North Koreans bewail the loss of their Dear Leader

December 19, 2011 • 1:09 pm

Here’s a brand-new video showing the expected scenes of hysterical grief in North Korea following the death of Kim Jong Il.  It’s almost identical to what I remember when Kim il-Sung died in 1994.

Probably some of this is orchestrated, but I have absolutely no doubt that most of the grief is genuine.  After all, these people, kept completely isolated from the rest of the world, have been told from birth that their worker’s paradise, far superior to the rest of the world, is the largesse of their Dear Leader.  And they believe it.  The followers of Jesus are supposed to have wept after his death, too, and that’s what we’re seeing here: the effect of a theocracy on its credulous victims.

There’s precious little we can do to help these oppressed people, and it’s ineffably sad.

77 thoughts on “North Koreans bewail the loss of their Dear Leader”

  1. There’s been a South Korean movement promoting the idea of reunification, but I’m not sure what’d be in it for South Korea, or how the North Koreans would react. North and South are like different worlds…

    1. For many people in South Korea reunification would allow them free access to visit friends and relatives in the north. As time goes by the divide gets worse and over 50 years of Orwellian Reeducation has done a hell of a lot of damage to the folks in the north. Unlike the modern Arabs, those folks don’t even get an opportunity to see what things are like in other places around the world.

      1. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be so cut off from the outside world like that. NK is like a society in a Petri dish.

        I wonder what the life expectancy in NK is, and just how many friends and relatives there are left to visit, after those 50 years.

    2. Similar things were said about the former DDR and West Germany.
      Look at Germany today!

      1. This is true. A friend raised that point with me… Hindsight is 20/20 though, and there’s really no way to predict Korea following Germany’s success, right? I imagine integration would be really difficult for a while, at least.

      2. But you have to remember that the GDR was the wealthiest country of the communist block with the highest living standard.
        NK on the other hand is at the other end of that spectrum.

      3. East Germany was never as isolated as North Korea is today. During the communist era, East Germans could travel to other communist countries and international students did study at East German universities.

        1. Indeed, I remember East Germans traveling to the Black Sea coast in Romania during their holidays but it was quite difficult for a Romanian citizen to travel to the GDR (which was just an other country in the communist block).

      4. Reunification is also dependent upon China and the U.S. The Chinese would never agree to lose their buffer state to a country that still maintains U.S. airbases and nuclear arsenal, and the U.S. doesn’t have much of a desire to lose that strategic position.

  3. I agree that the population of North Korea are genuinely sad at the demise of their evil tyrant. I’m celebrating the death of an evil man and railing against the news agencies being so soft on him – they should be telling the world it is a wonderful day that such a horrible man has died and express some hope that the people of North Korea may be liberated.

  4. Having watched the video, I can’t help but wonder if the histrionics would be lessened if the camera wasn’t there. How many of these people are performing, so to speak, because they think it’s expected of them? (I don’t mean they’re not saddened by the loss of their leader, but that they’re playing it up because they know they’re being watched.)

    If the outpouring of grief is legitimate, this is very sad indeed.

    1. I don’t see any reason to doubt the sincerity of the tears and grief. Most of the people left in North Korea have never known anything but the non-stop propaganda all their lives. They have literally nothing to compare it too.

      They may suffer every day of their lives, but knowing nothing but what they have been told all their lives about the Dear Leader, how could they possibly make an informed judgement call about the state in which they live.

      They are probably genuinely terrified that their god has died, exposing them to the potential evil threat of the jealous West. You know, that Evil Empire in the West that has been forced to pay tribute in food packages to the Dear Leader all these years?

      1. Yeah, you’re probably right. I guess I’d be acting the same way if I’d been raised in such an environment but I’m finding it terribly difficult to “put myself in their shoes”…

        NK reminds me of Jim Jones’ compound, but at a national scale.

    2. Probably most of them. They know that they could be punished if they don’t show enough grief.
      The fear to be suspected of callousness may also lead to them trying to outdo each other which is the reason for this surreal spectacle.

      But no matter what, as you said, this is quite sad. So I hope this is the last instance where we have to see something like this.

      1. Yes, see, this is exactly what I was thinking. I’m not sure how much NK is like Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four or if they have “state tattletales” all over keeping tabs on who is acting “appropriately” or not.

        I can’t imagine living in a place like this. What can the rest of us do? “Regime change” is a terrible euphemism, but perhaps reunification is a good idea?

