'Eternal leader' Kim Jong-il's body to be enshrined

The country also said it will erect a new Kim Jong Il statue and build 'towers to his immortality,' while the ruling party called him 'eternal leader' and gave his birthday a new title that underlines his military-first policy and links him more closely to his father, Kim Il Sung, who is still revered as the 'eternal president.'

|
Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service/AP/File
Kim Jong Il, son of North Korean President Kim Il Sung, leads a meeting at unknown place in this undated photo.

North Korea said Thursday it will enshrine Kim Jong Il's body in the palace housing his father, the national founder, deepening its veneration of the Kim dynasty as the country transfers power to a third generation of the family.

The country also said it will erect a new Kim Jong Il statue and build "towers to his immortality," while the ruling party called him "eternal leader" and gave his birthday a new title that underlines his military-first policy and links him more closely to his father, Kim Il Sung, who is still revered as the "eternal president."

The North's state media have sought since Kim Jong Il's death on Dec. 17 to show his son, Kim Jong Un, as a strong, confident military leader, but outside observers are watching to see if he can impose his will over the military and government as strongly as his father did during 17 years of absolute rule.

North Korea has quickly handed Kim Jong Un a slew of his father's prominent titles and repeatedly connected him with his father and grandfather in an effort to add legitimacy to the young leader. North Korea also has stepped up propaganda praising Kim Jong Il's works and vowed to uphold his policies in what is seen as an attempt to justify the hereditary power transfer.

On Thursday, the North's state media called Kim Jong Il the "eternal leader" — reminiscent of his father's title — and said his body will be displayed at Pyongyang's Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where the embalmed body of Kim Il Sung has been lying since 1995, a year after he died.

It was unclear whether their bodies would be in the same room.

The new name for Kim Jong Il's birthday, "Day of the Shining Star," is another link to Kim Il Sung, whose birthday is called the "Day of the Sun."

"Shining Star" also was the name given by North Korea to what it says was a satellite it launched into space in April 2009, but that the United States says was a long-range rocket test. The launch stoked regional tensions and earned North Korea international sanctions and condemnation.

The new measures reflect North Korea's "unanimous desire ... to hold the great leader Comrade Kim Jong Il in high esteem as the eternal leader of the party and the revolution," the Political Bureau of the Workers' Party's Central Committee said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea is boosting "the cult of personality surrounding Kim Jong Il" as it links him with Kim Il Sung, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

On Thursday, North Korea's state television showed photos of a smiling Kim Jong Un gesturing in a manner similar to his father and wearing a similar parka as he spoke to military officers and inspected construction sites.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to 'Eternal leader' Kim Jong-il's body to be enshrined
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0112/Eternal-leader-Kim-Jong-il-s-body-to-be-enshrined
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe