18 June,2010 09:55 AM IST | | Hemal Ashar
One of the most fascinating aspects of the ongoing football World Cup is that the reclusive North Korea is playing in the most widely watched sporting event, the greatest show on Earth as that hoary old cliche goes.
North Korea who played stoically against Brazil though it lost 1-2 in the first round, is a political enigma. The team played its last football World Cup 44 years ago. Then, too, the team evoked great curiosity because of Communism and it is still a country that continues to perplex and fascinate, defy analysis and survive somehow.
Four decades later, it might seem that little has changed in North Korea, except the fact that the tensions with the South have ratcheted up, especially with the recent blame game over the sinking of a ship. The shell of secrecy has even now rarely been pierced, though a British filmmaker Daniel Gordon had travelled to North Korea to make a documentary on the 1966 World Cup football team.
Time may have frozen in the shadowy country, but outside it is a vastly different world from 1944. Faster communication has blown away all screens. It is becoming increasingly difficult for governments to crack down on any dissent, information is disseminated at the speed of light, and it is virtually impossible to stop.
One wonders then how the North Korean players are reacting to the capitalism so evident in the football show, right from sponsors to players earning millions from club leagues. Are they absorbing the stories of wealth, maybe, even a little envious of them? Are they too exposed to a world that seemed to be closed to them, as their country has been closed to others? Would a North Korean football player start blogging about his experiences at the World Cup? Or, is Internet access closed to them? Similarly, for coaches and managers, in fact the entire coterie that accompanies a team to the World Cup. Have they too been sworn to secrecy?
Maybe, fear of years of conditioning have taught them not to say anything. Yet, it would be interesting to find out if journalists are allowed to ask questions about the country at post-match press conferences and if the players are allowed to answer.
These are athletes from a place around which myths swirl like thick mist. The World Cup football in South Africa is the stage where the world might get a peek behind the North Korea curtain.
