Up, Close and Personal with the “Supreme Commander”

By Atim Nkese Nkpubre


I am passionately curious about a few things, people, places and events. As a student of culture, the politics of North Korea has never ceased to amaze me.
At 28, 29 or perhaps, 30 years of age, Kim Jong-Un, the Supreme Commander of North Korea, is the world’s youngest head of state! No one else outside of the secretive conclave seems to know his true birth detail. His birthday is variously given as January 8, 1982, 83 or 84.
 Moreover, Kim cuts the picture of a somewhat unserious leader with excess adrenaline in his system. However, his signature buzz cut has made Kim Jong-Un a style icon of some sort in his country where young men are reportedly queuing at barber shops to copy his “short, square, shaved-above the ear look dubbed the ‘youth or ‘ambition’ haircut.” Back here in Nigeria, that haircut used to be known as “girls follow me.”

Described by many as the new face of a despotic regime, Kim is, indeed, a queer character. He is perhaps the only leader in the world who appears angry for most if not all of the time. Every now and then, he yells loudly in a language the rest of the world doesn’t understand. Life is oh so good Kim is growing a pot belly under his trademark jumper suit. Sports experts believe he needs a good jog to wash away daily stresses of governance and only last week, New York Sports Club in New York City ran an ad in a local tabloid suggesting the North Korean leader should invest in whipping his body into shape!

His wife Ri Sol-Ju is usually seen chilling by his side, clapping or smiling as the occasion demands, but never heard. People believe it’s either she is mute or hiding government secret. 
Last Tuesday, North Korea’s military had threatened archrival South Korea with imminent “sledge-hammer” retaliation unless Seoul apologises for anti-Pyongyang protesters burning effigies of its revered leaders Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s late Founder and Kim Jong-Un, his grandson and current leader. The country had marked the birth of Kim Il Sung which is a major national holiday on  Monday

Media from the opposing camp are awash with speculations that Kim underwent a number of cosmetic procedures last year in order to look more like his grandfather. Some countries really do have them!

The man in charge of the one of the world’s most unstable nuclear powers is said to be the son of Kim Jong Il’s third wife (or maybe consort), a dancer named Ko Yong-Hi who passed on in 2004. He is the third and youngest son of Kim Jong Il (1942-2011) but emerged as the front runner among his siblings in a blaze of glory.
Kim Jong-Un attended the English Language International School in Berne, Switzerland, under the assumed identity of Pak Chol, where he learned English and maybe German, while posing as the son of a North Korean Embassy employee.                                    

The young Kim assumed office on December 17, 2011 and was officially declared the Supreme leader of North Korea following the state funeral for his father in December 2011. Quite a few would forget the wild grief and “national mourning” that accompanied the burial of Kim Jong Il. We’re told it’s an unwritten rule and very mandatory for everyone, young and old, male or female to cry very loudly during such happenstances, and they interpreted that script quite well before the world. It’s interesting to note that the Kims have been in charge since the creation of North Korea in 1948.

Keen watchers of North Korean politics believe that from late 2010, Kim Jong-Un was viewed as heir apparent to the leadership of the nation. As a matter of fact, Kim Jong-Il was said to be in the process of grooming him as a successor when he died on 17 December, 2011. Immediately after his father’s death, the younger Kim was hailed as “the Great Successor”. He was named head of the party, state and army within a fortnight of his father’s death. Most recently, he was appointed a Marshal following a high-level military reshuffle in which the army chief Ri Yung-ho was removed.

Lately, the Korean Peninsula has been in a state of heightened military tension since the North carried out its third nuclear test in February.

To a casual observer, it would be appear Kim Jong-Un is yet to come to terms with the nuances of statecraft and international diplomacy. He’s been courting more controversies than he can handle. Aside from his well publicised face-off with South Korea, he’s been threatening to fire capable missiles towards the United States of America. Kim has put the Korean Peninsula and Washington on a war footing.

But experts in the intricacies of Pyongyang have described his recent bout of bellicose rhetoric as either an act of youthful exuberance or a desperate cry for legitimacy rather than a genuine appetite for combat.

What’s more, some North Korean exiles in America who should know have dismissed Kim’s threat as the mere ranting of a braggart. “They don’t have fuel. They don’t have electricity,” one of them said. “Even if they yell to the world that they’ll go to war, it’s just talk.”

Foreign analysts have long said that North Korea’s desperate shortages are, in part, because the despotic regime channels a lot of its resources to the military and into weapons development. But in a country where many soldiers have to spend months every year working on farms or construction projects, and where bicycles remain a status symbol for most people, the exiles say North Korea is so poor and undeveloped that it knows it would lose any fight and lose badly.

Aside from the facade that is Pyongyang, rural North Korea is said to be bereft of modern amenities and infrastructure. Electricity is said to be a rarity and the punishing winter seems to last forever.

 

It is also rumoured that the government assigns people to schools, to jobs and to apartments. Its security services keep watch over everything and its propaganda dominates television, radio and newspapers. The children of the elite often move swiftly into elite jobs, while the children of farmers and miners normally follow their fathers’ footsteps.

South Korea by contrast is said to have fostered one of the world’s most deeply competitive cultures. “It is a nation awash in American-styled consumerism that went from an economic backwater to a high tech and industrial powerhouse in just a couple of decades,” an analyst said.
By declaring war on South Korea, Kim seems to be following in the footsteps of his firebrand grandfather and iconic leader who plunged the regime into a war that killed as many as 5 million people, including 35,000 American troops, in the 1950s. Amid international fears that North Korea may be preparing for another missile test, history may repeat itself.

But Kim does not only talk tough, he does unwind after all and is said to be obsessed with American basketball, in spite of his height. Earlier in the year, he hosted former NBA star, Dennis Rodman, and used to sketch Michael Jordan while schooling in Europe.
While attempting to hold the world to ransom on war charges, this Lil’ Kim (my apologies to the American rapper and actress who goes by that alias), appears determined to assert a firm grip on the levers of power. Power, they say, corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.