble cause, its the means that most here don’t agree with.
Juan, there is one exception - the kidnapped S.Korean pastor who paid for it with his life when he risked his own to help fleeing North Koreans in China. He was kidnapped by North Korea in 2000 and was never heard from again. Rumor has it that he died in the gulags. There are lots of Koreans like that, it’s just that unlike the German doctor, they prefer to remain anonymous, work within the system, and not make much noise. I don’t know if that is the best way to handle North Korea’s abuses or not. I’ve not made up my mind.
Hello Kimbob, when you said there is one exception, I believe you meant if for eileen’s statment of ZERO Korean doctors?
Thank you for the information. I’m also pretty sure as you are that many Koreans AND NONKOREANS are indeed fighting for the human rights issue of NK.
South Korea has become world’s second largest source of Christian missionaries; more than 12,000 of them are abroad in 160 countries around world; they have become known for aggressively going to–and sometimes being expelled from–hardest-to-evangelize corners of world; South Korean Christianity has taken on missionary gloss only in last two decades, as newly democratic government decided to allow citizens to travel freely overseas; their actions are at odds with foreign policy of South Korea’s government, which is trying to rein them in; their activities around world described; photo (M)
This is from the NY Times, and frankly I don’t know what to make of these people who are out to evangelize the world. They seem like religeous nuts hell bent on converting everyone to their ways, yet they also do good in the form of humanitarian aid which is good for something. I also don’t like the way the Korean government is trying to rein them in, especially in light of the way the Korean government is handling the North Korean refugees.
I feel sorry for Dr. Vollertsen. He does care very passionately about an important issue, but economic interests and realpolitik posturing prevent his voice from being heard. In many ways, he resembles Harry Wu, who made a bit of splash in the 1990s protesting Chinese prison labor factories. But with China joining the WTO and more companies setting up shop on the mainland, nobody cares about the laogai anymore. The same thing has happened to Vollertsen.
As for Nora’s observation that
china gets a free ride for telling everyone _south_ korea started the war.
Actually, my students in China have been taught the US started the war. Heh. Be that as it may, I agree with Nora’s overall point and it is a little sad the way South Korea pretends China is a partner not a rival.
In Chinese conventional wisdom, Korens tend to be seen as childlike and spoiled and one suspects many Chinese will be happy to see a “strong parent” dictate how “Korean children” should behave. While Chinese netizens cheer on the spectacle of Korean anti-Japanese protests, they also likely keep a mental catalogue of all the excesses on the part of the Korean protestors — the finger-choppings, the immolations, and the like — as evidence that the Korean nationalism is ignorant and unrefined.
This view of Korean nationalism is endorsed and reinforced in the media and in Chinese academia. A prominent Chinese linguist speaking at Beijing University a few years ago asserted that Korean English skill is inferior to Chinese English because — and here I quote what a colleague told me — “Korean nationalism prevents Koreans from learning another language well.”
Along these lines, China’s Northeast Asian History project bespeaks the Tibetification of the Korean peninsula, and there are a myriad of similar academic endeavors whose intent is to either claim Korean people as a Chinese minority group or to advocate Chinese hegemony over part, or all, of Korea.
In the long run the PRC as it is presently governed is a greater threat to Korean sovereignty than Japan. Every Korean who insists on looking backwards 60 years should give as much thought to looking forward 60 years and asking what steps Korea can take to maintain its autonomy in the face of Chinese expansion.
“?? as evidence that the Korean nationalism is ignorant and unrefined.”
Agreed and right on the money with this statement. But I find it funny that this is coming from China. A country where Japanese soccer fans are attacked for no other reason than Japan whipped the Chinese team’s ass. This is the same country that went coo koo when some Japanese tourists allegedly participated in sexecapades with local prostitutes. If ain’t the pot calling the kettle black.
I just realized how much China and Korea have in common.
hes a fruitcake
Agreed, Kimbob. Nationalist sentiment on Chinese BBSes is hardly distinguishable from the kind one sees on the Korean sites, with the added wrinkle that unlike Koreans, Chinese are fond of advocating dominating their neighbors while simultaneously preaching about the evils of Japanese (and American) imperalism.
I left out one current fad in Korea-bashing among Chinese, and that is the claim that Korean managers treat Chinese “worse than dogs.” However, these gripes tend to be geographically isolated and not nationwide. But if the Party decides to promote an anti-Korean campaign, every Chinese will wield that as a talking point.
Can’ we all just be amigos?
Reality is scary…
Did the article not say he had been given a pass into another press conference but thought he was attending the right one?
