19 December 2011

The Dear Leader

“It was extraordinary the degree to which everything ultimately revolved around this one man.”  –     TIMOTHY GARTON ASH 

(A description I read this morning, thinking it was about Kim Chong Il, and then realizing it was about Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright and former President whose eloquent dissections of Communist rule helped destroy it. Works either way.)

Sorry- I am late this morning. I was ransacking the jewelry box to grab my Geat Leader lapel pin. I was unsuccessful, and I am a little pissed off about the chaos back in the master bedroom. I am going to get organized one of these days.

Just not today.

There are all sorts of things I did come up with, but not the circular pin that our North Korean Worker’s Party Minders presented to us at the airport at Pyongyang when we were getting ready to leave after firming up the Agreed Framework that didn’t prevent the North from getting the bomb and really scary rockets.

It was sort of touching. Bill Richardson’s key staffer Calvin and I had asked if we could go to a store and purchase some of the badges as souvenirs. The Koreans seemed quite appalled by the idea, and we realized that they were something special, and the type of badge, image and shape probably conveyed special information on rank and importance.

We were embarrassed at being the usual Ugly Americans, but we bonded well with the staff assigned to make sure we did all the right things and none of the wrong ones. That would be easy enough to do in The Stepford Country- and we visited all the classic places- the Great Leader’s birth home, the Tower of the Chuche Ideal, the Sports Complex and the highly disciplined dancing kids.

They say there was a short-range rocket firing this morning to go along with the newsreader sobbing in the black clothes of mourning. I have come to accept just about anything out of the DPRK. They are amazingly audacious.

I actually regret that we did not get a chance to meet the Dear Leader on that trip.

Now, I will never get the chance. They say he was quite the card, and a riot to party with. Don’t ever believe people who try to paint the leaders of the Hermit Kingdom as not having a lighter side.

Oh well.

I will have to cut this short and not leave you with any particular insights, except that the brutal regime that imposed starvation on its people actually made Pyongyang a party mecca.

Well, if you know the right people, anyway.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com <http://www.vicsocotra.com>