Kim Jung il? No, Kim Jung dead. Weep for your lives!

Pity the poor souls of North Korea. They live in the most benighted country on the planet. It is totalitarian in the extreme. Starvation and lack of heating are commonplace. The military rule with an iron fist. The cult of the supreme leader prevails. It is like living through a never-ending Stalinist purge of the 1930’s. 

Desperately poor, malnourished and hypothermic, the North Korean citizen must nevertheless appear cheerful. To appear sad would normally indicate knowledge of reality to the authorities and lead to one being taken away to a correction camp. 


Today the situation has suddenly changed. The Dear Leader has died. It is a time for mass outpouring of simulated grief. Weeping, wailing and mourning must be done - and seen to be done. Anyone not weeping and showing extreme grief will be regarded as an enemy of the state and sent away. Some to be shot. 

The people are weeping as if their very lives depend on it. Which they do.