Why we should be listening to Kim Jong-un
The Kim regime has mastered the art of insulting, but what do those insults reveal? Is it true that “none profess their innocence as loudly as the guilty?” Yonhap
By Amanda Price
The North Korean regime has led the modern world in brazen behavior. One of its prize-winning talents is its ability to use language that would shame the devil.
Despite this, Kim Jong-un is perhaps the only leader in the modern world who can refer to fellow leaders as “human filth,” “barking dogs” or “witless puppets” and still be invited to tea.
Like a spouse living with an abusive partner, it seems we have become so accustomed to Kim's unbridled verbal attacks that they almost seem part of the accepted relationship.
Many of us have simply stopped listening, and even caring. Kim's long-winded accusations and attacks have become meaningless rhetoric, or the huffing and puffing of a dictator trying to inflate his own image.
We also have the great advantage of being able to switch Kim off. We can decide not to listen to his diatribes, nor read his denunciations. We can ignore Kim without the slightest fear of retribution.
North Koreans do not have anything like that luxury.
By contrast, North Koreans are force-fed Kim's venomous speeches through the state-controlled media on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week loop.
For those who cannot afford a radio or TV, Kim's condemnations are broadcast through public speakers into town squares, factories, schools, shopping centers and even fields. Giant public television screens now broadcast Kim's vitriol in high definition.
For North Koreans, Kim's insults are anything but meaningless. They are purposed to infiltrate people's minds like expanding wet concrete, leaving no room for opinion.
To those still under the spell that Kim is their savior, and the personification of virtue, these insults are imbedded into their psyche as a form of mind control.
But to the increasing number who silently know that Kim's purposes are anything but good, these insults are reminders of the brutal consequences that will befall them should they voice their doubts.
Looking deeper into this regulated flow of propaganda and vilification of the outside world, we hear Kim's real message to North Koreans. Quite simply, “Love me, hate the imperialists … or else”.
In 2017, a team of documentarians from Russia Today (RT) were given permission to interview Pyongyang citizens during preparation for “The Day of the Sun,” the celebration of Kim Il-sung's birthday.
Their watchers assumed that, as the team was largely Russian, the documentary they were filming would be one that promoted the regime.
They were wrong.
No leader in modern history has used propaganda as prolifically as Kim Jong-un, which is a significant claim. A senior-level defector explained that Kim's condemnation of world leaders stemmed from his awareness that he is not a legitimate leader, either by world or North Korean standards. Yonhap
One of their first interviews was with a mill manager, a woman at least twice Kim's age. “The commander loves us like a father,” she recited. “When he entered our factory, we beheld his lustrous image. It was like a daydream. The entire factory was filled with his light.”
A teenage student told an interviewer that the “Great Leader is inseparable from us. He does everything in his power to make us the happiest people on earth … People in this country are envied all around the world and we are proud of it.”
In the documentary, Kim paid a surprise, yet highly publicized visit to a factory where an employee had lost both parents. Kim singled her out because, according the DPRK media, “he sensed her fidelity.” She was given an apartment in Pyongyang free of charge, was featured in the national news, and even won a husband in the process. “The Dear Leader replaced all the love that I lost from my parents … and more,” she said between tears, which were meant to look like joy.
An orphaned boy, 10, in a meticulously rehearsed speech, responded to a simple question, “we orphans have the loving attention of our beloved and respected leader making us happier than children with parents, we have everything” … inhale and glance sideways … “and want for nothing so there is no one we could possibly envy.”
Though these were more privileged citizens of Pyongyang, the masquerade of emotions was like watching a bizarre ballet. Everyone knew they were being watched, everyone knew their role, and everyone knew the consequences of under-performing.
It was as if Kim's reign of terror had been wrapped in pink cellophane and tied with a ribbon.
And in the background, while flowers were etched into freezing black ice, the crackling sound of yet another message sent from the Dear Leader could be heard.
But threaded through the Great Leader's messages of love and benevolence were words carefully inserted to incite loathing and fear.
Deliberately weaponized, Kim's toxic criticisms of everyone who is not North Korean were armed to create animosity toward, and suspicion of, the non-revolutionary world.
The bulk of these odious or condescending insults were aimed at America. Japan came a close second, with all imperialist nations lumped together in third place.
According to DPRK history books, used to this very day, Americans “are the most evil nation in history.” Their sole aim, according to “The U.S. Began the Korean War,” is to take over the Korean Peninsula and use it as their base for their expansionist goals.
The U.S., the history book claims, “is the greatest national misfortune in the history of the peninsula.”
The Japanese are “cutthroats” and “cowards,” vanquished by the Great Eternal President, Kim Il-sung. They are “never to be trusted.”
South Koreans are more to be pitied, “nothing more than puppets in the hands of the imperialists” or “lapdogs for the American invaders.” Happily, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un is working to free South Koreans from their “American overlords”.
Urged on by their “puppet masters,” South Koreans also send spies into North Korea to steal women and children, who they then “masquerade as defectors.”
Kim Jong-un has been more far-reaching in his condemnation propaganda than even his father or grandfather.
As a Pyongyang university student quickly explained: “Thanks to the Great Leader and Commander's revolutionary plan, we became the greatest country on earth. Anyone who dares to think otherwise are enemies!”
“We have a sacred obligation to the Motherland,” said a sweetly spoken young woman while a soldier watched on, “to always be ready to fight, and fight the American bastards. That is our pledge.”
Indoctrination begins in infant school.?These early elementary children will have already been taught to adore the Great Leader and hate anyone who does not do the same. But who knows what the future will be for these children.?Perhaps they will be among the first North Koreans to live as free people? Yonhap
Children fortunate enough to attend school are taught that the U.S. and its allies have blocked shipments of food, medical supplies and fuel to the North for decades. Except for the Supreme Leader's might and wisdom, North Korea would not exist.
It should come then as no surprise that the recent decision to send millions of dollars of aid to North Koreans was met by the Kim regime with reticence verging on disdain.
It would be contradictory to almost every announcement blasted through speakers to admit that they need help from lesser nations, especially South Korea and America.
However, this deluge of propaganda, the cursing and denouncing of anything that is not of the regime, the purges and imprisonment, all reveal a ruler desperately clinging to his throne.
In the words of Shakespeare, “me think he doth protest too much.”
They also reveal that North Koreans are becoming increasingly immune to Kim's toxic propaganda. North Koreans are not blind. The propaganda machine keeps spewing out the same messages, but almost every adult knows someone who disappeared for failing to look deliriously happy about being oppressed.
Even the elite are painfully aware that they must choose between loyalty and life.
The insults aimed at South Korea have been ever so slightly toned down to build an alliance that would expel all Americans from the peninsula.
But Kim Jong-un always has his hand on the volume control.
Should any leader step out of line, he will denounce them with a string of newly conceived invectives, broadcast on newly built and even bigger screens.
His insecurity will be further exposed. North Koreans will become more immune.
We must not ignore what the tyrant is saying. When he is speaking courteously, he is buying time. When he is ranting, he is feeling insecure. When he is wooing his people, he knows he is losing control over them.
The one who learns to read the tides will not be drowned, and by not being drowned, he will be able to rescue others.
Let us learn to read the tides, to listen, not only to Kim's rants, but to his soft words, and even to his silences.
Let us realize that North Koreans are ready to hear the truth and it is up to us to ensure they hear it.
Amanda Price (amanda-price@bigpond.com) is the former Director of Hillcrest College's International Student Department. She has a background in science, history and literature and has been consulting on Asian affairs for more than 10 years. Her special interest is world history and she is the founder of Griffith University's History Readers. She writes full time.