        1. You can bet dollars to donuts that they have state tattle tales who will report you to the authorities (who are also quite omnipresent).

          I only experienced Romania under Ceausescu as a kid and the regimes were quite similar from what I can tell (Ceausescu was also a good buddy of Kim Il Sung and if they hadn’t captured him, NK might have been a likely destination for his flight).
          On the other hand, Romania wasn’t quite that isolated as NK, even though that was Ceausescu’s goal during the last ~10 years.
          It was also possible to clandestinely listen to western radio stations like Radio Free Europe or Deutsche Welle to stay informed about what really happened out there. Of course this was highly illegal so you could get into deep trouble if caught.

          The South Koreans are probably also broadcasting for the North Koreans but I doubt that many have a radio let alone a TV.

          1. Maybe Romania is as close to NK as you can get, but unless near the end of Ceausescu the difference between the two seems vast. At least in the early 80’s (and I hope I’m not confusing it with Bulgaria) Romania’s Black Sea was a fairly popular tourist destination for Swedes – the kronor went a long way there. So by comparison Romania under Ceausescu would seem to have been wide-open to the West vs. NK.

          2. Sure, as I said earlier, it wasn’t as sealed off as NK. Ceaușescu was a bit of an oddball among his communist buddies and he could be quite pragmatic when it came to money (he even got a fair amount of cash from Germany and Israel for letting ethnic Germans resp. Jews emigrate).
            I don’t remember meeting any Western tourists at the Black Sea but I can certainly remember seeing tourists from other eastern European countries like the GDR or Poland. However, it wasn’t quite that easy for Romanians going to other eastern European countries.

    3. Having watched the video, I can’t help but wonder if the histrionics would be lessened if the camera wasn’t there.

      But perhaps those folks have a sense of being watched whether there are cameras or not. Perhaps there would be an element of fear that a show of insufficient emotion would lead to suspicion of disloyalty to the government. I suspect that most North Koreans would have seen friends or relatives perish in prison for suspicion of disloyalty.

  5. I wonder how they’ll behave when they find out what a total bunch of thieving murderous bastard scum this family was?

    P.S. Quote: “Kim Jong Il ==> Kim Jong Dead”.

    Bwahaha.

    1. Why would they find that out?

      Kim Jong Un probably will be more of a puppet and less of an actor than his father owing to his youth and inexperience, but Kim Jong Il hardly kept this regime running by himself. There are plenty of corrupt fat generals who will ensure that nothing changes – not if they can help it.

      If the entire ruling elite were to disappear overnight, what you would get is an entire population of traumatised, poverty-stricken people utterly unequipped to deal with the realities of the world around them.

      This tragedy is far from over.

  6. If North Korea happens to open up at some point, you know the xian missionaries will be the first ones there. These people have been trained for some generations now to be perfect candidates for proselytization.

    1. Too true, oh too true. My “holy roller” period coincided with graduation from military boot camp. I swear the missionaries preyed on us as we boarded the planes to our respective destinations. Fortunately for me, it only lasted a couple of years. I was cured with the drunken debauchery that was W. Germany in the early to late 1980’s.

  7. – I doubt that ‘not weeping’ is an option. Anyone not weeping probably needs ‘re-education.’
    – Does the ‘Dear Leader’ go to ‘Juche’ heaven. Probably not because North Korea is heaven.

    S

    1. Exactly, and they know that. That’s why you don’t see anyone just weeping silently. That could be seen as not being sad enough about the death of the Dear Leader.

      1. Christian, I don’t know if you’re old enough to have experienced the transition from Gheorghiu-Dej to Ceaușescu in Romania in 1965. I did, as a kid.
        Gheorghiu-Dej was a dim, dour Stalinist party hack, of no more than average cruelty and perversity. Hardly the divine status of the Kims.
        Nonetheless, public display of sorrow and affliction upon his death was carefully stage-managed. Not weeping was not an option for children and young women. Men had to manifest sober grief and heroic determination. The funeral was a huge affair. Stalinist old-timers still criticised the arrangements as too muted: the public display of mourning at Stalin’s death had been truly monumental, never again to be equaled in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Block.

        I was in hospital with appendicitis at the time. My surgeon, fresh out of detention after eight years in the camps, was one of the few people no longer afraid to speak his mind. He too seemed genuinely sad. I asked him why. He was despondent. “Whoever succeeds the old chap will have to prove his manhood,” he said. “The screws will be tightened, first within the Party, then everywhere. If there is a ‘thaw’, the backlash will be all the more terrible.” So it proved.

