In
North Korea, a new personality
cult is seeded
The International Herald Tribune , October 1, 2011 Saturday , CHOE SANG-HUN
It is a telling sign of who is the rising star in North Korea: state-run
television showing octogenarian party secretaries bowing to a man their
grandchildren's age before accepting the smiling young man's handshake or
kowtowing to his instructions.
A year after Kim Jong-un made his public debut as North Korea's
leader-in-waiting, scenes like that - the old party elite groveling like
servile vassals - have become a staple of North Korea's propagandist media, a
key tool for its leader, Kim Jong-il, to elevate his son as his successor.
''The obvious message of all this to North Koreans is that Kim Jong-un is now
dictating to the top elite,'' said Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea specialist
at the Sejong Institute in South Korea. ''It reflects the regime's confidence
about his status as successor and about another hereditary succession.''
When Kim Jong-un, thought to be in his late 20s, emerged from obscurity a year
ago this past week as a four-star general and vice chairman of the Workers'
Party's Central Military Commission, the first thing the outside world noticed
was the obesity he appeared to have inherited from his father and his
grandfather, the late North Korean founder Kim Il-sung. (Some South Korean news
media outlets speculate that he may have undergone plastic surgery to more
closely resemble his grandfather, a godlike figure among North Koreans.)
A year on, it appears increasingly clear that the regime is helping Kim Jong-un
inherit a personality cult of his own. On state TV, he is packaged to look
like his grandfather: Mao suit, swept-back hair and the gravitas North
Koreans associate with the ''Great Leader,'' who died in 1994. Less clear is
whether the ruthless cunning that has intimidated generals and party elders is
his or his father's. Key to the political dynamics surrounding the succession
in Pyongyang, analysts say, is whether Kim Jong-il can live long enough to
provide his son with whatever assistance he may need to settle into power.
At national events, officials now habitually propose a toast to the health not
only of Kim Jong-il but also of ''the young general,'' says Peter Hughes, who
left Pyongyang in September after three years as British ambassador.
Last November, An Jong-hyok, the physician for the North Korean national soccer
team, chastised a South Korean reporter for referring to Kim Jong-un without
the honorific ''Dear Young General.''
''How would you feel if I talked impolitely to your father? That's exactly how
I feel now,'' South Korea's Daily Sports quoted Mr. Ahn as saying. ''We regard
Gen. Kim Jong-il and Comrade Kim Jong-un like our father.''
Factories commemorate a visit by Kim Jong-un with a special plaque, an honor
that had until now been reserved for his father and grandfather. His name now
immediately follows his father's in rosters of officials who attended state
functions. On the Sept. 9 anniversary of the founding of the North Korean
regime, the father and son together inspected a military parade. On Sept. 23,
the son joined his father in a photograph with Choummaly Sayasone, the visiting
president of Laos.
''It appears that Kim Jong-un has soft-landed as successor,'' Mr. Cheong said.
It is a stark contrast to a year ago, when the transition - taking place in the
panicked atmosphere of Kim Jong-il's failing health - seemed that it could pose
challenges to the regime's internal cohesion.
Kim Jong-il had fought for his inheritance as much as it was bestowed upon him
by his father. He terrorized the older elite and won their grudging respect in
a process of consolidating absolute power that lasted decades. By comparison,
Kim Jong-un resembled more of an inexperienced, even clueless, dauphin thrust
onto a fast track whipped together after his father suffered a stroke in 2008.
The question then was whether the old elite, whose ambitions and interpersonal
rivalries were tamped by Kim Jong-il's merciless power, would support the son
in the event of the father's death.
Perhaps to the son's advantage, Kim Jong-il recovered enough to make five trips
to China and Russia in the past two years. Meanwhile, there has been a steady
stream of political purges, according to North Korean announcements and South
Korean intelligence, with top party officials executed, dismissed or demoted -
and a few killed in traffic accidents under circumstances the South Korean news
media found suspicious.
Park Hyong-joong, an analyst at the government-run Korea Institute for National
Unification in Seoul, said that Kim Jong-un was believed to have masterminded
the execution of Ryu Kyong, the No. 2 man in the North's spy agency, the State
Security Department, in January and the dismissal in March of Ju Sang-song, the
police chief. ''With Ryu, many others were purged at the State Security
Department,'' Mr. Park said. ''We can say that as he gained control of the
department, Kim Jong-un needed to give jobs to people loyal to him.''
As he has strengthened his position at home, his alienated half-brother, Kim
Jong-nam, is living in affluent exile in China. Kim Jong-nam's 16-year-old son,
Kim Jong-il's grandson, has been accepted to study at an international college
in Bosnia, The Associated Press reported Friday.
Since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the North Korean regime has been under a
prolonged death watch. But it has proved resilient, surviving decades of
international sanctions and a famine that by some estimates killed one-tenth of
its population. It has flouted the U.N. Security Council to conduct the world's
two most recent nuclear tests and has cannily manipulated the Americans, the
Chinese and the South Koreans into providing it with aid.
While South Korea moved on to build an export-driven global economy, North
Korea has dug in, building what analysts call a ''garrison state'' where
malnutrition stunts children's growth, an unaccounted number languish in prison
camps and party slogans scream of a coming invasion of the ''American
imperialists.'' The regime's apparently effortless transfer of dynastic power
into a third generation once again testifies to its endurance.
The new leadership in Pyongyang remains determined to pursue nuclear weapons.
Last November, it revealed an industrial-scale uranium enrichment plant. It has
also been accused of sinking a South Korean warship in a torpedo attack that killed
46 in 2010, and it shelled a South Korean island last November.
It is also increasing trade ties with China - with a resulting influx of
foreign goods, such as South Korean DVDs and electronics - and has begun,
again, reaching out for talks with Washington and Seoul.
In Pyongyang, a city filled with anti-American slogans, outside visitors often
find children wearing Mickey Mouse backpacks and T-shirts.
John Delury, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul, who visited North Korea
in September, said: ''From what can be gleaned on visits to the country itself,
Pyongyang at least shows visible signs of vitality: the increase in volume and
variety of cars and trucks on the streets, construction projects swarming with
workers, the bustling scene at the central market, and the incessant portaging
of goods across the city - burgeoning market activity carried out
overwhelmingly by enterprising women.''
But while visitors to Pyongyang have reported that women can be spotted
occasionally in more stylish clothes, Mr. Hughes told reporters in Seoul this
past week that ''fundamentally there have been no changes in
terms of ideology or policy'' in North Korea.
''There is no civil society, there's no center of dissent, there's no
intellectual grouping, there's no way of actually communicating outside of the
mobile phone,'' he said, adding that people who have such phones, estimated at
600,000, ''are very careful of what they say, because they believe everything
is being listened to.''
Adm. Robert F. Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, said that, in
the past, succession has been accompanied by provocations as the new leadership
has tried to establish its bona fides with the military, and that Kim Jong-un
may not be an exception.
''The prospect of continued provocations is another dynamic that we must pay
very close attention to,'' Admiral Willard said during a news briefing in
Washington over the past week
