Former NBA star Dennis Rodman has become the first American to meet the leader of the Communist country North Korea.
Latimes.com reports:
Rodman, who is in North Korea as part of an HBO documentary on “basketball diplomacy,” watched a basketball game in Pyongyang with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, on Thursday. According to a spokesman for the film crew, Rodman told Kim that “You have a friend for life.”
Rodman and Kim talked as they watched players from North Korea and the U.S. play on mixed teams, Alex Detrick, a spokesman for the New York-based VICE media company, told the Associated Press.Kim is a diehard basketball fan and was a huge fan of the 1990s Chicago Bulls, of which Rodman was a key member.
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So why is this meeting such a big deal?
Well, because North Korean has had two main enemies: the Japanese, who colonized Korea from 1910 to 1945, and the U.S., which fought against North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War.
“They tell their people there can be no reconciliation with the United States,” says American scholar Brian Myers. Myers goes on to say, “They make it very clear to the masses that this hate will last forever.”
