Page 1 of
2 SPEAKING
FREELY Bush waves a white
flag By Kim Myong-chol
("unofficial" spokesman of Kim Jong-il and North
Korea)
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
Good wishes are
reverberating throughout the Korean Peninsula and
among Koreans abroad in praise of the legendary
leadership quality of Kim Jong-il as its proud
people celebrate the 65th
birthday of the supreme
leader of the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea (DPRK) on Friday and the Lunar New Year days
beginning this weekend.
Two things combine
to make this 65th birthday anniversary and the
Lunar New Year most auspicious. The first is that
Kim has led the DPRK to score a fifth straight
bloodless victory over the world's sole superpower
by "outsmarting the US in the game of nuclear
bluff" as The Sunday Times in London put it on
February 4. He has emerged the first national hero
in the 5,000 years of Korean history to fulfill
the long-elusive ambition of the Korean people to
acquire military capabilities to take the war from
the Land of Morning Calm to the heart of the
metropolitan USA.
The second is the
little-known fact that the birthdate of Kim
Jong-il, February 16, 1942, coincides with the
Lunar New Year universally observed in East Asia.
The most significant fact about the
six-party talks that ended this Tuesday is US
President George W Bush waving a white flag,
offering to allow the DPRK to retain its nuclear
arsenal as it is. It means the shared recognition
of the five parties and the DPRK as a
nuclear-weapons state and the US notice that it
would lift its financial crackdown on the Korean
state.
The five parties - the US, South
Korea, China, Japan and Russia - agreed to provide
the DPRK with a huge amount of energy, up to a
million tons of fuel oil, in compensation for the
suspended operation of an outdated and expendable
nuclear site. The DPRK government of Kim Jong-il
renews its determination to use its nuclear
umbrella to contribute to maintaining peace and
security on the Korean Peninsula and in the rest
of the world.
The spectacular five
successive victories over the US administrations
leave no doubt in the eyes of the 70 million
Korean people and the world public that Kim
Jong-il is another legendary Kim Il-sung, a
peerless national hero and iron-willed, brilliant
commander of Korea, and is favorably compared to
Jumong, founder of Koguryo with a history of at
least seven centuries, and Dankun, founder of
ancient Korea 5,000 years ago, whose territory
covered most of what is now northeastern China and
much of Siberia.
Kim Jong-il, Kim Il-sung,
Jumong and Dankun have four things in common. The
first denominator is the sun. Korean legend says
Dankun and Jumong were sons of the Sun God. The
name "Kim Il-sung" means "the sun" and the name
"Kim Jong-il" refers to the sun, too. Dankun
descended on Mount Paekdu from heaven about 5,000
years ago and Kim Jong-il was born on Mount Paekdu
during the Lunar New Year holidays, as described
by the Japanese police station at the foot of the
mountain in a report sent to Hamgyong Provincial
Police Headquarters. The sun or heaven signifies
the paramount aspiration of the Korean people. Kim
Il-sung used Mount Paekdu as the key base for his
anti-Japanese guerrilla struggle.
The
second is the fact that Dankun Korea and Koguryo
used Pyongyang as their national capital. So does
the DPRK.
The third is the fact that Kim
Jong-il, Kim Il-sung and Jumong are veteran
practitioners of the art of war, as Jumong
defeated China and Kim Il-sung beat Japan and the
US. Kim Jong-il has outsmarted two successive US
presidents. Noteworthy is the fact that Jumong was
a marksman and developed newer weapons for use
against the Chinese, and Kim Jong-il has built a
nuclear-missile force capable of blazing the
remotest target on the US mainland.
Total
dedication to the Korea-first policy or Koreanism
is the most important and fourth denominator of
the four leaders.
The Dong-A Ilbo reported
on February 9: "More than 3,000 articles have been
posted on the websites of various progressive
civil and social organizations praising Kim
Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and their Songun Politics."
A major Japanese television station, Asahi,
broadcast a program on February 4 quoting a South
Korean as saying, "Kim Jong-il can stand up to the
Americans, but we South Koreans are in no position
to do so."
A certain Korean restaurant
operator in Saitama, Japan, told me: "In my
December visit to Seoul, I was amazed at many
South Koreans expressing admiration at the way Kim
Jong-il is dealing with the US. They say, 'This is
the first time in Korea's history of 5,000 years
since Koguryo that Korea has been able to equally
deal with the world's superpower.'"
The
July 11, 2006, New York Times quotes Kim
Yung-reoul, 36, a pastor, as exclaiming: "North
Korea is an independent country, so why shouldn't
it be able to fire missiles? It's remarkable -
they've confronted the United States. I felt quite
satisfied. I felt as if I'd finally digested
something that I had trouble digesting." According
to the New York Times on December 25, 2002, one
Bush administration official commented, "This will
cause some secret shivers of pride amongst some in
the South."
In a secret Communist Party
meeting, Chinese leader Hu Jintao praised Kim
Jong-il for sticking to his guns, and Chinese
bloggers erupted in applause of him for defying
the US in the wake of the North Korean detonation
of a nuclear device, according to the December 16,
2006, edition of the Sydney Morning Herald. The
Australian daily explains what binds the DPRK and
China together.
The January 4 Christian
Science Monitor writes on the Western world's
rising grudging regard for Kim Jong-il. The US
daily quotes Alexander Mansourov of the
Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in
Honolulu as observing: "Why shouldn't Kim be seen
as extraordinary? He's poked his finger in the eye
of the US hegemon. He's tested missiles and nukes.
At home he's more popular than ever."
Obviously Kim Jong-il's military-first
policy inspired by tamul (a Koguryo word
for feeling pride at being inheritors of Dankun
Korea, developing new weapons, and restoring the
lost land of ancient
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