        Nobody should take any public behaviour in such a regime at face value, ever. And even Stalin’s Russia was a holiday camp compared to Kim’s North Korea.

        1. No, I was born a bit more than a decade later but my parents (being JAC’s age) still remember that time. I only remember the 80s but from what I was told that was the time when Ceausescu went completely bonkers.
          The only funeral of a major communist honcho I can think of was that of Brezhnev (but that was in the SU). I was still quite young back then so my memories of that event are a bit patchy (saw it on TV).

          Nobody should take any public behaviour in such a regime at face value, ever.

          I still know that we were taught by my parents from an early age that there were things that you could discuss at home but which you should never mention in public, not even to close friends. Took a few years to shed that paranoia after leaving Romania in early 1989 (so I wasn’t there when the shit hit the fan).

          I’m going to visit my parents for Christmas, so I guess this topic will most probably come up.

          And even Stalin’s Russia was a holiday camp compared to Kim’s North Korea.

          That’s true. Romania and Albania might have hit rock bottom in the communist sphere of influence but the North Koreans under the Kims have reached levels where rock turns liquid. Although from my impression Ceausescu was also heading in that direction since he seemed quite enamored by Kim’s Juche ideology.

          Btw, when did you leave Romania? From one of your earlier posts I guess you’re also living in Germany (why else would one know of DSDS ;).

          1. December 1969.
            As for knowing about DSDS: I wandered all over Western Europe for a bit, including Germany. But that’s no longer a requisite: thanks to cable TV, satellite and the internet, that sort of drivel is watched from Rovaniemi in Finland to Aqaba on the Red Sea. How ironic that Young Kim should submit voluntarily to such trash, if true. Were he to expose his long-suffering people to that rubbish, international military intervention would clearly be mandated.

          2. December 1969.

            Ah, so you were a lucky one and got out early 😉
            My grandparents also tried to emigrate around that time but for some reason it didn’t work out. So I guess you’re probably also Jewish or ethnic German since it was even harder for other ethnic groups to leave the country by legal means.
            I’m from southern Transylvania (Brașov county). Quite impressive nature, if you’ve ever been there. Could have been paradise if not for the regime in Bucharest 🙁

            As for knowing about DSDS: I wandered all over Western Europe for a bit, including Germany. But that’s no longer a requisite: thanks to cable TV, satellite and the internet, that sort of drivel is watched from Rovaniemi in Finland to Aqaba on the Red Sea. How ironic that Young Kim should submit voluntarily to such trash, if true. Were he to expose his long-suffering people to that rubbish, international military intervention would clearly be mandated.

            Well, in that case I’m sure they’d start revolting on their own.
            Heck, I only know of that thrash because it’s part of the background noise and even that is too much.

  8. Looking at this picture and the video by the English guys in your previous post, I’m frapped by how much North Korea resembles my mind’s eye view of ‘1984’.

    Those huge, empty, humourless boulevards and piazzas, designed to demagnify and insignificate the individual; the horrible dissonated fear that beyond the confines of the relatively civilised capital city, the rule of famine, anarchy and starvation.

    Oh, these Elohim dictators, and their petty, vulgar auto-dedicated monuments (vastly over-sized, as if compensating), forever piling their self-regarding Pelion on their murderous, autarchic Ossa.

    In this year of revolutions, these people need one of their own, to turn a spark to a flame.

  9. Most of it looks like bad acting to me. No amount of propaganda could have turned this horrible, ugly toad of a man into a prince charming. People are not that stupid. Or so I like to think.

  10. Even in a complete media lockout, where North Koreans are unable to see anything of the rest of the world — they still have to know that what they are experiencing is not the ideal, the best that humanity has.

    Starvation is the best?

    Oppression is the best possible government?

    Rule by someone who is dead?

    You don’t have to know what the alternatives are to realize that what you already have is not the best. Even people who are born into extremely dysfunctional families understand that something is wrong — without being able to conjure up a single example of something right.

    1. I often think this has to be true of at least some subset of the populace, too. Then I wonder how long it takes them to go mad.

      1. I assume the future revolutionaries are the ones languishing in the concentration camps, unless they have been killed already. For all we know, there may already have been a North Korean oppositionist taking the von Stauffenberg path in attempting to decapitate the Leader, who will soon run out of superlatives to describe himself.

