The power of the scissors

Listen up, depraved youth of North Korea: Your long-haired revolution is officially over.

According to Radio Free Asia, the North Korean government has introduced guidelines mandating all male university students get the same haircut as Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un-a tight fade on the sides and an awkward middle part on a floppy top. The decree was reportedly issued in the capital, Pyongyang, two weeks ago and is now being implemented nationwide.

As with most stories out of the Hermit Kingdom, these latest claims about North Korean fashion come thinly sourced. The story may very well be false-its veracity has already been called into question.

In the magnitude of its depression and deplorable human rights record, North Korea is unique; in its alleged strategy of social control by buzzcut, it is not.

After the Manchus conquered China in the 1640s, the empire’s new rulers issued an edict forcing all adult men to shave the front of their head and tie the remaining hair in a ponytail. The rule was imposed under penalty of death.

Around the same time in Russia, Peter the Great attempted to stamp out beards, which he viewed as a hopeless relic of his country’s past. Hoping to modernize Russia in the mold of the West, he imposed a beard tax.

Several centuries later, during the 1970s, Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha did away with such free-market methods and outlawed beards all together. Elsewhere in the world, decrees governing grooming have often been issued in the name of Islam.

Regardless of religion, authoritarians don’t seem to have much love for hippies. After overthrowing Greece’s elected government in a 1967 military coup, strongman Georgios Papadopoulos banned “decadent” long hair for men and mini-skirts for women. During the 1970s, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew denied some foreigners entry into Singapore if their hair was too long.

Power: Sometimes it grows from a barber’s clippers.

Editorial, Pages 16 on 03/29/2014

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