Never thought that a photo from North Korea would again cause cheer. Yes, sometimes you can smile pityingly at the group hysteria of the North Koreans in the blind worship of their leader. Or when, as with the death of the founder of the nation Kim Il-sung in 1994, they throw themselves into exuberant mourning. But the fact that an apparently subversive photographer would dare to make fun of the mass gatherings in the strict Juche dictatorship made me jump.
Could it be that the photo of October 10 is intended to subtly make it clear that the Korean people do not care about the course of the all-powerful leader Kim Jong-un? That the unmistakable course set by the statue group of revolutionary soldiers and civilians is responded to by the people with an opposite movement? You to the right? We’re going to the left! Unfortunately, my cheerful suspicion was quickly dashed when I saw the other images coming out of North Korea this week, from probably the same anonymous photographer. There was not a trace of irony or veiled symbolism.
About the author
Arno Haijtema is editor of de Volkskrant and writes, among other things, about television and photography and the way in which news photos determine our worldview.
The photo was provided on Wednesday by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state agency not known for its frivolous handling of events deemed newsworthy. The celebration of the 78th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea on October 10 was such an event, although the outside world only became aware of it a day later, through a modest set of photos.
True to tradition, on that date the people in the capital Pyongyang flock en masse to Mansu Hill, which, after the mausoleum for Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, is one of the holiest sites of the Korean dictatorship. The Koreans in the photo, sometimes with a bouquet in hand, pay tribute to Kim Jong-un’s ancestors. They rush to the pedestal with their image, on the left outside the frame.
The Dutch photographer Eddo Hartmann knows the place well. In 2017 he spent a long time in the usually closed country for his book Setting the Stage / North Korea would become. He shows cracks in the facade of proletarian discipline and socialist prosperity that the country wants to present to the outside world and he would certainly recognize recalcitrance from his Korean colleague. He doesn’t discover it.
“People are heading to the statues of the Kims, which are impressively tall at 22 meters,” he says. Young people are in school uniform, the men in their smart suits, many women in suits, sometimes in pumps – everything to express their respect for the Kim dynasty. Little has changed about the annual ceremony since his visit in 2017, Hartmann said. At most, there are slightly more mobile phones to be seen than at the time – telephones with which the owners can only make calls in their own country.
According to Hartmann, the bronze statues of the Kims have undergone changes over the years. Initially, they both wore long, flowing coats that reached their knees. But because they were difficult to distinguish from each other – they looked like twins – son Kim Jong-il was fitted with a parka nine months after the unveiling of his statue in 2012. The statue of father Kim Il-sung from 1972 had previously been stripped of gold leaf. This happened after Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping objected during a visit to what he saw as a waste of the finances with which his People’s Republic supported North Korea.
In 2017, as is expected of every foreign visitor, Hartmann visited the mausoleum of the two Kims. ‘You’re actually not allowed to go in there without a tie. Rollers lead you upstairs to the place where their embalmed bodies are laid out. At the bottom you buy a bunch of plastic flowers, which you hand over at the top. So that it can be sold again in the shop downstairs.’ Hartmann never saw fresh bunches of flowers in North Korea, they were always made of plastic.
It immediately made me doubt the beauty of flowers on the steps of Mansu Hill. Would that also be fake? The supplied file is too small to study details when zooming in. In any case, the bouquets give the festivities a colorful character. That is why the photographer placed them so prominently in the picture. In this way he shares the joy of his people with the world.