During the s famine, in which as many as 2—3 million North Koreans died as a result of starvation and hunger-related illnesses, Kim was in Switzerland.
For Kim, skiing in the Swiss Alps and swimming in the French Riviera must have seemed part of his birthright.
Kim had a temper, hated to lose, and loved Hollywood movies and basketball player Michael Jordan. We were always in the second tier … The teachers would see him struggling ashamedly and then move on.
They left him in peace. He was much more interested in football and basketball than lessons. His strong self-esteem and confidence were cultivated beginning when he was very young. And the Kim family dynasty—a totalitarian regime—carefully created a cult of personality around the young boy, as it had done with his father and grandfather before him, reinforcing it through fear and intimidation and shows of force.
According to Fujimoto, Kim carried a Colt. Everything—our parents, family, home, neighborhood, school, country—revolves around us. For most people, what follows is a long process of dethronement, as His Majesty the Child confronts the ever more obvious and humbling truth. Not so for Kim. His world at age 5 has turned out to be his world at age 30 … Everyone does exist to serve him. These tools allowed him to validate his persecution of any real or suspected dissenters, and to maintain a horrific network of prison camps in which torture, rape, beatings, and a variety of other human rights violations continue to take place to this day, as they have done for many decades.
As the U. The markings on the street are for military parades—a hallmark of dictatorships the world over. As a scholar of U. Kim Jong-un seems determined to avoid that fate. Kim has adopted the mantle of the mythical, godlike leadership role that grandfather and country founder Kim Il-sung and his father Kim Jong-il held and continue to hold in their death.
But he seems determined to chart his own path. Kim has allowed himself to seem more transparent and accessible than his father. He appears in public with his pretty and fashionable young wife, Ri Sol-ju with whom he has at least one child, and possibly three.
He hugs, holds hands, and links arms with men, women, and children, seeming comfortable with both young and old. That transparency has been extended to the government. When one of its satellite launches failed in April , the regime admitted the failure publicly, the first time it had ever done so.
During his frequent public appearances, Jong-un can be seen giving guidance at various economic, military, and social and cultural venues, as his father and grandfather did, but he is also shown pulling weeds, riding roller coasters, navigating a tank, and galloping on a horse.
He is comfortable with technology in the form of cell phones and laptops, and is also portrayed speaking earnestly with nuclear scientists and overseeing scores of missile tests. Kim appears to want to reinforce the impression that he is young, vigorous, on the move—qualities that he attributes to his country as well.
Speaking directly to the people in April in that first public speech he gave as their leader, he confidently promised that North Koreans would no longer have to tighten their belts. Later he announced his byungjin policy: that North Korea can have both its nuclear weapons and prosperity.
Animated by the optimism of one whose privilege made him believe anything was possible, he has prioritized both these issues and personally taken ownership of them—all part of creating and nurturing his brand. For the toiling masses as well as for the elite, Ri, the glamorous and devoted wife, is an aspirational figure.
Even as tension with the United States went into overdrive after a sixth nuclear test and the launch of numerous ballistic missiles during the summer and fall of , state media showed Kim and his wife touring a North Korean cosmetics factory. But what of the lives of the average people? Kim may also be using the imagery of these amenities as a corrective, a way of undermining the dominant external narrative of a decaying, starving, economically hobbled North Korea.
Of course, Kim still has enormous power and, like his father and grandfather, the willingness to hold onto it through extreme brutality. He maintains control through purges and executions—punishments and acts of revenge he appears to inflict with relish. Kim has made it clear that he will not tolerate any potential challengers. Kim Jong—un has overseen four nuclear tests and debuted ballistic missiles of various ranges, launched from multiple locations. There are some things about North Korea, as a society and government, that seem almost too strange to be believed.
It borrows much of its language from Marxism but also draws on Confucianism, 20th-century Japanese imperialism, and traditional Korean nationalism. Its core idea is that North Korea is a country that must remain separate and distinct from the world, dependent solely on its own strength and the guidance of a near-godlike leader. And it helps explain why Kim is suddenly trying to play nice with both President Donald Trump and the world.
From its inception, juche has meant more or less whatever the North Korean government needed it to mean. In the s, North Korea was in a tough situation both politically and economically. It also was a young country, with a dubious claim to legitimacy — it was one half of the formerly united Korea — and its new leader actually grew up in the Soviet Union.
Juche, as developed by Kim Il Sung and his cronies, was designed to solve both of these problems. By elevating autonomy as an ideal over all things, North Korea could claim to be fully aligned with neither the Soviets nor the Chinese.
Domestically, juche served to connect Kim Il Sung and the nascent North Korean state to ideas that would resonate with ordinary Koreans. It also developed a doctrine of Korean racial purity , drawing on historically Korean beliefs and language used by Japanese imperialists, to argue against opening up to the global economy. Paektu, simply by visiting it. Juche ideology demands total fealty to the leader.
