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'Dear Leader' Feted in N. Korea
Kim's Birthday Features Displays of Loyalty, Military Readiness Themes
By Joohee Cho and Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 17, 2003; Page A21
SEOUL, Feb. 16 -- The Dear Leader's birthday event evoked joy in North Korea: It brought two days of white rice.
"It is the day everyone waited for, in hopes that we'd be eating well," recalled Lee Soon Bok, 57, who fled hunger and her native North Korea two years ago. "For those two days we'd get white rice. You don't really get to eat white rice for two days in a row."
Desperate and cold, North Koreans turned out by the millions today to praise the leader who has driven their impoverished country into a confrontation with several of its neighbors and the United States over nuclear weapons.
Fireworks, nationwide displays of loyalty and huge musical and art performances marked the birthday today of Kim Jong Il, 61, the man at the center of an extraordinary personality cult in his isolated nation.
Concerns about Kim's nuclear intentions have sparked an international crisis that will soon be taken up by the U.N. Security Council. North Korea last year withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It also evicted inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, moved to restart a mothballed nuclear plant and threatened to reprocess nuclear fuel into atomic weapons material.
The nuclear dispute has aborted North Korea's fledgling "coming out" from its diplomatic and economic isolation, and has provoked a rising drumbeat of warnings between Pyongyang and Washington.
Kim's birthday observance this year was marked by a heavy emphasis on military readiness. Since Feb. 6, state-run television has broadcast a documentary on Kim's "military first" policies, promoting civic sacrifice for the military. The same theme was featured in art and photography exhibits, and in two recent movies, according to reports from Pyongyang. A new song written for Kim's birthday is titled "The Road of the Military-First Long March."
North Korea's state-run Rodong newspaper picked up the theme today, saying the United States was pushing the country "to the brink of war" and urging North Koreans to "burn with hatred and hostility in their heart" toward the United States.
The Bush administration has sought to play down the volatility of the dispute, siding with analysts who say North Korea's war rhetoric is a bargaining tactic. But the birthday events were a further sign that Kim is whipping up war fever in his country.
Kim's hold on his populace has helped propel the crisis. Veteran observers say the West misunderstands the country and fails to comprehend how much misery North Koreans will withstand and how far they will follow their leader toward catastrophe.
Kim and his father, Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea, have combined brutal state oppression with a fervent philosophy of self-reliance and nationalism, called juche. It mixes Korean nationalist zeal with a religious adulation of the two Kims, producing pride in sacrifice and high praise of Kim for the smallest of relief.
Descriptions of Kim's past birthday celebrations by North Koreans who have left the country provide a glimpse of that zealous mix.
"For the children, it's more joyful than Christmas," said Lee, a farmer who fled to China with her grown son when life became unbearable. "Every child up to junior high school gets a boxed present. You'd have cookies and candies, good enough for the whole year.
"The children are told it is the present from our Dear Leader because he loves all children. This is the most awaited day of the year, not just for the children, but for the adults as well.
"If it is some kind of [five-year] anniversary, we got special presents, like blankets for every household," she said. "Blankets might not mean much here in South Korea, but in North Korea, it is a very precious commodity. We once got a clock for the house, too. And for the military, the soldiers would get more valuable presents like an electronic wristwatch. They would come home and flash those presents to their families. It makes you feel important and special. So for the soldiers, too, it's a great celebration."
Lee said the festivities typically begin about a month before Feb. 16, Kim's birthday. People in towns across the country write letters to Kim, and students collect them, eventually forming a huge parade of honor carriers who leave the countryside with an escort of cheering townspeople to deliver the missives in Pyongyang. "They are like the chosen angels for you to deliver your hopes and wishes to the leader," she said.
The "angels" analogy is deliberate. As juche is sort of a national religion in North Korea, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are its chief deities, complete with an extravagant mythology. Kim Jong Il's birthplace, for example, has been transmuted from a military barracks in Russia, where his father fought, to sacred Mount Paektu in North Korea. His birth, some say, was heralded by flashes of lightning and thunder, a double rainbow and other miracles of nature. On the occasion of his birthday last year, halos arose above the mountain, according to accounts in the official state media, and a cloud appeared, shaped like a flower named after him -- the "Kimjongilia."
Throughout the year, Kim is cited for his astounding wisdom in subjects from agriculture to opera. His trips across the country to offer "guidance" are reported like biblical accounts of his teachings. The ever-present portraits of Kim and his father are icons given almost absurd official reverence.
"We were supposed to bow and clean the portrait three times a day," Lee said. "We once did. But when people started starving, I started to hate the two. I'm sure the others did, too, but they just couldn't express it.
"But then again, sometimes you find yourself still praying to them," she added. "It's like we were told that they were God and hope. If you're so desperate you do look for something. So you find yourself unconsciously turning to those images and praying to them."
"Kim Il Sung was God to us," agreed Kim Goon Il, 24, who fled North Korea for China in 1997, just after finishing his military service, and arrived in Seoul a year later. "When he died [in 1994], people couldn't believe it. We all thought that he would live eternally. It was not conceivable."
Kim Goon Il said he remembers the leader's birthday celebrations fondly.
"February 16th is one of the two most joyful holidays in North Korea," he said. "Students practice moves for mass games all year long for this special day. For me, these birthday celebrations were my favorite day of the year. We got candies and cookies from school. I kept them all year, taking little by little, trying to save them as long as I could."
