There’s copious bawling as Kim Jong-Il’s funeral cortege goes by:
Even the announcer is weeping, of course.
I’m now prepared to believe that a lot of this is for the cameras, since failure to weep could get you sent to the camps. As Solzhenitsyn recounted in The Gulag Archipelago, a Russian was once dispatched to the gulag for being the first one to stop clapping after Stalin gave a speech.
…and the silly Christers think North Korea is somehow an “atheistic regime.” Atheist my ass!
b&
They’re the same people who think Hitler’s Germany was atheistic.
Hell, there’s a few of them who think the Vatican is atheistic.
There’s a big subset of the fundamentalist movement that seems to think that atheist means “does not follow the same religion I do.”
Oh, that goes back at least to the Romans, who thought the Christians were atheists.
b&
I’m sure it goes back farther than that.
I’m sure a lot of it is genuine too, the best way to convince others of your lie is to convince yourself first. And if you want to keep your children safe you teach them the lie as though it were true, that way they can’t forget themselves, say something foolish and end up shipped out to the concentration camps.
I’m thinking it’s some variant of Stockholm Syndrome.
Hey, they had no choice in the matter. These folks have no free will. Of course, neither do we. 🙂
It can also be fear for the future. The new leader is young and untried in a culture that values age.
it looks like a great movie!
If you look beyond the first row or two, few seem to be particularly agrieved – just cold.
They’re crying because they know they have to give back the nice winter coats after the funeral.
O–Speaking of over the top–have you seen Dr^3 Pig’s latest diatribe?
OT of course.
I’ve recently finished reading B.R. Myers’ book The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans see themselves, and why it matters, and I’m convinced too that a lot of it is genuine, but not so much religious as purely emotional. NK ideology having little in common with Soviet-era Marxism-leninism, either in the texts or in practice, it’s difficult to compare Kim to Stalin or even Mao. The closest analogy would be Hirohito and the military imperialism of modern Japan, pre-1945. It’s not a coincidence that when Japan lost the war, NK went straight from one authoritarian, racist, militarist regime with a charismatic leader at its head and a cult of personality to involve even the lowliest citizen in the national pageant, to another.
It is perhaps worth reminding that Japan was heavily involved in Korea: growing influence since the Ganghwa Treaty of 1876, protectorate 1905, wholesale annexation 1910. The Japanese rule lasted until 1945, and it was not entirely benevolent.
(pause to savour the sarcastic understatement)
Korean history was systematically distorted, Korean identity undermined.
More fortunate nations than North Korea took decades to recover from similarly harsh regimes. Even under “normal” circumstances, without the Kim lunacy, NK would have been traumatised. Wounded national identities are mortally dangerous.
I see in a satellite image that South Korea is all lit up while the North is all blanketed with black darkness. Such a poor country deserves something better. Many are still suffering of hunger and malnutrition.
Your father’s pal, who annually reported his mileage in his Xmas letters, would have gotten a kick out of KJI taking his last ride strapped to the roof of a stretch ’75 Lincoln Town car, at least. Same car KIS took his last ride on, too, as can be seen on YT.
You know what struck me about this? They are getting snow. And we aren’t.
I am selfish, I know.
Collective mourning is supposed to lessen the pain, not enhance it to unbearable levels. I don’t doubt that some of those poor, benighted people are in genuine mourning, but it ain’t nothing like what we see in the videos.
I thought that was Hitchens’ funeral.
Arrrgh! I wanted to say that.
At least there’s 2 of us. How shall we recognise each other if we meet without the Hitchenistas finding out?
‘Over the top’ – from you! Have you no sense of irony?
It may be over the top, but it is not that unusual, as it might be like Vietnam, where I have heard that you can hire mourners at the Buddhist temples to wail and cry during funerals.
Of course, every patriotic citizen of the good Peoples Republic knows that it is their duty to “do the right thing”.
Reminds me of the old joke of a person visiting Poland during the Soviet Era. The tourist asked, “so, what is it like living in Poland.”
Local: “Can’t complain.”
Tourist: “So it is nice here, then”
Local: “I. Can’t. Complain.”
That has to be the hugest roof mounted portrait I’ve ever seen.
I wonder if I could remix this video to “The Weeping Song” by Nick Cave. I’m sure the tears are genuine. There’s not much to smile about in that country, and they’ve been taught to love and revere this man, many since childhood.
I was more impressed by the serried ranks standing immobile through the interminable speeches (though I wonder if I didn’t hear some poetic oratory in some – not in the meaning [I know no Korean], but melody in the sounds). I bet it was torment for those who wanted to “go”, and even more for those who did. (Where they stood of course. I’m sure it would have been death to move.)
And holding that bow for the three minutes “silence”. I saw someone move. I hope they’re all right.
Remember this? The hysteria of the Ayatollah Khomeini Funeral:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k7mpnPJWDo&feature=related
This is why religion and tyranny are scary.
Jerry, quoting Solzhenitsyn: “…a Russian was once dispatched to the gulag for being the first one to stop clapping after Stalin gave a speech.”
It’s time to get real about the nature of Stalinism (and in this respect, Mao and Kim were true to form): millions of people were dispatched to the GuLag for nothing. The social nature of Stalinist terror was arbitrary, almost random, and essentially impersonal. These characteristics explain the enormous social dynamic set in motion by Stalinism. Stalinist mass repression required the active participation and complicity of the masses. The question about North Korea is whether there is still enough fuel for social combustion, or whether the regime has exhausted it.
The crying is most likely a catharsis. Their world, stressful as it was, is suddenly changed. There is an immediate release, though none is likely to be able to verbalize anything about it, and a brief pause before the next regime is palpably up and running. During this break, there may be a sense of emotional freefall, even free for all, allowing for an extreme psychologic cleansing through the act of crying.
After all, they weren’t exactly free to cry about their situation before. Consider it “catch-up time.” And, in a quick hurry before they are no longer allowed to cry, again.
forgot to check the notify box…
Reminds me of charismatic Christian worship services. Mass hysteria caused by peer pressure.
Yesterday, a blip I heard on NPR suggested those who didn’t cry hard enough are now being arrested. I think one or two comments, here, anticipated same, and so, I stand corrected, for even if my take held validity for any of the mourners, it simply wasn’t the vital reason. Those arrested may turn up dead, if they turn up at all.