By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
Spring always brings a sharp edge with it, hitting the ethers with a loud bang of Aries energy. After winter’s long sleep, that kind of enthusiastic fire has a tendency to rub a little raw against those seeking a gentle passage. The youngsters, on the other hand, spring out of bed with a whoop, chomping at the bit to get going, and annoying many less-driven souls around them. I mean, seriously! Here I am, drinking my morning coffee and reading the news to find some guy threatening to nuke me as punishment for my imperialism.
North Korea’s L’il Kim III — Kim Jong-Un — is one of those youngsters. He’s anxious to solidify his leadership abilities and prove himself worthy of the silly haircut his revered grandfather, Kim Il-Sung, preferred. The youngest of Kim Jong-Il’s three boys, Un had all the right stuff, apparently, beating out his playboy brother Nam and his timid, supposedly “effeminate” brother Chul to inherit one of the cruelest dictatorships on the planet.
What a Machiavellian storyline, pitting brother against brother, at least in terms of how they developed their personalities to please Daddy. It appears that Un avoided his siblings’ pitfalls to win Daddy’s approval. It would be interesting to know how deliberately he did so, given that the gilded cage provided Dear Leader’s boys is still a cage.
Few people have been allowed entry into North Korea for firsthand reports on the lifestyle there, but what little we’ve seen has stood our hair on end. Those in the cities live in a collective bubble of nationalism, embracing the hive consciousness that can’t be escaped if one is to survive. Screens in every flat deliver fresh propaganda from the single television channel, starting the day and finishing it with large doses of extreme nationalistic rhetoric and anti-American paranoia. Everything belongs to the state, including the people who reside within it, and the state, for the last eighteen months or so, has been defined in the singular person of chubby, enigmatic and markedly militaristic Kim III.