Our Answer!

provided by NYTimes

This is a North Korean propaganda poster calling people to join in the destruction of the United States. The words displayed in large blue font translates to "Our Answer!". The other characters in the bottom right corner of the poster translate to "Military option," "Pre-emptive strike," and "Sanctions resolution" according to the Telegraph. Also, according to Express, these posters are recently made in response to the escalation between Trump and North Korea.

My engaging hook would center around the idea of the complete destruction of the United States. This is exactly what the poster is calling the people of North Korea to help with. Yet, the question is whether this is civic. Having a poster that challenges my, and probably most of my audience members', civicness and discussing the civic nature would be the foundation of my hook. I might lead with a question, can the destruction of your nation which you are called to be civic toward be civic in nature? 

One important preliminary talking point of my speech about this artifact in particular would be the context of why North Korea spites the United States. This is crucial in deciding whether it is in fact civic to destroy another nation. Some may believe it downright immoral, but if North Koreans truly believe the United States is 'bad' then maybe it is correct to say this is a call to be civic. This can only truly be understood with context of North Koreans point of view.

Another important preliminary talking point of my speech would be the conflict over the civicness of this poster between North Koreans and Americans. As this challenges Americans, it might be difficult to view this as a call to be civic. 

A third preliminary talking point might also be how affect this poster has been in rousing North Koreans. However, gathering hard news in North Korea can be quite difficult. This along with how new this poster is may cause this talking point to be arduous, yet it still is important to touch on with any information that can be found.


Comments

  1. Norma GarciaSeptember 14, 2017 at 7:03 AM

    You have a really great hook and I love the direction you're going with this. I'm interested to see how you're going to capture the North Korean point of view given like you mentioned, it is going to be difficult to gather Korean news and you might not have a direct source to North Korean culture. The argument about whether or not the destruction of a country can be civic is very intriguing and genius. I'm looking forward to your speech!

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  2. UnknownSeptember 14, 2017 at 7:10 AM

    I support this topic very much so as it truly does raise the question about whether being civic is really all that moral or not, and especially if it involves hateful dialect and a call to arms over trifling matters. The question you raise about how much North Koreans actually believe in some type of propaganda post such as this. I'm interested in seeing how you develop this.

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  3. Shwetanc BothraSeptember 14, 2017 at 7:15 AM

    Cook hook, Kevin! I'm curious where you found this poster. For now, we all take Kim Jong Un's unending threats ever so lightly; but now that I see that he is actually rousing his citizens (or at least trying to) towards a war against America - it brings a whole new anchor to the depth of the American-Korean conflict. The most interesting aspect of your article was how you made absolute sense of this statement - "deciding whether it is in fact civic to destroy another nation", because from NKorean citizens' perspective, that might actually be civic - and the thought is frightening.

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