Follow the leader, leader, leader!

Follow the leader, leader, leader!

North Korea, December 2011. Kim Yong Il, the notorious grande general, meets his maker. Which brings up questions where his origin was. Sure no deity had anything to do with it, albeit a very cynical one. Kim Yong Il headed North Korea for decades and made sure the country plummeted into abysmal misery, hunger, want of virtually everything, fear, and a personality cultus that would make even the Hitlers and Stalins of this world blush. And yet, when asked, North Koreans fell over their own feet to make sure how much they loved their country and the general. And how precious and beautiful life was in their stalinist country. No doubt in fear of the general's wrath for being even a wee bit ungrateful. When the general hit the switch off button of life, one would expect relief, but none of that happened. To the contrary. What I watched unfold on television images was a display of such an absurdity that it made me ponder whether it was all staged. No way thís could be their response?? It was like watching a dark version of this movie where all the housewives are kept in a perpetual state of 1950's suburban bliss by having a pill administered every day to keep them docile, without hopes and dreams other than a clean linen tablecloth and cooking for husband and kids - I can't remember the title but one of them rebelled and refused to take her meds, thus reveiling the ugly truth of massive mind control by the males in their community.

Somehow during the past days I have become convinced this is also the case in North Korea. Must be the tab water, or maybe chemtrails in the air, or something they take as 'nutricion supplements'. I cannot fathom why else people would display such erratic behaviour. The woman clasping the railing of an escalator once used by the great general in the department store, flinging herself on the railing and almost breaking apart with grief. Women in public trashing themselves on the pavement, wailing, pulling their hairs and asking bystanders to tell them this is a bad dream and the general isn't gone...

The grown man, his face twisted, tears streaming from his eyes, uttering a sentence translated as: 'when I see the white snow falling, I remember all the great things the general did for us, and I can't believe this is happening, he is really gone'. Hellloooooo? People die. It's a fact of life. And what exactly did the general do for you, exept apparently succeeding in taking your free will? Or is there a large military presense just out of view of the TV cameras pointing a machine gun and pumping 16 rounds into every 'dom fok' who isn't wailing and grieving convincingly enough?

Across the border, a mixture of worry and joy. Worry about that surreptious looking Kim Yong un, the heir apparent, being now in control of the party, the army, and the button of a shitload of nukes pointing South.

Joy because the old senile bugger is gone, South Koreans flashing banners depicting him with buck teeth, slashing the North Korean flag and sending up balloons carrying messages of hope and South Korean propaganda. Which way will this go?

No one knows what the North Koreans do when they are in their private homes, away from the spying eye of Big Brother. Will the general have succeeded in brainwashing their young so they will rat on their parents if they happen to spot them celebrating the general's demise with a stiff drink and a cautious hurray? Or will they revolt in secret?

North Korea after all is the last bulwark of stalinism in the world. In all the other places where they tried to implement that particular brand of communism, the whole thing imploded sooner or later. North Korea however remains an enigma, and it depends on just how much the nutty looks of Kim Yong un match his brain what will happen over the next months and years. We can only hope the North Korean people will stop taking whatever it is that turns them into those mindless drones, and start their own revolution.