“The Juche idea means that we should believe in our own strength, we are the masters of our destiny,” my guide was telling me, choosing to ignore, for the moment, his country’s patrons in Moscow and Beijing. “Even the South Koreans love our president Kim Il Sung,” he continued, naming his country’s most fervent enemies. “They know he is a great man.” Around the base of the monument were “relievos” of the Kimilsungia flower, and a 50-foot-wide “hymn to President Kim Il Sung.” At its foot were 230 congratulatory plaques, from Dar es Salaam, Finland, Zimbabwe, Lima, Gambia, and France. “Long live Kim Il Sungism!” offered the greetings from the New York Group for the Study of Kim Il Sungism. It had seemed, at the time, a good idea, this holiday in Pyongyang. It was an unusual place, I suspected, somewhat off the tourist trail, stable (same leader for forty-five years), and quiet. It certainly had a distinctive culture—the tourist brochures featured “slogan-bearing trees”
What do You think about Falling Off The Map (2011)?
