Interview with Munya Chawawa for How To Survive A Dictator

30 September 2024

Munya Chawawa interview

Following How To Survive a Dictator, his critically acclaimed documentary about Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, Munya Chawawa turns his satirical gaze to a new totalitarian target, North Korea’s notorious Kim Jong-Un, in a new one-off film for Channel 4. Here, he discusses apocalypse anxiety, the courage of the show’s contributors, and his scandalously boring YouTube habit.

Can you explain what your new show is all about?
The show, to me, really touches on this idea of something I think we all experience to a greater or lesser extent, which is apocalypse anxiety – this feeling that the world is coming to an end. That some way, somehow, something is going to leave the world in a big ball of smoke. I think a lot of that points towards figureheads like Kim Jong Un. We’ve heard that he’s this crazed individual with access to world-ending nukes. So this documentary is an investigation into how valid a theory that is. It’s hopefully an alleviation of apocalypse anxiety by really investigating “How much of a threat is this man?” More often than not he’s portrayed as a comic book villain by the mass media.

How would you describe the show? It’s not a straightforward documentary, is it?
Comedy has always been my most effective communicator. Here, in the West, we’re very focussed on what’s going on in our own lives. Sometimes I feel that the only way to really get people to invest and engage in something outside of their own sphere is to communicate through comedy. So I would say that the programme is a genuine investigation into a real issue, made more palatable and digestible by my signature comedy sketch and song.

You made a similar programme about Robert Mugabe. You made that one because it had great personal significance to you, having grown up in Zimbabwe. Why did you choose Kim Jong Un, as opposed to any other dictators?
I think after the heaviness of the Robert Mugabe documentary, we needed some light relief, and that came in the form of Kim Jong Un. In many ways I feel like Kim Jong Un is the final boss of dictators – to borrow from my video game obsessions – because of the scale of the damage he can inflict. The implications of his leadership aren’t just contained in his country or his continent, which often felt like the case with Mugabe. This is on a planetary level. So I suppose it was sort of levelling up, and looking on a more macro-level. Having understood the basic principles of what a dictator is, do they hold true for somebody at Kim Jong Un’s level?

Who were some of the memorable people you spoke to for the film? Who did you find particularly fascinating?
My most poignant encounter was definitely Mr Jong [a defector from North Korea] and his hellbent determination to create a butterfly effect, and liberate his family and friends still trapped in North Korea. There’s a scene where you watch him rigorously filling bottles with rice and USBs containing films like James Bond and episodes of Friends to throw in the sea in the hope that they’ll wash up in North Korea. And you think “How on Earth is this in any way significant. How does it even count as a drop in the ocean when you’re up against one of the most entrenched dictators on the planet?” But in his mind, he is so convinced that the power lies with the people. He’s so driven by his own individual purpose. I found that to be really inspirational, and I also found it to be quite touching. He endured horrific stuff – stuff that we couldn’t include in the documentary because of how elaborate the torture he underwent was. When you talk about dictators, you’re often thinking on a political level, of men in suits slinging mud across assembly rooms, but actually he brought a really personal element to the documentary, and made me very aware of the human contingent when you talk about dictatorships.

Some of them are likely to be targets for North Korean reprisals. Was it difficult to get them to talk?
It was definitely a relationship-building process where you really get to know the people, because naturally people are petrified about the implications of speaking up. And that’s the legacy of living in a dictatorship – the total fear of free speech. So you build relationships with people, and we had a fantastic team who took people through the process and ensured there was a duty of care. But ultimately, when you’re in the room with these [people, what you realise is their commitment to seeing North Korean people freed and alleviated from oppression is unshakeable. It’s an unstoppable force. And that’s why, in the interviews, you really see people baring their souls, because it’s so important to them and they are so passionate about seeing the dictatorship topple. So yes, it was something we had to be very sensitive with. It took a lot of bravery on their part to share what they did.

