The Cleanest Race - B. R. Myers [41]
This is not to imply that they blame Kim Jong Il for the famine of the mid-1990s. The propaganda apparatus has done far too good a job of blaming this second “Arduous March” (Kim Il Sung having led partisans on the alleged original march of that name) on other factors. Typical is Pak Il-myŏng’s “Transition,” which appeared in June 1999.12 This is one of many short stories in which everything the Leader thinks, does and says is meant to be understood as a product of the writer’s imagination, yet true to the essence of the great man. “Transition” opens with the Leader seated behind a desk in an undisclosed location.
The Kim Jong Il regime has always enjoyed a higher degree of uncoerced mass support than the outside world is willing to recognize.
They say time flows like a river, and indeed, a year had somehow already been borne past as if on a swift current. Soon it would dawn on a new year, Juche 86 (1997). The drizzle that had begun the day before showed signs of abating, only to turn into an untidy downpour. In the unseasonal rain the earth, which was usually frozen rock-solid at this time of year, now squelched underfoot. Having given on-the-spot guidance and inspections to the People’s Army troops right up until the end of the year, the Great Ruler Kim Jong Il had a short while before returned to his desk and, without a moment’s rest, set about reading the manuscript of the collectively-penned editorial that would be printed in the new year’s party, military and youth newspapers.13
While Kim Il Sung was and still is associated in the arts with sunshine and blue skies, his son is often pictured in inclement weather, or standing on the seashore as waves crash against the rocks. In “Transition,” too, he is introduced amidst references to mud and rain—a reminder that he faces even more challenging circumstances than his father did.
It had been a hard year. The continuation of the imperialists’ political and economic blockade, and, on the world’s stage, war and strife, starvation and extreme poverty, historically unprecedented oppression threatening all mankind—it had been a year in which these things had enveloped the earth like a black cloud.14
Note that blame for the republic’s problems is placed on factors beyond Kim’s control: the imperialist blockade and a worldwide increase in general misery. Significant is also the implication that things are worse in other countries. (The official media have always made much of the worst famines and natural disasters in Africa and elsewhere.)
Enter the Watson-like sidekick, a fixture of all stories of this kind. Kyŏng’u, a party official, has just returned from a fact-finding trip to the countryside. Knowing that the Dear Leader prizes honesty above all else, he reveals that while the state expects regions to supply their own fertilizer, “the actual results … fall far short of the plan.”15
Kim Jong Il responds:
“Long ago the Leader [i.e. Kim Il Sung] was already calling agriculture the foundation of the universe … But we have not farmed well in recent years, and we have failed to implement his teachings properly. To make matters worse, we have suffered damages from floods and drought, so that now the people are enduring difficulty because of the food problem. But still no one complains. Even while eating gruel they are steadfastly surmounting difficulties. They’re worried they might otherwise cause me pain, you see. When I think how much the Leader wanted to give our people white rice and meat soup, I find it hard to bear …”
“We have not properly taken on the work you gave us to do, General,” Kyŏng’u said as he hung his head.
So a food shortage is admitted, if not