How have North Koreans responded to the government’s end-of-the-year propaganda presenting leader Kim Jong Un as being a dedicated leader who loves the people?
Multiple sources in North Pyongan Province and Yanggang Province told Daily NK on Dec. 27 that lectures praising Kim’s leadership and benevolence have recently been held in various places.
The sources said that officials from the provincial offices of the Ministry of State Security spoke for an hour and 40 minutes at neighborhood watch units in their jurisdiction. Considering that the security officials are responsible for maintaining public order, attendance at the lectures was mandatory.
The main points emphasized in these lectures included strengthening the national defense, achieving victory in the pandemic, resolving the issue of nutrition for children, and building homes.
The lectures were aimed at reinforcing Kim’s image as a leader who looks after the welfare of the nation and also seeks to improve the public livelihood.
As presented in the North Korean media, the lectures described Kim as a leader with “outstanding vision” and “profound wisdom” who is capable of achieving a “great victory” against the enemy in the areas of politics, the economy, the military and foreign policy. In effect, the North Korean government once again resorted to a strategy of attempting to imprint these ideas inside the minds of its people.
Thus, the authorities stressed that North Koreans needed to govern their actions “according to the leader and party’s ideology and intentions through the pride they take in living in socialist Korea and having Kim Jong Un as their leader.”
However, quite a few North Koreans regarded this propaganda as being divorced from reality, according to the source.
For one thing, some people pointed out that security officials did not even brought up the dire state of the food supply during their lectures.
“Our living conditions ought to be apparent to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear, so it’s astonishing that they could talk about such things,” one local said, based on the source’s account.
The source said that numerous people were irritated by the lectures. “When we are starving to death, what’s the point of strengthening the national defense, developing nuclear weapons or building homes?” one person said, according to the source.
“For people like us who are shivering and starving for lack of firewood and food, the most urgent matter right now is making a living,” another was heard to have said.
North Korean housewives generally took issue with the contradictions of the country’s home construction campaign. “As if the non-tax burden weren’t bad enough, they’ve drafted us [for the construction work] when we already shoulder the heavy burden of supporting our families,” one housewife said, according to the source.
“Building houses in Pyongyang and in farming areas in the provinces is described [by the government] in terms of the leader’s love for the people, but the mere thought of it drives [many people] to annoyance,” the source claimed.
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