You landed in South Korea at a time of heightened tensions, and almost got arrested on your trip. Were you ever worried?
I was absolutely petrified. I obviously had lots of concerned messages from my mum, and naturally you do worry about these things. Why the hell would I want to find myself on Kim Jong Un’s radar? Those are enemies I don’t want to have. I’ve only just finished sparring with my old landlord, so to have Kim Jong Un added to the list isn’t ideal. But my brand of satire very much goes after the villains in society – be that corrupt politicians or billionaires stirring the pot – so I think there’s an element of risk built into a lot of the stuff that I do. I guess it’s just part of the trade off of wanting to make  work that feels truthful and that does reflect some of the imbalances. Sometimes you have to go after the big bad guys.

You also spoke to a former North Korean citizen who defected to get medical treatment and now wanted to return to North Korea. Were you able to understand her perspective?
What’s so fascinating about that is it alerted me to the idea that there may well be a class imbalance within North Korea. There is always an inner circle. And for them, life can be quite a comfortable affair. There are no doubt people like that in North Korea for whom life wasn’t so bad.  So some defectors, particularly those who only went to South Korea for medical treatment, will want to go back. It challenged my belief that anyone who has left North Korea is happy to have escaped. I was basing my beliefs on what I had been told about North Korea – that it is this barren, oppressed wasteland where everyone is trying to get away. So I suppose it forced me to open my mind to the argument that maybe there are some good aspects of life for some people in North Korea.

The film is punctuated by some of your trademark satirical skits. How do you find a balance between serious journalism and humour?
My philosophy with regards to comedy and satire – and actually my philosophy with regards to life – is “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.” And when you think of it in terms of that dichotomy, I could have either created a documentary, where we are really emphasising all the bleak, fatalistic elements of the situation, the people under the regime, the likelihood of Kim Jong Un starting a war, and people will come away from that actually a little shell-shocked and perhaps almost numb to any hope or  any important messages that were in the documentary, because it all sounds so scary and bleak. For me, I’ve always found comedy is a superb communicator – it gets people to pay attention. Like I said, we’re all very wrapped up in our own worlds. A British person seeing a documentary about North Korea might think “Why should I care? I’m not in North Korea. Give me a reason to empathise.” Humour is a language we all speak, and I often find it bridges a gap between people and a problem that might otherwise feel very far away from them.

Did it cross your mind to try and get access inside North Korea, or was that out of the question?
I almost feel that the number one way to find out the least about North Korea is to go to North Korea. As a hermit kingdom, every and any precaution is taken to make sure all you see is what they want you to see. You can watch documentaries already out there, and you will see the same chaperoned tour, you will hear stories of video equipment being disassembled piece-by-piece and checked. So we considered that as our route one, and then decided that the most telling insight would probably come from South Korea. It’s the nearest place people from North Korea can escape to, so you’ve got this extremely high density of North Korean defectors.

The film doesn’t mention some of the absurd claims centring around Kim Jong Un, like getting 11 holes in one on his first round of golf. Why did you leave that stuff out?
We’ve heard those stories in the past, and we’ve seen that ridiculing angle. We wanted our documentary to reflect the truth, and the seriousness of the situation in North Korea. So it felt best to go beyond the parody and peddling the narrative that’s already out there, to see if we could find a different lens through which to look at it. So whilst there’s comedy in the documentary, it’s more a means to an end, as opposed to belittling or reducing something quite serious to the same old gag.

The North Korean regime is famously unhappy with criticism. Did you have any misgivings about making the show?
If you say to somebody “Don’t tell the truth or there will be a consequence,” I feel like that is no means by which to operate. As creatives we are foraging for the truth, whether that’s done through documentary or journalism or, in my case, satire. And so sometimes you do end up saying things that people don’t want to be heard. In this documentary obviously I am  stepping into the role of a journalist, and when I look at journalists whose work I admire, they are relentless in their pursuit of the truth, and it doesn’t matter which enemies they make along the way. I guess it amounts to priorities. What was important to me was finding the truth as opposed to worrying about the consequences of going looking for it.

