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He was a god, you know

At times like this, I do wish that the Korean Friendship Association would enable comments:

North Korea says a fierce snowstorm paused and the sky began glowing red above sacred Mount Paektu just minutes before leader Kim Jong Il’s death. State media say the ice on volcanic Lake Chon at the mountain in the far north cracked with a load roar.  And in the city of Hamhung, a Manchurian crane circled a statue of Kim’s father, late President Kim Il Sung, before alighting on a tree, its head drooping before it took off toward Pyongyang.  [AP]

Such unusual supernatural forces these are, which can light up the sky and stop snowstorms but can’t unclog arteries.

I don’t believe for a minute that any   North Korean over the age of 13 still believes this stuff, and I have to think that the propaganda hacks who write it figured that out before I did.  So why write asinine things like this?  Just to subjugate people into repeating it?  So that all the foreigners know to give the crazy guy whatever he asks for?  Because they think that’s what the boss wants?

More thoughts on the deification of the Kims here.

6 Responses

  1. Robert Park thought he was God too and look what happened to him !

    Thankfully they locked him up in the local lunatic centre….AND HE WONT BE MISSED !

  2. Can’t believe my valuable input here is still subject to APPROVAL !!

    Would be great, in the spirit of KJI’s demise, to put me permanently off moderation PLEASE ??

  3. I think the answer is that the human mind is capable of pretzeling itself and compartmentalizing itself into utter ridiculousness. All this fiction amounts to theater; the propagandists know it and so does the citizenry, but on another level (or in another mental compartment), everyone knows they have roles to play, and they’d better play them sincerely. I’m reminded of the scene in Brave New World in which the members of a soma-jacked group insist that they see Our Ford. Then, of course, there’s the title of your post, which calls to mind Thurber’s short-short story, “The Owl Who Was God.” (See here. A good lesson about the perils of deification and incestuous amplification.)

  5. “So why write asinine things like this? Just to subjugate people into repeating it? So that all the foreigners know to give the crazy guy whatever he asks for? Because they think that’s what the boss wants?”

    K-blog commenters have accused Asians of not getting sarcasm, but, in fact, Chinese writers have long excelled in exaggerated embellishments that whizz over the dull heads of government censors. If I ever get a chance to visit a free and open North Korea, the people I’d most like to talk to are the KCNA writers who craft such whimsical, sarcastic prose.