Kim Ki-namwho was often called “the Goebbels of North Korea“, in reference to the Nazi propagandist, due to his role in the manufacture and application of totalitarian propaganda for the three generations of the Kim family ruler of the country, died at 94North Korea reported.
The propagandist died on Tuesday and had been hospitalized since 2022 for multiple ailments, including kidney problems, according to North Korean media.
Kim worked within the Central Committee and in the Department of Propaganda and Agitationwhere in the sixties “he made a great contribution to the cause of the Party with a high degree of political insight, theoretical level and mature writing” working on the establishment of the so-called “monolithic ideological system“, that forcibly imposed the veneration of family members even above ideological issues in North Korean society.
Kim became editor-in-chief of Rodong and president of Central Committee of the North Korean Journalists Unionand at the single party Congress of 1980 he was named a member of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Partybefore becoming director of the Department of Propaganda and Agitation.
Considered a figure very close to Kim Jong-il (father of the current leader), was a member of his funeral committee, in addition to being part of the funeral procession that paraded with his coffin through the snowy streets of Pyongyang in December 2011.
But above all he was an important figure when it came to establish the narrative about legitimacy of the first dynastic succession in North Korea so that Kim Jong-il managed to take over the reins of the country in the nineties.
The propaganda It is a fundamental tool for control of power by the family Kim. The state-controlled media is filled with images designed to keep North Koreans subservient to a cult of personality surrounding the ruling family.
In North Korea, they must wear pins lapel with images of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, grandfather and father of the current leader Kim Jong-un. Additionally, it should be hung in every home and office building. Pictures of these.
In school books, in television cartoons, leaders are represented as extraordinary beings, capable of turning tree leaves into ships. In all the cities of the country, according to him he rescued The New York Times, omnipresent posters and slogans They warn of an upcoming invasion by “American imperialists” and urge people to become “guns and bombs” to defend the Kim family.
These propaganda elements were the work of Kim Ki-nam, and that is why he was compared to Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister of Nazi Germany.
As rescued The New York Times, in what external analysts considered a plan of masterful propaganda, Kim Jong-un was styled and dressed like his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, when he made his public debut as heir apparent. North Koreans still revere Kim Il-sung as a divine figure. Every detail of Kim Jong-un’s public appearance was choreographed to invoke the image of North Korea’s founder.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-unhas paid a heartfelt tribute to the recently deceased, visiting this Tuesday the facilities where the coffin has been installed in Pyongyang.
Kim “kept a moment of silence” in memory of the deceased and placed a wreath next to the glass-enclosed coffin in which Kim Ki-nam’s remains rested, according to information and images published today by the state agency KCNA.
Rodong, the country’s main newspaper, published today the photo of Kim Ki-nam on the front page and relegated the photos of Kim Jong-un’s visit to his funeral to the second page, which gives an idea of the weight of his figure within the regime.
“Inside the room where the funeral music resounded, there was a climate of regret over the loss of the veteran of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Korean Revolution, a prestigious theorist and illustrious political activist who achieved great merits in defend and glorify the revolutionary idea and cause of the ‘Juché’ idea,” adds the KCNA note.
(With information from EFE)
