I hope Aidan Foster-Carter’s right about North Koreans wanting change:
More of the same is not really an option if [Kim Jong-un] is to lift national morale and address the concerns of ordinary Koreans, a third of whom are said to suffer from food shortages. And an anxious, only thinly united elite must decide if they are really ready to entrust the continuation of their privileged status to this whippersnapper. Pyongyang’s perfect choreography may not last.
We can only hope that once the choreography ends, the stage—and the audience—isn’t a complete wreck.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Change? Sure, but they’d prefer large bills.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
I’ll never question the capacity of North Koreans to live with cognitive dissonance. But if North Koreans (particularly outside Pyongyang) are as malnourished as we’re led to believe, maybe it’s untenable from a state-security view to plaster the country with portraits, statues and pins of a kid who looks like his main accomplishment so far has been winning pie-eating contests.
His dad and granddad weren’t exactly svelte but it might be too much to ask of the chronically starved to worship this boy as “Supreme Leader” when his very appearance will all but scream the lie they’ve been leading. The famines when millions died weren’t that long ago, and his portrait will show that the hardship wasn’t equally shared.
And heeere….we go…..
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/world/asia/north-korea-vows-no-engagement-with-souths-president.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig
@myself #3, never mind….didn’t realize you had already posted this story.
When I saw the first recent photos of KJU a few months ago, I wondered if he had been plumped up deliberately to make him look the part of an anointed dynastic successor. We look at him and see a little fat boy, but in a country where obesity is non-existent outside the party elite, his visible adiposity may be viewed as a sign of good health.
You must log in to post a comment.