But to convince people they also owe fealty to the state required something even more profound than a cult of personality around the Kims: a set of rituals and beliefs that amounted to a form of religion. There is no such thing as an independent media in North Korea, aside from what people can glean from secretly consuming foreign media. The vagueness of juche as a political philosophy — self-reliance can mean practically anything — combined with media control and the elevation of the suryong to near-divine status serves to give the Kims incredible policy flexibility.
After the fall of the Soviet Union in the s, North Korea lost its primary source of food aid, which led to a massive and devastating famine. Songun held that to be self-reliant and independent, North Korea needed a strong military first and foremost. The Korean people had to suffer for the Korean nation to survive.
How the current suryong interprets juche, and the ways he explains its precepts to his people, is actually quite significant. Official accounts of his early schooling also point out his leadership capabilities: as vice chairman of his school's DYL branch, he encouraged younger classmates to pursue greater ideological education and organized academic competitions and seminars as well as field trips. He majored in Marxist political economy and minored in philosophy and military science.
While at the university, Kim trained as an apprentice in a textile machine factory and took classes in building TV broadcast equipment. During this time, he also accompanied his father on tours of field guidance in several of North Korea's provinces.
Most political experts believe the party follows the traditions of Stalinist politics even though North Korea began distancing itself from Soviet domination in The Workers' Party claims to have its own ideology, steeped in the philosophy of Juche.
However, in the late s, the party instituted a policy of "burning loyalty" to the "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung. This practice of personality cult is reminiscent of Stalinist Russia but was taken to new heights with Kim Il Sung and would continue with Kim Jong Il. Soon after his graduation from the university, Kim Jong Il began his rise through the ranks of the Korean Workers' Party.
The s were a time of high tension between many Communist countries. China and the Soviet Union were clashing over ideological differences that resulted in several border skirmishes, Soviet satellite nations in Eastern Europe were simmering with dissention, and North Korea was pulling away from both Soviet and Chinese influence.
Within North Korea, internal forces were attempting to revise the party's revolutionary message. Kim Jong Il was appointed to the Workers' Party Central Committee to lead the offensive against the revisionists and ensure the party did not deviate from the ideological line set by his father.
He also led efforts to expose dissidents and deviant policies to ensure strict enforcement of the party's ideological system. In addition, he took on major military reform to strengthen the party's control of the military and expelled disloyal officers. Kim Jong Il oversaw the Propaganda and Agitation department, the government agency responsible for media control and censorship.
Kim gave firm instructions that the party's monolithic ideological message be communicated constantly by writers, artists, and officials in the media. According to official accounts, he revolutionized Korean fine arts by encouraging the production of new works in new media. This included the art of film and cinema.
Mixing history, political ideology, and movie-making, Kim encouraged the production of several epic films, which glorified works written by his father. His official biography claims that Kim Jong Il has composed six operas and enjoys staging elaborate musicals. Kim is reported to be an avid film buff who owns more than 20, movies, including the entire series of James Bond films, for his personal enjoyment.
Kim Il Sung began preparing his son to lead North Korea in the early s. During this time, he instituted policies to bring party officials closer to the people by forcing bureaucrats to work among subordinates for one month a year.
He launched the Three-Revolution Team Movement, in which teams of political, technical, and scientific technicians traveled around the country to provide training. He was also involved in economic planning to develop certain sectors of the economy. By the s, preparations were being made for Kim to succeed his father as the leader of North Korea. At this time, the government began building a personality cult around Kim Jong Il patterned after that of his father. He also initiated a series of drop-in inspections of businesses, factories, and government offices.
At the Sixth Party Congress in , Kim Jong Il was given senior posts in the Politburo the policy committee of the Korean Workers' Party , the Military Commission, and the Secretariat the executive department charged with carrying out policy. Thus, Kim was positioned to control all aspects of the government. The one area of leadership in which Kim Jong Il might have had a perceived weakness was the military.
The army was the foundation of power in North Korea, and Kim had no military service experience. With the assistance of allies in the military, Kim was able to gain acceptance by the army officials as the next leader of North Korea.
By , he was designated as the supreme commander of the Korean People's Army, thus giving him the tool he needed to maintain complete control of the government once he took power. This transition of power from father to son had never been seen before in a communist regime. In deference to his father, the office of president was abolished, and Kim Jong Il took the titles of general secretary of the Workers' Party and chairman of the National Defense Commission, which was declared the highest office of the state.
It is important to understand that much of Kim Jong Il's persona is based on a cult of personality, meaning that legend and official North Korean government accounts describe his life, character, and actions in ways that promote and legitimize his leadership.
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