Politics of personality rules in North Korea

In the first of an occasional series of articles on the deteriorating situation on the Korean peninsula, The Jakarta Post's Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin takes a look at North Korea's personality cult. Many foreign observers expect North Korea to change -- but, if China is any guide, North Korea simply cannot do that yet.

HONG KONG (JP): As China celebrated the 20th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping's initiation of his reform program, North Korea entangled itself ever more deeply in the very circumstances from which Deng sought to escape. While it has become a cliche that North Korea is the most remote, isolated, totalitarian nation on earth, its strictly controlled media provide ample evidence that the cliche is still true.

The main source of news in North Korea, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), endlessly reports of preparatory committees being set up in distant corners of the world to arrange for the proper celebration of Kim Jong-il's 57th birthday. When Kim, in his capacity as General Secretary of the Korean Workers Party (KWP), sends New Year greetings cards to "heads of state and party leaders of different countries" KCNA lovingly detailed every recipient in a lengthy news report.

(President B.J. Habibie came roughly halfway down the list, after Armenia and India and before Yemen and Vietnam.)

On Feb. 1, the KWP's party daily, the Rodong Sinmun ran an editorial entitled "Let us remain loyal to ideology and guidance of the respected Kim Jong-il". The editorial called for readers to "grasp the greatness of the respected Kim Jong-il, the greatest man in the world." Amidst the paeans of praise, Kim was hailed as "a great statesman, an outstanding military strategist and a tender-hearted father of the people."

We have been here before. The nearest equivalent outside North Korea was China, over thirty years ago. In those days there was a fanatical cult aroused in China around the personality of Mao Zedong. That cult first led China into the futility of the Great Leap Forward and then into the destructive deviation called the Cultural Revolution.

One of the first things that Deng Xiaoping did when he took charge in China in 1978 was to end that nonsense.

Deng did not go too far in criticizing Mao. But he did throw out the excessive worship of Mao. He saw that reforming Chinese society and retaining the cult of Mao's personality were simply incompatible. Deng admitted that there had been a dreadful famine during Mao's Great Leap Forward.

North Korea is still enmeshed in such a tragic period.

The cult of personality around Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il remains pervasive. North Koreans continue to wear Kim Il- sung badges. President Kim Il-sung died in 1994, but in North Korean politics there is life after death. Kim Il-sung is now the Eternal President, the all-wise, all-seeing leader, whose son Kim Jong-il is carrying on his father's wonderful work.

Juche, or national self-reliance, was the great slogan of Kim Il-sung. North Korea now measures time from the birth of Kim Il- sung. So that instead of 1999, North Koreans are now in the year Juche 88. Presumably, after the Eternal President's next birthday, on April 15, it will be Juche 89. A run-of-the-mill KCNA report on Jan. 19 gives the flavor of the personality cult with which North Koreans are daily bombarded.

""While on a journey by train to give personal guidance to Jagang province, General Secretary Kim Jong-il looked out of the window, counted the number of houses, and the number of aerials installed on the roofs, and found that the numbers were not equal. He took measures for equally distributing television sets to local people. Then in December Kim told officials what makes him pleased and happy. He said that when he hears that people are well off, his fatigue disappears at once and he feels strong even after working without sleep and meals. The people's pleasure and happiness are what makes him pleased and happy Kim added. His popular traits are a source of the Korean people's absolute worship, loyalty and devotion to him."

Then, on Jan. 12, there was a brief account of a New Year concert given by the choir of the Korean Peoples Army and attended by top political and army brass led of course by General Secretary and Commander-in-Chief Kim Jong-il: "Put on the stage were chorus songs including The Leader Will Always Be With Us , Commander of Korea and Ten Million Will Be Human Bombs. The respected Supreme Commander Kim Jong-il congratulated the choir on its successful performance".

North Koreans are frequently urged to make themselves into human bombs in almost exactly the same way as Japanese were enjoined to become kamikaze in World War II -- except that the Japanese were expected to die for the nation, whereas the North Koreans are expected to die for the greater glory of the Kim communist dynasty.

While the Kim personality cult within North Korea tends to be both predictable and boring, the cult, when extended overseas, occasionally throws up some interesting facts. The website called The People's Korea, run by North Korean loyalists in Japan, recently produced some graphics, of the type usually used for illustrating economic data, detailing Kim Jong-il's statistical pattern of on-the-spot guidance on 71 occasions in 1998. Forty- six percent of the guidance was on defense and military matters, 28 percent to art performances, 15 percent for economic construction and 11 percent for others. "One of the most important characteristics of his guidance was that (Kim) stressed the role of military power not only in defense but also in other national economic and reunification policies" The People's Korea reported.

Almost daringly, the website also offered some personal information on Kim Jong-il, revealing that his favorite color is red, his favorite scientist is Thomas Edison, and his favorite movie is King Herod (whether this referred to an unremarkable 1960 Italian epic called Herod The Great, or to a North Korean movie, was not disclosed). The most important answers were predictable.

Kim Il-sung was Kim's most respected person, completion of the Juche revolutionary cause was his ultimate goal, and national reunification was his immediate task.

Just as there has not been a North Korean Deng Xiaoping capable of ending the personality cult, so there has not been a North Korean equivalent of Deng Xiaoping calling for the nation to reform itself by opening up to the outside world.

It was hailed as a great sign of progress recently when, for the first since the armistice was signed in the Korean War in 1953, South Korean visitors were allowed to visit a tourist spot in North Korea just north of the de facto border, the demilitarized zone.

But the development did not signify much progress. The South Korean tourists were told that in no circumstances whatsoever were they to communicate with any North Koreans who might stray across their path. North Koreans were no doubt given even stricter injunctions to stay out of the way of the South Koreans. In fact the tourist spot appeared to have been denuded of North Koreans before the South Korean tourists were let in. There are absolutely no signs whatsoever of any North Korean tour groups being allowed to visit South Korea and to see all the progress that has taken place there.

Instead it is North Korea which is hailed as having "risen up like a phoenix to build a powerful nation".

South Korea on the other hand, wherein "1.7 to 1.8 million are absolutely poor", has "no human rights but the right to unemployment, starvation and death". South Korean President Kim Dae-jung does not exist in the North Korean media, but becomes merely an anonymous "South Korean chief executive".

The radios which North Koreans can purchase for themselves can only receive the two North Korean radio stations. Those television sets which Kim Jong-il was reported to be distributing to his people are likewise only capable of receiving the North Korean transmissions of the truth. Every day the people are bombarded with the truth according to the glorious Kim dynasty.

North Koreans have not even been told that men have walked on the moon, and numerous other facts of the 20th century which -- outside North Korea -- everybody knows.

So, just as Deng Xiaoping foresaw what would happen to an unreformed China, North Korea retains the personality cult and therefore cannot reform itself. If it were to open up like China once did, North Koreans would soon learn about the ghastly starvation and famine that stalks their land -- and about which the controlled press of the regime says nothing. So North stays closed to the outside world. And North Koreans, in the midst of a brutally cold Korean winter, continue to starve.