That doesn’t explain all of why the security people took him down, but it does explain a lot. It is a good bit different to say he infiltrated a news conference for the Sec of State of the United States during this time of global terrorism than it is to say he simply made a mistake. We still have the question about how provocative his actions were in leading to the level of take down.
But, showing up at a news conference your not expected to be in after Rice has made the prickly Kim Jong Il howl with rage is not the best position to be in. Yes, he is an older white guy, but if I were in the secret service detail, I would have had my guys and girls ready for any kind of action. I’m totally serious. Kim Jong Il being insulted by a woman, a black woman, who he knows has more global power than him and SHE is not even the leader of her nation,
It wasn’t clear from what I wrote above. I was meaning to question why so many of us think this latest news means he’s nuts. Infiltrating a press conference is a bit wacky if you’re not some 19 year old college kid. Attending the wrong press conference isn’t so bad even though holding up protest signs is out of the ordinary……well…..perhaps out of the ordinary outside of South Korea…..
‘tibeitification of korea…thry’re(the chinese) just taking their time…’
really? it’s been about two thousand years now. when will the chinese do this tibet thing? oh, the blood, time, money, and disrespect the chinese will get before they lose. vietnam, anyone?
‘chinese view koreans as childish…’
WOW! the chinese? you mean the people who spit on japanese soccer players? you mean the people who rioted in the streets because of a skit put on by some nipponese? you mean the people who say genghis khan is not mongol but sinic?
how many posters named eileen on this board are willing to put their lives on the line for freedon and democracy?
answer: ZERO
‘we care more about starving north koreans than the koreans do!’
yeah, a bunch of conservative, fox loving, american patriots care more about the issue than the koreans do. i don’t believe that for a second; you care about following your leader’s policies, ok? you care more about finding material with which to slam the people you marry and have children with, dig?
look, there’s something called ‘the greater good’. if bush and his supporters can bring about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in iraq for the greater good of democracy, then, sk can use the same logic. it’s more important to start developing the north for reunification which will, in the end, serve more north koreans than shouting about starvation you can address only by bringing about more starvation ie bush sanctions. south korea NEEDS to do this specially in light of the fact that korea will be having a war with china soon. i’ll write what i’ve written before: it’s interesting how asians are always killing each other when the westerner isn’t around, ain’t it? if asian folk start to beleive that, who benefits? who, indeed!
‘i feel so ashamed of being korean!’
maybe you should tell folks you’re japanese. they won’t know the difference. and you know who you are.
look, there??s something called ??the greater good??. if bush and his supporters can bring about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in iraq for the greater good of democracy, then, sk can use the same logic.
Except for the fact that you are using the thouroughly debunked lancet study about civilian deaths in Iraq…
Noolji: ‘yeah, a bunch of conservative, fox loving, american patriots care more about the issue than the koreans do.’
Uh, ‘fox loving’, Noolji? You might be thinking about a segment of the British population, there. And do you perhaps mean fox-loving, or do you intend that Americans actually engage in sexual congress with foxes?
You later say that Americans here simply look for material to slam people? I don’t agree that your perception fairly characterizes all Americans here, but I’ll accept your right to an opinion. But please, retract those hurtful comments about fox loving.
Okay, I’m going to be honest and admit I’m not exactly sure what this means,
“you care more about finding material with which to slam the people you marry and have children with, dig?”
but does it sound to anyone else like Noolji has an anti-miscegenation fixation?
Noolji is like the opposite incarnate of some posters here. Everything cancels out in the end. It makes this board interesting.
Condaleeza Rice is in Korea to discuss how they can bring back North Korea to 6 party table. One of her goals is to rally S.Korea, Japan, and China to put more pressure on the North Koreans. This is all good and dandy but if this report from Washington Post is correct, and Bush administration has once again manually manufactured evidence to support their foreign policy, it’s going to blow a big hole in the credibility of the US in front of Chinese and S.Koreans who are already skeptical of the US plan to put more pressures on North Korea. It’s things like this that strengthens the left leaning youth in S.Korea, as they’ll point and say you can’t believe what the US says anymore. Congratulations, Mr. Bush, you’ve just gave those left leaning idiots more ammos to shoot with. Good lord, this is getting to be a real bad habit for the Bush administration that’s undermining any kind of trust for the US. What the hell is going on?
Threats from NK are real, but god dang, I can’t help but wonder how much of what the Bush administration says about the NK nuclear project is true, and how much are fibs. What are true and what are not? I would think this is no way to gain any kind of trust from any US allies.