The Listening Post

North Korea: The cult of the Kims

Revealing the lengths the country’s propaganda department will go to to ensure Kim Jong-un’s image is untarnished.

For the past few months, North Korea’s propaganda department has been working overtime. Since the death of its so-called ‘Great leader’ Kim Jong-il last December, the country’s ‘Propaganda and Agitation’ department has been fashioning a cult of personality around his unelected successor, the third and youngest son, Kim Jong-un.

Any public humiliation over the failed satellite launch paled alongside the triumph that was the new Supreme Leader’s debut speech. And this, together with myriad publicity stunts and a starring role in a two-hour documentary recently broadcast on state TV, marks a new chapter in the cult of the Kims.

Listening Post‘s Meenakshi Ravi reveals the lengths North Korea’s propaganda department will go to to ensure Kim Jong-un’s image lives up to his father’s legacy.

“The North Koreans are the most indoctrinated people on earth. Really from infancy they are taught to worship the Kim family as if it were a religion. A child’s first word is often not mummy or daddy – it’s often the Great Leader.”

Peter Beck, Asia Foundation