[jolepp]

BBC News - N Korean leader Kim Jong-il dies

[Bruce]

And the World Celebrates!

[jolepp]

Can't say I'm heartbroken myself. Hopefully this means better times are ahead for the North Korean people. Peaceful unification with the South down the line, perhaps, akin to that of West and East Germany (?). Also, things could turn very, very ugly.

[pickles]

And the World Celebrates!

I hope so......the "man" was a completely, evil, deranged, lunatic.
Cheers, Pickles.

[MRRiley]

We can only hope that Kim Jung Un is less of a megalomaniac than his father or grandfather and that he is strong enough to control the military if he starts loosening the government's stranglehold on their people.

[boriscleto]

[jolepp]

The official TV announcement:

You Tube

You Tube

"Korean people overcome with grief":

You Tube

You Tube

[VisualDarkness]

Good for the world that he's gone but I can't stop thinking about how this affects the NK's. I once saw a Danish documentary where they managed to get inside North Korea as artists and the weird thing was that despite the oppression the people seemed genuinely happy. As much is people outside of NK celebrate this you have to feel some of the grief that the people feel. Happiness and sadness got many different kinds of faces.

[GeneV]

We can only hope that Kim Jung Un is less of a megalomaniac than his father or grandfather and that he is strong enough to control the military if he starts loosening the government's stranglehold on their people.

A tall order for a very young man.

[VisualDarkness]

A tall order for a very young man.

Yeah, and from the little I've seen of him he lacks the charisma the dictators before him had. There is some really high pressure in that steam cooker and we'll see if slowly lets the pressure out, stays even or in worst case scenario explodes.

[SpecialK]

From my review of the DVD documentary entitled "A State of Mind" which followed a couple young NK gymnasts...

"...it is clear that North Korea is "a state of mind-control". Nearly every public park, monument, mountain, etc is named after Kim Il Sung (dead founder of the country), or his son, the leader they call "The General", Kim Jong Il.

Every person only had great things to say about him and only wanted to please him. Everyone is part of a group - there is never any individualism - you will not see a long-haired boy, and everyone wears the same clothes, etc.

Anti-American/West viewpoints are hammered into the population daily through teachers at school, posters, museum exhibits (purporting the US dropped plague-virus bombs in the Korean War), etc. The Army marches with the Nazi goose-step. The state-provided radio can be turned down but not off, and only plays state propaganda.

One family was fortunate enough to have a TV, given to them by the state for the girl's participation in the previous games. It, too, only broadcasts propaganda, and was on for only 5 hours a day. Just as well, because there are routine nightly power failures. You must have a permit to travel out of your city. There is no internet access or email. All this is not a good sign that the isolated nation is as enlightened as it would like us to think. "

[pickles]

SpecialK.......Good Post.
Cheers, Pickles.

[fisheye freak]

I dare say the real power is vested in the generals. Kim Jong Il is merely the figurehead. I do not see the generals relinquishing power. The long suffering slaves of North Korea cannot celebrate yet.

[jolepp]

related: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/world/asia/north-korean-mourning-blends-em...-coercion.html

...
Contrived as they might look to Western eyes, the wild expressions of grief at funerals — the convulsive sobbing, fist pounding and body-shaking bawling — are an accepted part of Korean Confucian culture, and can be witnessed at the funerals of the famous and the not famous alike in South Korea. But in the North, the culture of mourning has been magnified by a cult of personality in which the country’s leader is considered every North Korean’s father.

As such, the public expressions of grief are not so much an assessment of Kim Jong-il’s stewardship over North Korea — his failings have become increasingly known to North Koreans in recent years, especially to the privileged class of citizens shown in the videos and photographs released in the past two days. Rather, they are in some ways, at least, the expected way to mourn the passing of a father; not hewing to this tradition would invite social or state opprobrium, as the two teenage boys in the videos seemed to grasp instinctively.
...

[jogiba]

The Hermit Kingdom allowed international media to watch its largest ever military parade - part of the campaign to establish Kim Jong-il's youngest son as the leader-in-waiting.

Vimeo