The last couple of years have been very eventful for
dictator-watchers. After a series of geriatric regimes collapsed in 2011, we
are now seeing the tentative green shoots of an authoritarian recovery. For instance,
in Egypt Mohammed Morsi is currently staging a coup. We will need to wait and see
how all that plays out, but- pace the
US state department and countless naïve Western journalists- it was entirely
predictable.
In Syria Assad is hanging on, and if he falls then his
regime will surely be replaced with something equally if not more horrible.
Libya is chaotic, Tunisia is a mess- but in both countries things will need to
deteriorate further before aspiring strongmen can justify power grabs. Over in Iran,
Khamenei is still rockin’ in the un-free world though very soon Mahmoud Ahmadinjead
will be only a memory for most of us. Meanwhile all across Central Asia
dictatorships are standing firm, but nobody in the media cares what happens
over there.
As for North Korea, well the world’s most classical totalitarian
dictatorship remains resolutely unreformed. Who could believe that it’s been a
year since puffy faced dough boy Kim Jong-il shuffled off this mortal coil thus
propelling his son, the puffy faced dough boy Kim Jong–un into the global
spotlight?
And what a ride it’s been! This week brought news that the
North Koreans are planning to launch a long range missile to celebrate. But is
that really the best the North Koreans can do? After all, the nation’s top
scientists have now had a year to work on embalming the remains of Kim Jong-il,
so perhaps there will be a surprise unveiling. Will the mummified Kim Jong-il
be animatronic, talking and waving at visitors like the robot presidents at
Disneyworld? We can but hope.
Kim Jong-un meanwhile has become very popular. As I write
this, he’s ahead in Time magazine’s online “Person of the Year” poll. He had a
little help from the website 4chan, which is very popular among connoisseurs of
sexual, violent and disgusting imagery, or so I am told. Apparently Morsi was
ahead by 60,000 votes until the readers of 4chan propelled Kim to the front.
This latest success follows on his winning the “Sexiest Man Alive” title from The
Onion, a victory triumphantly reported by The China People’s Daily.
Of course,
some claim that the award was satirical but Kim is definitely sexier than
Morsi, who looks like a bear in glasses. The bad news for Kim is that Time magazine
is not a democracy and the editorial board can at any point overrule the will
of the people- much like Kim himself.
Still, it must have been a nice way to end the year,
especially after his 17 year old nephew Kim Han-sol called him a dictator in an
interview with a Finnish TV station in October. That must have stung! Kim
Han-sol is a nerdy-looking kid with glasses, lacking the family penchant for
wearing pajamas in public, which the Kims share with the hillbillies at my
local Wal-Mart. He actually wore a suit for interview. He wants to heal the
world, like Michael Jackson before it all went wrong:
''I would like to engage
in more humanitarian projects, work to contribute to building world peace,
especially back home because that is a really important part of me.''.
As for Kim Jon-un, what has he actually done in his first
year in power? Well, in August he threatened “all out war” with South Korea
over a military drill his neighbor was conducting with the US. But people were
actually much more interested a month earlier when he appeared in public with his
wife, Ri Sol-ju by his side. When Ri subsequently disappeared for two months North
Korea watchers speculated that she might be pregnant, just like the Duchess of
Cambridge. Could play-dates between the heirs to the thrones of England and
North Korea be on the cards? We can but hope.
Kim has also spent a lot of his time looking at things- e.g.
seafood, juice, socks, a child’s amusement park, animals at the zoo, a bath, a
guitar, a gun, etc. Indeed there is an entire blog dedicated to this pastime (http://kimjongunlookingatthings.com/)
leaving us in no doubt that Kim really likes looking at things.
Undoubtedly however Kim Jong-un’s biggest success this year
was the international mega-hit, Gangnam
Style. Very soon the portly Kim was everywhere, singing and doing his
special horse dance on the Ellen DeGeneres show, in Las Vegas, Australia and beyond.
He even showed up on the American Music Awards where he danced alongside MC
Hammer. With his humility, charm, warmth and keen sense of humor, Kim did wonders
for the reputation of North Korea. Indeed, as I write this he has racked up over
880 million views of the video on Youtube.
What, that was somebody else? Oh, well- never mind. It’s still
a great track.