The King of the Hermit Kingdom

by: Dharel Placido

They say he is the most bizarre fascist leader the world has ever seen. With his peculiar hair, predictable get-up and eccentric features, he is always the butt of the joke of many satirical comedy programs especially in the United States. Who really is Kim Jong-Il? How did a person like him, with unpredictable attitude, managed to control the world’s closest nation, North Korea?

Kim Jong-Il is potentially the world’s most dangerous man in power today, with evidences of nuclear machineries caught by the US intelligence in his territory. If his regime is threatened by any means, its neighbour South Korea can become a sea of fire in just a fraction of an hour.

Most of Kim Jong-Il’s people of about 22 million are starving yet his army is one of the largest in the world with almost half of the country’s money allotted for it. So how can Kim Jong-Il neglect his people and still get the highest respect and reverence from them? For one to understand North Korea’s cult-like culture, an understanding of its past and the ways Kim Jong-Il and his late father, Kim Il-Sung to pacify potential uprisings from its people are needed.

The fascist leadership of Kim Il-Sung and his son successor Kim Jong-Il thrived basically on intense indoctrination through strong propaganda and a strange way of educating its people. The government’s purpose of brainwashing its people is so intense that children having their first years in school are taught of made up stories about their Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il and his father. Instead of hearing stories about Jack and the Beanstalk or Cinderella, pre-schoolers in North Korea are taught of the story of the birth of Kim Jong-Il which tells that his birth was foreseen by a double rainbow and a new star.

Part of the fascist strategy to indoctrinate its people is its exploitation of the nation’s deeply rooted cultural values which include self-reliance. This was initiated by Kim Jong – Il’s father and the ideology was then called juche. The ideology consequently cut the country off from external relations with other country. The ideology also helped the fascist government in filtering information from the foreign world. Because of the government’s intense approach of secluding the country, North Koreans have no idea of what’s happening in the outside world, how do other cultures look like and how do people from other nations interact with each other.

One of the eccentric characteristics of North Korea as a nation is its passionate hatred for the Americans. North Koreans are taught that Americans are cannibals and therefore should be detested. Kim Jong-Il teaches his nation to hate everything about the Americans, and by everything, we mean anything under the sun. Yet one will find it ironic to realize that Kim Jong-Il actually likes luxury cars from the western world. Kim reportedly had spent $20,000,000 on importing 200 new Mercedes Benz S500 luxury sedans adding to North Korea’s fleet of 7,000 Mercedes cars. He is also said to be a fan American movies like Friday the 13th, Rambo, James Bond, and Godzilla series, and any movie with Elizabeth Taylor in it. Basketball is his favorite sport, with Michael Jordan, an American, as his most favorite player.

He had a South Korean actress and a director kidnapped and held captive for nine years just to make films for him. He is also said to have perpetrated bombings outside North Korea that killed many innocent people. Kim Jong-Il’s image may not be that good outside the hermit kingdom, but the people of North Korea will always revere their “Dear Leader.”