Kim Jong-un and the campaign of coerced adulation
Kim Jong-un during his inspection of the female military unit 851 in April 2014. Image | KCNA
Congratulations, your congratulatory message is on TV.
In North Korea, where the leadership never seems to tire of being congratulated, there’s a tradition of showcasing congratulatory messages in the Rodong Sinmun, the Workers’ Party newspaper, and on Korean Central Television.
The messages hail the exceptional leadership and admirable character of you-know-who. Many come from overseas, giving citizens the idea that foreigners admire him.
On April 17, the Rodong Sinmun featured a message from Chongryon (the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan) in which Kim was notably portrayed as “The Sun of Juche Korea.”
What made people sit up and take notice was that the message was discreetly tucked inside the paper on page five. Usually, such stuff is front page news.
Why might that have been? We note that this year authorities issued instructions that April 15, Kim Il-sung’s birthday and a national holiday, was no longer to be referred to as the Day of the Sun. The ‘“sun,” as readers may know, has long been used to mean Kim Il-sung.
Then, as soon as the two-day holiday was over, the message was published. The sun being glorified now was Kim Jong-un.
We should remind ourselves that the daily Rodong Sinmun can only be published with the leader’s approval.
A case in point was back in 2008 when the paper didn’t come out for a while. Ordinary citizens didn’t pay much attention because the paper is for party members. But even they weren’t so concerned. They were familiar with delays caused by the country’s poor transportation system.
It turned out, however, that Kim Jong-il had had a stroke and was in a coma. Rodong Sinmun was stuck until he woke up. In the strict dictatorship system, nobody could act on his behalf. Nothing could proceed without his signature. The same is now the case under Kim Jong-un.
Our point here is that the instruction to delete “Day of the Sun” in reference to his grandfather and the approval of Chongryon’s message calling him the “sun” was the handiwork of Kim Jong-un himself.
Actually, the regime doesn’t just approve messages for publication. It’s likely they have a hand in crafting them.
The senders of these front page congratulatory messages are often individuals or entities whose identities cannot be verified by North Korean readers.
For instance, while someone may be introduced as the director of a certain ideological research institute in, say, the Republic of Congo, there is no way to confirm whether the person is not in fact the sole member of that organization.
It seems even that the messages are themselves drafted as per instructions from the party.
In 2021, the party’s Propaganda & Agitation Department issued a directive, with the registration number eight, to overseas North Korean delegations and companies telling them to send flower baskets and congratulatory messages to Comrade Supreme Leader (Kim Jong-un) on major occasions.
Diplomats and others overseas engage in tearful diplomacy to fulfill this task, pleading with foreigners to write such messages. According to our research, they even go as far as treating them to expensive meals using their own money or personally drafting the texts and begging them to simply sign.
Era is a North Korean defector and an experienced journalist who offers a unique perspective on one of the world's most secretive nations. Having escaped the oppressive regime, Era has leveraged her keen understanding of North Korean society to become a beacon of truth. Through her extensive network of in-country reporters, she maintains real-time communication with sources inside North Korea, providing unparalleled insights into the ground realities of the closed society.
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