        Vide the fascinating testimony of Occam and Christian regarding the latent oppositionalism of a frightened and tyrannised population; things bouleverse and quickly. Who foresaw the Easter Uprising of 1916? Russia 1917? The overnight breach of the Berlin Wall? Mass revolutionary action catches like bushfire; if not in this year of revolutions, when the regime is at its most uncertain, when?

  11. According to NPR today, the weeping is mandatory. People were punished for not showing enough grief when Kim Il Sung died in ’94.

    The biggest problem with reunification is the medieval nature of N Korean society. Of the few hundred defectors that have made it to S Korea, very few apparently have been able to integrate into society – they’re totally unprepared for the modern world. So what do you do with a whole country like that? In a way, not too different from Afghanistan.

    1. Can you please quote the source where it says weeping is mandatory ? Haven’t been able to find it myself. Thanks

  12. I know this is somehow off topic. But how can you speak of “free will” if your behavior is so deeply affected by outside factors not in your control. If you have been told you owe everything to the tyrant and you have no way to know better then you will mourn his death. Is this “free” will? What if your only source of info is Fox News?

    1. I assume this is said in an ironic tone, but it encapsulates a serious question. What can you do about this pornographic kleptocracy?

      Contrary to some remarks, I take some of these pictures of exaggerated grief as genuine; any regime, no matter how repulsive, must reflect the interests of a certain social layer. In the case of NK, the military, the fifth largest in the world, springs immediately to mind; 1 in 25 of the population are in the armed forces.

      If you can witness, in an advanced liberal democracy, the disturbing and quasi-servile mass outpouring of confected mourning for a content-free clothes-horse like Princess Diana, I don’t find it difficult to take at face value the, at least temporarily, visceral emotions of some sections of NK society.

      This state is a criminal organisation; it stands idly by while 3 million of its fellow citizens die of starvation; it condemns 1% of its population to concentration camps – 240,000 persons; it repeatedly flouts international agreements on the proliferation of nuclear weapons; it shoots down South Korean citizens on disputed territory; its people are amongst the most malnourished on earth, still suffering from the after effects of the three year famine.

      Obama will not invade, not with next-door China being NK’s dominant trading partner; nor with Russia sharing a railway line with the north of the country.

      What is to be done with this foul excrescence?

      1. ”This state is a criminal organisation.”
        The other way round: a criminal organisation that has acquired the rudiments of a state.
        Starvation: I have read first-hand reports from medical visitors clearly indicating that starvation is used as a method of coercion (like in Russia and the Ukraine under Stalin in the 1930s, or in Mengistu’s Ethiopia in the ’80s).
        Death from malnutrition among prisoners is estimated at 40%. Simple numbers speak a plain language: 2 out of 5 prisoners starving to death.

        “What is to be done with this foul excrescence?”
        Past experience tells us what not to try. Pace Christopher Hitchens, whom we mourn, but whose few egregious errors of judgement we must acknowledge: our going after loudmouth Saddam Hussein, who appears to have lacked WMD, and reluctantly after loudmouth Moammar al-Ghaddafi, who agreed to ditch them, has taught the Kims and the Iranian mullahs a terrible lesson. The US and the West will only go after soft targets. Better get hold of some really bad-ass bargaining chips, like nukes and rockets. Kim’s kleptocracy will klept on, as long as we must reasonably fear that they are mad enough to blow themselves up with considerable collateral damage if pushed to the limit. (Ditto, with some subtle differences, Iran.) The really dangerous thugs have reaped the benefits of the misguided Iraqi extravaganza. Geopolitics being what they are, any action, or inaction, will now be decided in Beijing and nowhere else. Are we ready to tell the Chinese that we renounce cheap Chinese credits and refuse cheap Chinese goods for the sake of North Korea?
        There is another lesson unlearned (and to me the most glaring inconsistency of Hitchens): there was a case for fighting in Vietnam, and in Cambodia, if only to prevent them from turning into what N. Korea has turned into. If that case was shaky, if that war was botched, there was at least a case for not throwing those populations to the wolves once US forces were engaged. To the eternal shame of the Left, that slender hope was scuttled. To the eternal shame of the Right, the worst possible conclusions were drawn. One consequence of both those moral and intellectual failures is the failure to act effectively and intelligently on North Korea while a narrow window of opportunity existed.

        Now, having ventilated our moral outrage, let’s proceed with holiday shopping and get those consoles made in China: after all, Battlefield 3 is just out for Christmas.

