PYONGYANG, Feb 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) – The Day of the Shining Star dawned bitterly cold in Pyongyang. But thousands of North Koreans lined up in temperatures of minus 8 degrees Celsius on Saturday to pay their respects to late leader Kim Jong Il on his birthday.
Kim, the son of the isolated North’s founder Kim Il Sung and the father
and predecessor of current leader Kim Jong Un, was born on Feb 16.
According to Pyongyang’s orthodoxy, he came into the world in 1942, in a
snow-covered hut at a secret camp on the slopes of Mount Paektu, the
spiritual birthplace of the Korean people, where his father was fighting
occupying Japanese forces.
Outside historians point instead to official Soviet records, which say he
was born a year earlier in a Siberian village where Kim Il Sung was in exile.
Either way, it is a key anniversary in a nuclear-armed nation whose people
are taught from birth to revere the “Paektu bloodline”, as the Kim family
which has ruled it for three generations is known.
Referred to as the Day of the Shining Star, the occasion is celebrated
with ice skating displays, flower shows, and laudatory tributes in state
media, all reinforcing the underlying narrative.
Snow dusted the two monumental panels — one to the fight against Japanese occupiers, the other to the building of socialism — that flank the statues, their faces bathed in the light of the rising sun as small children swept the steps clean.
In pride of place before the bronze effigies stood a large floral tribute
emblazoned with the name of Kim Jong Un, who is due to hold his second summit with US President Donald Trump at the end of the month.
Turn by turn, groups ranging from couples and families to hundreds-strong
detachments of workers or soldiers assembled in front of the images.
After placing individual blooms or flower baskets before the figures, they
lined up as an announcer intoned: “Let us pay tribute”, and bowed deeply, the military personnel saluting.
Kim Jong Il died in 2011 and his remains are preserved in a memorial palace on the outskirts of Pyongyang, but officially he remains eternal General Secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. — NNN-AGENCIES
