Seen As Eyesore, Kim Blows Up Arch Of Reunification

The Arch of Reunification's demolition signals North Korea's determination to brand reunification as impossible. But, despite the physical erasure of this monument, its depiction on five official postage stamps serves to immortalize the monument and what it symbolized.

Postage stamps function not only as items that display the paying of postage rates but also as small carriers of propaganda messages. They have, in the past, been described as “ambassadors” conveying official viewpoints, and “windows of the state” that illustrate how it wishes to be seen by its own citizens and those beyond its boundaries.

In most authoritarian states, revisions to official party narratives require the alteration and removal of symbols associated with the previous narrative. The most notable example of this is the removal of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's name from many cities and landmarks following his death in 1953.

This formed part of the de-Stalinisation movement in the late 1950s and dismantled Stalin's“cult of personality.” Stalin had used art and popular culture to improve his status as leader and inspire loyalty.

In a similar way, the official North Korean postage stamp catalog removed five stamps from its listings that depicted the Arch of Reunification. Stamp catalogs provide information relating to when stamps were issued, who designed them, their dimensions and color. Having this information is important when collecting and analyzing them.

It's not certain exactly when the stamps were removed. But (a digital archive of the World Wide Web) indicates there was a change to the website on January 19, placing the change squarely within the timeframe of Kim's speech and the reported demolition of the monument. All visual and textual references to the stamps have been removed from the website.

NK News also reported around this time that North Korea was purging propaganda websites of old content, suggesting a rewriting of the official narrative.

There is precedent for this. North Korea has previously removed listings from its official stamp catalogs after they have been issued because they run contrary to new state narratives.

In 1960, for example, North Korea released a set of five stamps celebrating the reconstruction of Pyongyang after the Korean War (1950–1953). Two of the place names shown on the stamps,“Mao Zedong Square” and“Stalin Street”, were later renamed“Triumph Arc Square” and“Victory Street.”

However, as the stamps issued in 1960 contained the original names, their visual depictions in subsequently published stamp catalogs were not included.

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The reunification dream lives on

The Arch of Reunification was first depicted on a North Korean postage stamp in May 2002, almost one year after its unveiling. But the monument has been depicted more recently, on two stamps issued in 2015, and two more stamps issued in 2016 and 2021 respectively.

North Korea is seeking to erase any remnant of the Arch of Reunification's depiction. But, unfortunately for North Korea, these stamps exist in the private collections of foreign stamp collectors.

North Korean postage stamps issued on February 20, 2021 to mark the 8th Congress of the Worker's Party of Korea. Photo: David Hall, CC BY-NC-SA via The Conversation

The stamps were released to the world through Korea Stamp Corporation (North Korea's state-run postal authority) offices in Russia and China at the time of issue. These stamps can still easily be bought from stamp dealers on online platforms such as eBay.

For that reason, North Korea can never fully erase these depictions of the unification dream as it doesn't have full control over how its state narrative is presented and potentially altered.

David Hall is PhD Candidate in Korean Studies, University of Central Lancashire

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

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