What’s going on in North Korea? Well, as usual, that’s anybody’s guess from outside the secretive Stalinist state. The world got all worked up, some months back, by rumours that dynastic dictator Kim Jong-un had died. Yet, while Kim remains firmly nailed to his perch, something very odd indeed seems to be taking place.
North Korean propaganda has long been almost beyond parody, with the Kim dynasty’s rulers portrayed as little short of demigods.
Kim Il-sung, the present Kim’s grandfather and founder of the communist state, could levitate and turn pine cones into bullets and grenades while fighting Japan in World War II, according to state propaganda. Shining stars and rainbows supposedly greeted the birth of his son, Kim Jong-il, who also invented the hamburger (it is said). Kim the youngest is not to be outdone: he supposedly learned to drive at 3, was a world champion yachtsman at 9, and, despite his tubby frame, effortlessly scaled the 9000 ft sacred Mt. Paektu in an overcoat and dress shoes.
But, now all that appears to be falling by the wayside.
As the country faces some of its toughest challenges in years on several fronts, leader Kim Jong-un is taking a different approach. He is showing himself to be fallible — even human.
With the country contending with the coronavirus pandemic, flood damage and economic sanctions, Kim is apologising, admitting policy missteps and visiting disaster zones. He has ordered officials to stop “mythicising” his family as it could “hide the truth,” according to state media.
North Korea is also doing the unthinkable: apologising to the South.
Kim’s break with tradition was evident last month when he quickly apologised over the North Korean killing of a South Korean civil servant, just a day after Seoul officials demanded a response. Pyongyang rarely atones with such directness or speed.
Some experts see it as a sign that Kim sees himself as in a position of strength. That may be so, but even his strong-man predecessors never felt any need to make themselves appear anything less than god-like. Instead, Kim Jong-un is actively dismantling the family mystique.
Kim appears to be trying to cast himself as a relatable leader to ordinary citizens, North Korea watchers say. It is also part of the dictator’s broader push to build a process-driven government that can rely less on the Kim family’s alleged divinity[…]
But under Kim’s orders, the North’s main newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, admitted in May that Kim Il-sung didn’t have the power to levitate. In the same month, the newspaper argued in an editorial that propaganda now had to be more realistic.
What is driving the change? North Korea has apparently been hit by a series of natural disasters, but more than anything, it is being hit by modern world. Even the Kims can’t keep an impenetrable magic firewall between North Korea and the rest of the world forever.
Kim has made changes to the way the family is portrayed as more external information has seeped into the country. Mobile phone use and cross-border smuggling are common, and many North Koreans secretly communicate with families who escaped to the South.
Meanwhile, the North Korean leader has put himself on a different footing than his predecessors. He has met with Donald Trump three times and, by his own account, the North completed its nuclear program more than two years ago. It is a point that he frequently mentions, including in a July speech.
“Thanks to our reliable and effective self-defense nuclear deterrence, the word ‘war’ would no longer exist on this land, and the security and future of our state will be guaranteed forever,” Mr Kim said[…]
“Is it political window dressing? Yes. Is it now a South Korean-style democracy? No,” said Michael Madden, an expert on North Korean leadership and a nonresident fellow at the Stimson Centre, a Washington think tank. “But Kim Jong-un is trying to ‘normalise’ North Korea as much as he can,” he said.
This is a point that President Trump, supposedly the ignorant foreign policy buffoon, seems to have grasped where others have not. Trump is a deal-maker and the art of the deal is knowing what the other party wants. Kim desperately wants to be seen as a legitimate figure on the world stage. That’s the bargaining chip Trump has dangled.
But normalising North Korea comes with its own dangers for Kim. History shows that the most dangerous time for authoritarian regimes is when they first begin to lift the bootheel even just a little. Given the slightest taste of freedom, the people’s eagerness for it can break into an irresistible flood. This is what brought down France’s Ancien Régime and the Tsars, then the Soviet Union in its turn.
Kim may not be the genius his own propaganda proclaims, but he seems at least smart enough to realise which way the tide is flowing and to try and keep his own head above water.
What greater propaganda coup could Kim hope for than being the “liberator” of the very people his family have kept underfoot for decades?
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