Inside North Korea's Religious Cult of Personality - Jonathan Cheng
Brad Carr and Jonathan Cheng
2,058 views Mar 24, 2026 Brad Carr Podcast Episodes
00:00 Understanding North Korea's Cult of Personality
04:26 Experiencing North Korea: A Personal Account
13:26 Kim Il Sung's Christian Roots
20:20 The Evolution of Kimilsungism
22:01 True Propaganda from North Korea
26:02 The Nature of a Cult of Personality
28:34 Replacing Jesus with Kim Il Sung
34:29 The Religious Power of North Korea
37:55 How Kim Il Sung Crushed Christianity
43:11 The Incredible Politicians of North Korea
46:42 Internal Control of North Korea
49:38 Controlling Narrative and Ritual in North Korea
51:30 Cult Dynamics: Isolation and Control
52:47 Understanding Cults: Definitions and Comparisons
55:39 The Future of North Korea: Beliefs and Ideologies
59:02 The Role of Technology in Propagating Ideology
01:02:19 How North Korea Controls Information
01:08:29 Is North Korea the Greatest Cult in History?
01:12:06 Oppression Through Mass Media and Surveillance
01:14:12 find Jonathan Cheng online
01:15:09 The End of North Korea's Cult
01:19:49 Nuclear War with North Korea
01:22:42 North Korea's Vision for the World
RESOURCES
Korean Messiah: https://koreanmessiah.com/
Jonathan Cheng on X: https://x.com/JChengWSJ
Brad's microphone: https://amzn.to/4jVOjqq
🔔 SUBSCRIBE to help get more guests on the show: https://goo.gl/uEAeNp
Jonathan Cheng, The Wall Street Journal's China bureau chief and former Korea bureau chief, discusses the religious roots of North Korea's cult of personality, the role of ideology, and the future of this isolated state.
Inside North Korea's Isolated Cult Dynamics and Religion. Jonathan Cheng
How NK Isolated Itself and Hijacked Christianity
Inside North Korea's Religious Cult of Personality
The Cult of Personality that Rules North Korea
How Narcissists Use Your Religion Against You
How Narcissists Hijack Your Religion
How Narcissists Hijack Religious Groups
How Cult Leaders "
How Narcissists Corrupt Your Religion
How Politicians "
How Cults Use Your Religion Against You
How NK Hijacked Christianity for Power
Inside North Korea: The Religious Roots of Kim Il-sung's Cult
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<한국의 메시아: 김일성과 북한 우상 숭배의 기독교적 뿌리> 요약 및 평론
1. 요약: 신앙으로 구축된 붉은 왕국
조너선 정(Jonathan Cheng)은 북한을 단순한 핵 국가나 일반적인 민족 국가가 아닌, <종교성>이라는 렌즈를 통해 바라봐야 한다고 주장한다
김일성의 기독교적 뿌리와 초기 성장
김일성은 독실한 기독교 가문에서 태어나 기독교적 <거품> 속에서 성장했다
기독교 체제의 전유와 변형
북한은 기독교의 핵심 요소를 교묘하게 주체사상과 김일성주의로 치환했다
교리와 원칙: 성경의 십계명은 <당의 유일사상체계 확립을 위한 10대 원칙>으로 변주되어 인민의 삶을 규제하는 근본 원리가 되었다
. 영생의 개념: 1980년대 북한 신학은 육체적 생명 외에 <사회정치적 생명>이라는 개념을 도입했다
. 이는 수령을 위해 헌신할 경우 사회정치적 생명으로서 영생을 얻는다는 논리로, 기독교의 영혼 구원 및 영생 개념과 흡사하다 . 삼위일체와 부성: 김일성은 인민의 <영적 아버지>로 군림하며, 사후에도 <영원한 주석>으로 추대되어 불멸의 지위를 유지하고 있다
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제의적 통제와 일상의 종교화
북한의 일상은 종교적 의례로 가득 차 있다
인민들은 매일 아침 수령의 초상화를 닦는 의식으로 하루를 시작한다
. 중요한 기념일마다 수령의 동상 앞에서 절을 하고 꽃을 바치는 행위는 성소 참배와 유사하다
. 매주 진행되는 <생활총화>는 기독교의 고백 및 회개 의식을 세속적 정치 영역으로 가져온 것이다
. 북한의 교과서와 미디어는 오직 김일성 가문의 신화만을 전파하며, 다른 대안적 정보가 차단된 환경에서 인민들을 <진정한 신봉자(True Believer)>로 양성한다
.
