We had other awkward encounters with the ideology police, of course. I sometimes bumped into inspectors who arrived at our office after 7:30 P.M., when I was not expected to be there. They weren’t naïve, but understood I was expecting them in the one-party state. Nevertheless, they came off as embarrassed and said that they preferred to review all of the foreign material in my absence. I let my Korean staff handle the matter with them behind closed doors in the meeting room. The inspectors were always upright with us, not veering zealously from their set procedure. I respected them: they had a tough and rather invasive job and just wanted to do it right.
On the other hand, DHL Pyongyang always handed me private courier deliveries on the same day they arrived. In Vietnam, however, when I received a book, like one on wildlife in East Africa sent by my mother for my birthday, DHL called me the day of the arrival and informed me that delivery would take another five days. The reason was that customs and “cultural control” procedures needed to be implemented. It’s one of the many examples in which the North Korean authorities surprised me with their much less bureaucratic and more pragmatic approach.
Outside the DPRK, the government is embarking on thrusts of propaganda directed at overseas Koreans. Uriminzokkiri, which roughly means “on our own as a nation,” is the official website of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea in Pyongyang. It spreads the message that the North Korean leadership is, according to its website, “guardian of the homeland and creator of happiness” for all Koreans. But under South Korea’s National Security Law, Uriminzokkiri was banned in an attempt to block communications in support of the North.
Another party-sponsored overseas group is the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, which is charged with disseminating North Korea’s views around the globe. Unlike Uriminzokkiri, it’s aimed at non-Koreans. Through its Korea Friendship Association (KFA)—a body designed to give the committee’s views to foreigners—it is trying to foster constituencies abroad that are sympathetic to the plight of North Korea. The group does some business operations: it’s involved in attracting funding and foreign investment for North Korea, running a body in Pyongyang called the IKBC (International Korean Business Centre). KFA’s website calls itself “the Official Website of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” which a senior cadre from a competing state organization told me is “somewhat pretentious.”
A video by another organization featuring Pak Jin Jun, a beautiful student at Pyongyang Teacher’s University, went viral on the Internet. Her message was clear: whereas poverty and chaos reign in the capitalist West, where people even kill themselves and die of hunger, the Korean socialist system guaranteed a life of happiness and serenity. The video showed her family, cheerfully clapping their hands and happily singing together at home. It is a masterpiece of North Korean propaganda worth watching.
THE FACE OF JUCHE
Over seven years I hosted all sorts of visitors who were hoping for insight into the so-called hermit state. The Juche Tower was almost always on their wish list. After all, it was the world’s second-tallest monumental column behind the San Jacinto Monument, built in memory of the decisive battle of another revolution in the Western Hemisphere, namely the Texas Revolution in 1836. Its towering height is, of course, symbolic of its influence over the lives of North Koreans.
Over the years, I’ve always been impressed by the wit and fluency of the English-speaking tour guides at the tower. One pretty and affable young guide struck my attention: she graduated first at the Foreign Studies University, where she learned perfect English and sophisticated etiquette for dealing with foreigners. She must have been talented, or else she would not have received this job, which is respected in North Korea.
I met her for the first time at the Juche Tower when she was a twenty-something university graduate. During another visit a few years later, she told me that she had happily been married. A couple of years later I visited yet again, and she was gleeful that she recently gave birth to her first child. She was very effective at her work, communicating the ideas of Juche; never overzealous, she maintained a relaxed demeanor and was fully convinced of what she was representing. Her self-confidence gave her an authoritative aura on all things Juche. Tourists asked her plenty of silly, embarrassing, and sometimes even provocative questions, but nobody could ever disturb her; she had the situation under control.
This woman and her colleagues taught me the remarkable history of the monument: The 555 foot (170-meter)-high tower, designed by Kim Jong Il himself, was built in 1982 on the occasion of the seventieth birthday of his father, Kim Il Sung, the founder of the Juche idea. The government erected it on the eastern riverbank of the Taedong River, opposite the Kim Il Sung Square in central Pyongyang. The structure contains a stunning 25,550 blocks, each representing a day of Kim Il Sung’s life. The slabs are dressed in white stone with 70 dividers, or lines, on all four sides of the tower. The entire edifice is capped off with a 20-meter-high, 45-ton torch that shines every night.
Visitors take an elevator to the top, where a balcony offers a 360-degree view of Pyongyang. It’s one of few places where they’re allowed to film and take pictures. North Koreans brag that the entire structure was erected at “Chollima speed” in only thirty-five days, and that it was dressed up in seventy-six days. In front of the tower sits more propaganda: a single, 100 foot (30-meter)-high statue comprising three figures. One man grasps a hammer, another holds a sickle, and the final one carries a writing brush. They represent the classes of workers, peasants, and intellectuals.
The word Juche or Chuch’e literally means “main subject.” It often has been translated and interpreted as “independent stand” or “spirit of self-reliance” or “always putting Korean things first.” To my mind, the last one is the most accurate one. Kim Il Sung explained that the Juche idea is based on the belief that, in his words, “man is the master of everything and decides everything.” And of course, in Korea, man should always be Korean and never a foreigner.
At the Juche Tower, a stone was left on behalf of my predecessor, resident ABB country director André Reussner, who passed away in 2002 in a Bangkok hospital. The North Koreans removed the plaque when the ABB group downgraded its engagement with North Korea, a sort of pragmatic move for them.
In a nutshell, Juche is, according to Kim Il Sung, the “independence in politics, self-reliance in the economy, self-defense in the military.” Although Juche is the national ideology of North Korea, Kim Il Sung also recommended it as a solution to developing countries. North Korea has been organizing international seminars on Juche since 1977.
After the death of Kim Jong Il in December 2011, the North Korean media swiftly heralded Kim Jong Un as the “great successor,” according to several news reports. Most importantly, the propaganda apparatus stated, the young Kim would uphold the Juche philosophy and the army first policies, creating an uninterrupted line from his father’s rule.
The press went along with the story that like both his grandfather and father, Jong Un descended indirectly from Paekdu Mountain because his father was supposedly born there. That made him “the spiritual pillar and the lighthouse of hope” for all Koreans, according to all the state newspapers. The personality cult, it seemed, did not end with single personalities, but stretched across family lines.
A few days after the news broke, the managing director of a North Korean company operating in a Southeast Asian country sent me a letter that affirmed what I suspected. “I am now in great sadness to hear that our Great Leader has passed away,” he wrote, “but we will push ahead our work to build up a great powerful nation by upholding the wise leadership of our new Leader General Kim Jong Un according to the lofty will of our Great Leader General Kim Jong Il.”
The letter made it clear that he, like all North Koreans, understood that Kim Jong Un would be the undisputed successor. The fervor hasn’t wavered.
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