Struck reported from Tokyo.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
Kim's Birthday Features Displays of Loyalty, Military Readiness Themes
By Joohee Cho and Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 17, 2003; Page A21
SEOUL, Feb. 16 -- The Dear Leader's birthday event evoked joy in North Korea: It brought two days of white rice.
"It is the day everyone waited for, in hopes that we'd be eating well," recalled Lee Soon Bok, 57, who fled hunger and her native North Korea two years ago. "For those two days we'd get white rice. You don't really get to eat white rice for two days in a row."
Desperate and cold, North Koreans turned out by the millions today to praise the leader who has driven their impoverished country into a confrontation with several of its neighbors and the United States over nuclear weapons.
Fireworks, nationwide displays of loyalty and huge musical and art performances marked the birthday today of Kim Jong Il, 61, the man at the center of an extraordinary personality cult in his isolated nation.
Concerns about Kim's nuclear intentions have sparked an international crisis that will soon be taken up by the U.N. Security Council. North Korea last year withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It also evicted inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, moved to restart a mothballed nuclear plant and threatened to reprocess nuclear fuel into atomic weapons material.
The nuclear dispute has aborted North Korea's fledgling "coming out" from its diplomatic and economic isolation, and has provoked a rising drumbeat of warnings between Pyongyang and Washington.
Kim's birthday observance this year was marked by a heavy emphasis on military readiness. Since Feb. 6, state-run television has broadcast a documentary on Kim's "military first" policies, promoting civic sacrifice for the military. The same theme was featured in art and photography exhibits, and in two recent movies, according to reports from Pyongyang. A new song written for Kim's birthday is titled "The Road of the Military-First Long March."
North Korea's state-run Rodong newspaper picked up the theme today, saying the United States was pushing the country "to the brink of war" and urging North Koreans to "burn with hatred and hostility in their heart" toward the United States.
The Bush administration has sought to play down the volatility of the dispute, siding with analysts who say North Korea's war rhetoric is a bargaining tactic. But the birthday events were a further sign that Kim is whipping up war fever in his country.
Kim's hold on his populace has helped propel the crisis. Veteran observers say the West misunderstands the country and fails to comprehend how much misery North Koreans will withstand and how far they will follow their leader toward catastrophe.
Kim and his father, Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea, have combined brutal state oppression with a fervent philosophy of self-reliance and nationalism, called juche. It mixes Korean nationalist zeal with a religious adulation of the two Kims, producing pride in sacrifice and high praise of Kim for the smallest of relief.
Descriptions of Kim's past birthday celebrations by North Koreans who have left the country provide a glimpse of that zealous mix.
"For the children, it's more joyful than Christmas," said Lee, a farmer who fled to China with her grown son when life became unbearable. "Every child up to junior high school gets a boxed present. You'd have cookies and candies, good enough for the whole year.
"The children are told it is the present from our Dear Leader because he loves all children. This is the most awaited day of the year, not just for the children, but for the adults as well.
"If it is some kind of [five-year] anniversary, we got special presents, like blankets for every household," she said. "Blankets might not mean much here in South Korea, but in North Korea, it is a very precious commodity. We once got a clock for the house, too. And for the military, the soldiers would get more valuable presents like an electronic wristwatch. They would come home and flash those presents to their families. It makes you feel important and special. So for the soldiers, too, it's a great celebration."
Lee said the festivities typically begin about a month before Feb. 16, Kim's birthday. People in towns across the country write letters to Kim, and students collect them, eventually forming a huge parade of honor carriers who leave the countryside with an escort of cheering townspeople to deliver the missives in Pyongyang. "They are like the chosen angels for you to deliver your hopes and wishes to the leader," she said.
The "angels" analogy is deliberate. As juche is sort of a national religion in North Korea, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are its chief deities, complete with an extravagant mythology. Kim Jong Il's birthplace, for example, has been transmuted from a military barracks in Russia, where his father fought, to sacred Mount Paektu in North Korea. His birth, some say, was heralded by flashes of lightning and thunder, a double rainbow and other miracles of nature. On the occasion of his birthday last year, halos arose above the mountain, according to accounts in the official state media, and a cloud appeared, shaped like a flower named after him -- the "Kimjongilia."
Throughout the year, Kim is cited for his astounding wisdom in subjects from agriculture to opera. His trips across the country to offer "guidance" are reported like biblical accounts of his teachings. The ever-present portraits of Kim and his father are icons given almost absurd official reverence.
"We were supposed to bow and clean the portrait three times a day," Lee said. "We once did. But when people started starving, I started to hate the two. I'm sure the others did, too, but they just couldn't express it.
"But then again, sometimes you find yourself still praying to them," she added. "It's like we were told that they were God and hope. If you're so desperate you do look for something. So you find yourself unconsciously turning to those images and praying to them."
"Kim Il Sung was God to us," agreed Kim Goon Il, 24, who fled North Korea for China in 1997, just after finishing his military service, and arrived in Seoul a year later. "When he died [in 1994], people couldn't believe it. We all thought that he would live eternally. It was not conceivable."
Kim Goon Il said he remembers the leader's birthday celebrations fondly.
"February 16th is one of the two most joyful holidays in North Korea," he said. "Students practice moves for mass games all year long for this special day. For me, these birthday celebrations were my favorite day of the year. We got candies and cookies from school. I kept them all year, taking little by little, trying to save them as long as I could."
Struck reported from Tokyo.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
