Party song revival effort considered anachronistic

The North Korean regime has invested fresh
efforts into promoting a song written in the 1960s praising the Workers’ Party
and Kim Il Sung. As such, the song was recently awarded a “Kim Il Sung/Kim Jong
Il” award during the 7th Party Congress last week. The promotion of the song
entitled “Nothing in this World to Envy” is a conspicuous attempt to further
rally loyalty through nostalgia, but is eliciting scorn and ridicule from at
least some of the population, report Daily NK sources. 

“By dressing just like his grandfather Kim
Il Sung and elevating himself to president of the Party, Kim Jong Un is trying
to rekindle people’s nostalgia for the Party. The 60s song, despite the Party’s
push to promote it once again, has already become a target of mockery,” a
source from South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on May 10, adding that the
song has prompted people to look back on the 60s when the song was written.
 

Sources in North Pyongan Province
corroborated this news.

This invariably brings realization that the
current situation is hardly comparable because back then people had less to
worry about, with food and state distribution centers ensuring uninterrupted
rations. Others have criticized the leadership for being “far behind the
times,” as stiff competition in the jangmadang (market economy, official or
otherwise) is now the primary focus of North Korean society.
 

The key lyrics “Our father is Marshal Kim
Il Sung” have been mockingly reworded as “Our father is money,” and “Our home
is in the arms of the Party” has now become “Our home is the market,” the
source explained.
 

Songs like this have long been used as key
propaganda tools by the state, but with the changing times, they have
transformed into targets for public satire, poking at the injustices in the
system and poor governance. More recently, with the introduction of South
Korean pop culture in the North, people are also rewording K-pop and children’s
songs from the South as another means to express their sentiments about the
regime
.