      2. The original post was sarcastic. Of course we should not bomb them. I was just using this post to spit on Hitchens.

        But back to Kim Kong il. The man and the regime are disgusting. But they are the unfinished business from cold war. The west and Russia should find a peaceful solution to the problem of north korea with out any bloodshed. Pay the Kim jong family what ever they want and liberate those poor buggers.

        1. A fine prescription, no doubt.
          It reminds me of a newspaper ad placed by French satirist (and résistant) Pierre Dac:

          “New revolutionary shaving method!
          Shave without razor! Without blades! Without foam! Without electricity!
          How?
          We don’t know, but surely there must be a way.”

          1. How?

            Pay the Kim jong family goons whatever $$$ they want. In return they relinquish power and make way for democracy.

            Not unlike the revolutionary shaving technology.

  14. Is there any way in which North Korea isn’t a 24 million member cult with a nuclear arsenal? It’s really sad and quite scary to think about.

  15. Not sure if anyone here has been to a Korean funeral, but this isn’t all that unusual behavior. It’s ghoulish because of who they are grieving over and what he has done to them through the decades.

    When my maternal grandfather died, one of my aunts tried to throw herself onto the lowered casket. So, I’ve seen that bombastic, seemingly excessive grieving process first hand.

    Here’s an example of a funeral for a young celebrity in South Korea that committed suicide.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IhxchZd66g&feature=related

    Granted, I mostly just know from my own life that my extended family tends to keep their emotions close to the vest until such time as they indulge in their own grief, but I don’t imagine that it’s isolated to us.

    1. But yeah, I’m sure some of the televised grieving for the “Dear Leader” (who can tell the real number?) is faked.

    2. Thanks for posting the vid. I was wondering how the South Koreans grieve and this provides some comparison.

      1. Yeah, I was getting a real ethno-centric vibe in terms of the response to these videos (which, I find grotesque because of WHO they’re grieving over). Another good example of this over-the-top grieving shows up in the Korean horror movie, The Host. The director even addresses it in an interview:

        RS: One scene that strikes me as absolutely crucial to the mechanics of the film is where the family is grieving over Hyun-Seo right after she’s been taken. How do you keep something so over-the-top grounded in real emotions? The bit where the newspaper people close in to photograph their grief feels quite pointed…

        BJH: To a Western audience, that scene may seem exaggerated or surreal, but it is very realistic for Koreans. Those kinds of things happen in the real joint memorials after big accidents. In any case, that scene is the most important sequence. It propels the narrative forward. The monster appears in the very beginning, kidnapping Hyun-seo, so there’s not enough time to introduce the families—how they relate to one another, how they live. The introduction and the kidnapping happen almost at the same time. So, all the family characters gather in one place after Hyun-seo is taken. It was necessary to effectively show in this scene that these characters are families with emotional bonds, and they really miss Hyun-seo.

        http://www.reverseshot.com/article/bong

  16. I think there should be a special Razzie award this year for the people of North Korea. I am amazed that anybody can believe this is real. The acting is so bad it’s hilarious.

    1. I’d agree if this had happened in some Western country where you have freedom of speech and expression but this is North Korea, so what those people are doing there is not quite voluntary and not following along could have dire consequences.
      I seriously doubt that you’d perform any better under similar circumstances.

  17. In some Asian & other cultures hiring of professional mourners (criers) is done for funerals. I imagine the North Korean government wouldn’t need to hire criers, since it can just order people to do it without pay.

  18. 1984 was fiction. This is fact. When I watch these ridiculous mourners, I am torn between pity and contempt. Mostly pity, because I see it as a terrifying demonstration of the vulnerability of the human mind to religious infection.

    Yes, religious. The Dear Leader’s birth was accompanied by miraculous rainbows and (just like Jesus) portentous astronomical sightings. He didn’t defecate. And the first and only time he played golf, he scored 11 holes-in-one all in the same game – as testified by 17 witnesses.

    2. He didn’t defecate.

      Oh, that would explain so many things, the most obvious being that he was full of shit.

    3. It is interesting, in terms of religious comparisons, that the new leader has the title of “born of heaven” – a phrase also used for his father and grandfather.

    4. I agree that WHO they are grieving makes this ridiculous, but the spectacle these people are putting on isn’t necessarily unheard of in either Koreas. It’s actually part of the culture.