You are warned by one contributor that you might be hacked. Was that tongue-in-cheek, or is that a genuine concern?
It’s a genuine concern. In the documentary, we talk about a department of the North Korean government  thought to be responsible for hacking and insurance fraud and illegal weapons trade. So there is a very real risk of hacking. I think my greatest fear of being hacked is the world discovering just how insanely boring my YouTube viewing habits are. I’m watching wood-turning videos and arctic survival tutorials, and I feel that that might undermine the street cred I’ve built up over the last decade.

What did you learn that surprised you during the making of the show?
I learned that there are actually multiple sides to the North Korean coin, in the sense that there are people who want to go back, there is wealth in North Korea for people on the right side of the dictatorship. Despite enduring the most harrowing ordeals, people who have escaped North Korea are still putting their lives on the line to liberate the people. I think the most significant thing I learned was this idea that hope for North Korea isn’t going to come from posturing by western nations, sanctions, or threats of military action. All those things have just led to deadlock between North Korea and the rest of the world. Eventually, change is going to come, and if there’s any fragment of hope of the dictatorship being toppled, it will come from North Koreans, and it will come from them stumbling upon information that alerts them to what the real world is actually like.

Which takes you back to the point of putting USB sticks into bottles of rice and throwing them into the sea.
Exactly. You talk about the butterfly effect, but very rarely do you see a really tangible manifestation of what that might look like. It’s literally rice, USBs and a plastic bottle. And to think that somehow, some way, that could liberate an entire nation of people from what feels like an everlasting dynasty is crazy to me.

What do you think of Kim Jong Un now?
He has been extremely effective as a dictator. He gets selected [as his father’s successor] and is seen as this delinquent, juvenile who should be easily barged out of the way. And through a pretty brutal regime he manages to solidify his position within the dynasty. You think about how young he was when he came into power, you say to any twentysomething “Right, you’re going to be in charge of carrying on the legacy of your family dynasty and keeping the nation wrapped around your finger, under lock and key” – it’s an impossible task. And that’s something that is overlooked by the comical portrayal of him in the West. I'm able to look past the comic portrayals of the past and see a true force to be reckoned with..

What do you think are the parallels, and the differences, between the Mugabe and Kim regimes?
To me, it speaks to the need to disperse power amongst multiple individuals. The phrase is “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Being able to see that template mirrored in North Korea, whereby a small number of individuals are given such concentrated, undiluted power, it basically corrupts the mind. It gets rid of all human empathy, it totally throws off the moral compass, and it becomes this sort of Lord-of-the-Rings-type obsession with keeping power, keeping the ring, and eliminating anything that comes between you and that power. When you look at the reality now of modern politicians trying to eliminate checks and balances to keep hold of maximum power, that is a huge red flag, because we have real world instances of what happens when you allow that to happen. That’s when we end up with our Mugabes and Kim Jong Uns.

You talk about apocalypse anxiety. Overall, do you feel safer or less safe now, knowing what you know?
On an information level, having spoken to an expert, I was assured that there are going to be no nukes in the next 20 years. On a personal level, I do feel hopeful. I feel hopeful because of people like Mr Jong, I feel hopeful because I’ve heard rumours of information slowly trickling into North Korea, and people becoming a bit more brave and audacious with that information, sharing it with friends and family. I’m really eager to find out what would happen, and what would the real world implications be, if the North Korean government was toppled by the people, I don’t know what that would mean for the world. But somehow I feel that it would start spinning us in a more positive direction.

You dressed up as Donald Trump for one of your sketches. Do you anticipate a time when you might be making one of these dictatorship documentaries about the USA?
Increasingly, I feel as though America is hurtling towards that dictatorship model. The things that Donald Trump says, and some of the checks and balances he is seeking to remove, have really set alarm bells ringing for me. We often associate dictatorships with poorer countries with a more basic infrastructure. We have a  stereotype that dictatorships are done in poor places by dumb people, and we exclude ourselves from that in the West We see ourselves as civilised, we’d never do what they do. Actually, I believe that membrane is very thin, and we’re closer than we think. So yes, I think there’s a very real threat that a new Trump government could see the beginning of a western dictatorship.