The latest United Nations Security Council resolution sanctioning North Korea
for its May 25 nuclear test has driven Pyongyang to fresh paroxysms of faux
fury.
The rhetoric is already at fever pitch. On June 9, Minju Joson, the government
daily, warned, "Our nuclear deterrent will be ... a merciless offensive means
to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country's dignity and
sovereignty even a bit."
You diss us "even a bit", we nuke you. That's so over the top, it's positively
operatic.
But what of the maestro orchestrating these threats? Back in
"axis of evil" days, when George W Bush invaded Iraq, Kim Jong-il disappeared
for several months. Maybe he thought he was next.
Last year, Kim vanished again - but this time because he was ill. North Korea
has never admitted this, but recent pictures show a gaunter, strained man. He
still doesn't look well.
Even so, he ain't hiding. These days the Dear Leader is giving "on the spot
guidance", at a relentless pace. Nor is he just rallying the troops, or urging
the proletariat to strive harder.
Did we say operatic? On June 7, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)
carried a startling headline: "Kim Jong-il Guides Creation of Opera 'Evgeni
Onegin'."
In true North Korean style, KCNA did not say the work was by Tchaikovsky, only
admitting it was Russian and that the last time it had been staged in Pyongyang
was in 1958.
That figures. North Korea began as a Soviet satellite. But Kim's father, Kim
Il-sung, soon wiggled free. The Great Leader railed against following
foreigners, in the arts or anywhere.
For the past half century, though a tiny elite had access to Western classical
music, the party line for the masses was strictly homegrown. Kim Jong-il
himself, we are told, helped fashion such operatic masterpieces as "Sea of
Blood". (Today the theater, tomorrow the world?)
North Korean media may bay for blood, but the Dear Leader is singing a sweeter
tune. He praised the company for "innovative discernment in the 21st century" -
which seems to mean adding a touch of sophistication to what Kim called the old
"work style dating back to the 1970s".
But a foreign opera? You bet. KCNA again: "[Kim] stressed that the Korean
people, who have the world-famous cultural assets such as the five
revolutionary operas and proudly advance toward the world with high pride and
self-confidence of being a soon-to-be great prosperous and powerful nation,
should get better understanding of the world culture."
That is a very different note from North Korea's usual insufferable egotism.
There is more.
First, the choice of work. In a culture where the arts are expressly and
relentlessly didactic, Onegin utterly resists any such treatment. It has
no socio-politically redeeming lessons.
Rather, it is a tragedy: of individuals and their choices. The world-weary hero
spurns true love then drifts into a duel where he kills his best friend. At the
end Tatyana says she still loves him - but will not leave her husband. Onegin
is left alone and despairing. Curtain.
Nor did Kim Jong-il watch this alone. His party was smaller than usual,
numbering just four others. Two of these KCNA described as "Department
directors Kim Kyong-hui [and] Jang Song-taek ... of the WPK [the ruling
Workers' Party of Korea] Central Committee."
Party be damned: we're talking family here. Jang is the dear leader's
brother-in-law. Purged in 2003 as a potential rival, he bounced back in 2006.
Now ubiquitous, Jang is the caretaker-mentor while Kim's greenhorn youngest
son, Kim Jong-un, is belatedly groomed as dauphin.
And Kim Kyong-hui? None other than Kim's sister - and Mrs Jang. Unmentioned by
KCNA for years, gossip had swirled: that she was a lush, estranged from Jang -
or in a coma, so the French surgeons who rushed to Pyongyang last December were
to treat her, not her brother.
For sister as brother, popping up in public is meant to quash the rumors. This
family outing, albeit not billed as such, may be to prepare North Koreans for
further scenes of king and kin - once the as yet unseen and unknown Kim Jong-un
finally emerges from palace seclusion.
A royal threesome, watching a tragic trio. The fit isn't exact. Onegin killed
Lensky. Kim has much blood on his hands, but he spared Jang - though the
temporary purge is what allegedly drove his wife to drink, sick with worry.
Jang and Ms Kim have their own tragedy. In 2006, their daughter Jang Keum-song
took her life in Paris - because her parents vetoed the man she loved. Less
than a year before, another flower of Korean royalty - Lee Yoon-hyung, daughter
of the Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee - did the same in New York, for the
same reason. The very stuff of tragic opera.
To compound the irony, Kim Il-sung had disapproved of Jang too - but Ms Kim
persevered. She did better than her brother. The Great Leader never knew of his
son's liaison with Song Hye-rim, a married actress born in South Korea, nor the
grandson they gave him: the Dear Leader's pudgy eldest son Kim Jong-nam, now
happily out of the leadership loop in Macau.
Ms Song died depressed in Moscow in 2002. The Japan-born dancer who replaced
her, Ko Yong-hee (mother of Kim Jong-un), succumbed to cancer in France (again)
in 2004. So Kim Jong-il too is no stranger to personal tragedy. Perhaps that is
why Onegin strikes a particular chord. A hero bored of life, who makes bad
choices and ends alone, despairing, unfulfilled.
In the opera, Onegin and Lensky are reluctant to go ahead with the fatal duel -
but lack the power to stop it. Off-stage, let us hope life in Korea does not
imitate art too closely.
Aidan Foster-Carter is an honorary senior research fellow on Korea at
Leeds University.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
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
