Speaking of miracles, the totalitarian state’s propaganda machine churned out outrageous distortions, easily exceeding even Stalin standards. State media claimed that in the first round of golf Kim ever played, he broke the all-time world record for the best round of golf in history. The government press also reported that Kim composed more and better operas—and at a younger age—than anyone who ever existed. Songs like “Dear Leader Dispels Raging Storms” were karaoke hits in North Korea.
An eyewitness to the madness was Kang Chol-hwan, author of the frightening memoir, "Aquariums of Pyongyang." Kang recalled how as a child he and his wide-eyed classmates were taught that Kim and his late father were “Edenic” human beings, so perfect that neither man defecated or urinated. They were born without sin, if not purer. My faith teaches that Christ was both 100 percent human and 100 percent divine. North Korea tipped the scales even higher...
The regime was hell-bent on this messiah complex. The consistent, dogged application of this divine narrative was unrelenting and sickening. I could give example after example that would make you cry. It was evil, just plain evil.
Compounding the obscenity is this tragic truth: no modern people have been so repressed and persecuted. North Koreans experienced a government-induced famine where two-to-three million people (10-15 percent of the population) starved to death from 1995-98. The place is a living, breathing (actually, dying) tragedy. At its apex sat Kim, whose omnipresent face and figure literally hovered above the masses in murals and statues and screens...
This viciously atheistic regime that pursued a classic communist war on religion was devoutly religious itself. Ironically, it had not banned religion; it had nationalized it, centralized it, redistributed it—all in the form of Kim Jong-Il. Just as North Korea’s communist government had taken over all industry, all agriculture, and even all crime, it had also seized all faith.
When Whittaker Chambers once commented on the ultimate crime of communists, he explained that they had grossly repeated humanity’s original mistake: “Ye shall be as Gods.”
Ah, in that sense, Kim was indeed “Edenic.”
Kim Jong-Il presented himself to his suffering people as their god and their salvation. Instead, he was their downfall. He was the worst embodiment of the fall of man, and he in turn felled a nation and a people in the ugly process.
Christmas is no time for false messiahs. The worst of them, Kim Jong-Il, spent this season no longer among the living. His people can rest in peace. I have a strong suspicion Kim is not. This Christmas time, little old Kim finally had some explaining to do. He is at long last accountable for his sins.
(Dr. Paul Kengor, "A Kim-Less Christmas," Town Hall via American Thinker. Very good column.)