  19. I wonder how many Winston Smiths there are in North Korea. How many people there truly believe the nonsense they are spoon-fed by their oppressors? Surely the leaders themselves don’t believe one iota of it, just as the Gospel authors and frauds like Paul of Tarsus knew they were just making things up. These scenes of lament, so farcical at first sight, are deeply saddening upon reflection. Those bewailing the departed tyrant are either genuinely grieving, which proves them to be gullible fools or parasites, or they feel that they have to pretend to be heartbroken because they are terrified. It must be horrible to be a decent, rational human being in North Korea.

    2. “…the nonsense they are spoon-fed by their oppressors? Surely the leaders themselves don’t believe one iota of it…”

      Yes, I always felt the satirical idea of speaking truth unto power was redundant. Power already knows the truth, and if it was bothered by it, it would reform itself.

        1. Hmmm, yes, very Machiavellian (and that’s not a bad thing), as the commenter points out.

          It makes me wonder, entirely tangentially, how and whether Confucius, the Buddha and Socrates – separated by infranchissable space but almost contemporaneous – influenced each other.

          Thanks for the link.

          1. Vast question!
            You are certainly acquainted with the concept of ‘Achsenzeit’ (axial age) proposed by Karl Jaspers. Philosophers and historians have eagerly followed the thread. As recently as 2008, ‘axiality’ was the subject of a high-calibre conference in Erfurt, chaired by Robert Bellah and Hans Joas.
            Inevitably, Karen Armstrong has also picked the scent in her 2006 book ‘The Great Transformation’; the German edition is sold as ‘Achsenzeit’, hoping to capitalise on Jaspers.

            In my own nominal domain, archaeology, one of the foremost proponents of a form of ‘axiality’ is Kristian Kristiansen, presently of Göteborg. His most recent publication on the subject at large: “Bridging India and Scandinavia: Institutional Transmission and Elite Conquest during the Bronze Age”.

            I have no answer. I only know that I am deeply unconvinced by any of the attempts so far, based on available evidence.

          2. This sort of thing really looses my juices, and I’m not being snarky. I’ve read a fair amount in the area and know nothing of the archaeological evidence that may or may not underpin the hypothesis.

            I have never managed to finish the blurb of any of Karen Armstrong’s books; like reading soufflé. So I’ll pass on her.

            I’ll seek out Kristiansen; any recommendations, apart from Jaspers, for a more contemporary history of the ideas of the Axial Age? Comparative philosophies of China, India, Persia, Greece, Palestine and hypotheses/evidence for their dissemination?

            Regards.

          3. I’m not a historian by any stretch, but it is looks even more odd if one goes back a bit further on the other side of Confucius and includes the Hebrew “prophets”, Zoroaster, the founding of Jainism (I forget if we know a name there), etc.

            As far as I know, the only hints at any connections whatsoever for the different parts are:

            1) The contact between the Hebrew prophets and others in during the captivity
            2) And the tantalizing, unknown-whether-it-is-true remark that Democritus (who was, despite being called a “preSocratic” was more or less a contemporary of his) went to India to study with the “naked wise guys” (my slightly silly translation – the usual one says “naked philosophers”, but there’s no “philo-” in there as I recall). Since there were atomist schools in India, the bit is tantalizing but so very inconclusive.

          4. Dermot, apologies for the belated reply.
            Not my turf, really. The only author I know who really picked up where Jaspers left off was Shmuel Eisenstadt. “The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations”, which he edited, is IMHO one of the few serious endeavours on the subject, or at least one of the few seriously documented.

            I suspect that we are approaching the aspect of synchronicity from the wrong angle, and with the wrong assumptions.

            The fact that Karen Armstrong has sucked up to a subject should always be a warning: trendy theme, difficult terrain, high potential for a lot of hot air.

          5. Let me assure you, Occam, this is not a trendy theme where I work. (Secondary school).

            All the best for the season and thanks.

  20. “The followers of Jesus are supposed to have wept after his death, too, and that’s what we’re seeing here: the effect of a theocracy on its credulous victims.”

    That is what you conclude from every person’s tears?

      1. I do not understand your point, so perhaps you did not understand mine. I will rearticulate it: every time you see or read about a person crying you can analogise between that and the circumstances of living in North Korea? Perhaps Peter Hitchens cried at the death of his brother: just like North Korea. A man cries at losing his job during the recession: North Korea. A man’s mother and close friends witness his execution: got to be brainwashing.

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