체제의 지속성과 정보 통제
북한 체제가 소련이나 동유럽 공산권의 몰락 이후에도 건재한 이유는 핵무기뿐만 아니라 강력한 이데올로기의 힘 덕분이다
2. 평론: 인류 역사상 가장 정교한 신정 국가의 초상
조너선 정의 분석은 북한을 바라보는 기존의 지정학적, 군사적 시각에 근본적인 의문을 던진다. 그는 북한이 왜 이토록 기괴하고도 강력한 생명력을 유지하는지에 대해 <종교적 성공>이라는 파격적인 진단을 내린다
역설적인 차용: 억압을 위한 신앙의 도구화
이 책의 가장 날카로운 통찰은 김일성이 기독교를 <말살>하면서 동시에 그 <유전자>를 자신의 통치 구조에 심었다는 점을 밝혀낸 것이다
비교할 수 없는 우상화의 강도와 기간
저자는 북한의 우상 숭배를 루이 14세, 스탈린, 마오쩌둥, 심지어 사이비 종교인 인민사원(Jonestown)과 비교한다
트루먼 쇼와 같은 현실의 비극
저자는 북한을 영화 <트루먼 쇼>에 비유한다
결론: 인간의 본성을 파고든 정치적 기만
결국 조너선 정의 저작은 북한이라는 집단이 어떻게 인간의 근원적인 <믿음에 대한 갈구>를 악용하여 거대한 감옥을 건설했는지를 보여준다
세진님, 요청하신 도서의 핵심 내용과 비판적 시각을 충실히 반영하여 작성했습니다. 추가로 궁금한 점이 있으시면 언제든 말씀해 주세요.
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저자는 이 책을 쓰기 위해 어떤 자료를 이용했나? 한국어를 읽을 수 있는가? 북한을 방문한 적이 있는가?
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저자는 이 책을 쓰기 위해 어떤 자료를 이용했나? 한국어를 읽을 수 있는가? 북한을 방문한 적이 있는가?
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세진님, 요청하신 질문에 대해 공유해주신 자료를 바탕으로 답변해 드리겠습니다. 요약과 평론이 아닌 세진님과의 직접적인 대화이므로 지침에 따라 존댓말로 작성하였습니다.
1. 자료 조사 및 이용
조너선 정은 이 책을 집필하기 위해 10년 이상의 시간을 투자하며 방대한 자료를 조사했습니다
역사적 문헌 및 기록: 김일성이 쓴 8권 분량의 회고록을 처음부터 끝까지 정독하며 그의 초기 기독교적 배경과 삶의 궤적을 추적했습니다
. 기밀 해제 자료: 과거 소련, 동독, 헝가리 등 동구권 외교관들이 북한에 머물며 자국으로 보냈던 기밀 해제된 외교 전문(cables)들을 분석하여 북한 체제의 실상을 파악했습니다
. 탈북자 인터뷰: 3만 명 이상의 탈북자 중 일부로부터 북한 내부의 생활상과 그들이 느낀 체제의 종교적 속성에 대한 생생한 증언을 수집했습니다
. 현장 취재 및 관찰: 수차례의 한국 거주 경험과 북한 방문을 통해 얻은 직접적인 관찰 기록을 자료로 활용했습니다
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2. 한국어 구사 능력
자료에 조너선 정의 한국어 구사 능력이 어느 정도인지 명시적인 수치나 급수로 나와 있지는 않습니다. 하지만 다음과 같은 정황을 통해 그가 한국어 자료를 직접 해독할 수 있는 수준임을 알 수 있습니다.
한국 거주 및 취재: 서울에서 6년 동안 거주하며 북한 전문 기자로 활동했습니다
. 방대한 한국어 문헌 해독: 북한에서 발간된 방대한 분량의 김일성 회고록과 각종 북한 텍스트(신문, 잡지 등)를 직접 읽고 분석했습니다
. 언어적 분석: 북한에서 사용하는 특정 용어와 성경 구절(예: 요한복음 3:16)의 한국어 번역본을 대조하며 분석할 수 있는 능력을 갖추고 있습니다
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3. 북한 방문 경험
저자는 북한을 총 두 차례 방문한 적이 있습니다
2013년 첫 번째 방문: 당시에는 관광객 신분으로 입국하여 평양의 거리, 동상, 인민들의 일상 등 북한이라는 <사회적 유토피아(혹은 디스토피아)>의 실상을 처음으로 직접 목격했습니다
. 2017년 두 번째 방문: 월스트리트저널(WSJ) 지국장 자격으로 북한 당국의 초청을 받아 공식 취재차 방문했습니다
. 이때 그는 평양 내 개신교 교회(봉수교회 등)에서 열린 주일 예배에 직접 참석하여 북한 내 종교의 기묘한 공존 방식을 관찰했습니다 .
이 책은 단순한 외부 관찰자의 기록을 넘어, 저자의 개인적인 기독교적 성장 배경과 오랜 기간 축적된 역사적 탐구가 결합된 결과물이라고 할 수 있습니다
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Transcript
Chapter 1: Understanding North Korea's Cult of Personality
0:00Jonathan Chang, what is it about your work that helped you to understand the connection between religion and the cult of personality in North Korea?
0:099 secondsI've spent a lot of time, more than a decade here, just trying to research and write about Kim Sang, the founder of North Korea. I've been in North Korea
0:1616 secondstwice myself and uh spent 6 years uh in Seoul, South Korea uh reporting and writing about North Korea. And it was
0:2525 secondsalways something that really fascinated me, this question of how North Korea came to be the way it was. And I think
0:3333 secondswhat the central insight I kind of brought to it or the or the lens rather that I brought to it was to look at North Korea less as a nation state,
0:4242 secondscertainly less as a nuclear state. I'm not saying it's not a nuclear state. I'm not saying it's not a nation state. I I I would argue it's both. But I think
0:5050 secondswhat I really wanted to do was look at it through the lens of religiosity.
0:5656 secondsAnd that's informed I think a little bit by my own upbringing. I was raised in a uh Christian church in Toronto, Canada.
1:041 minute, 4 secondsUm and I spent uh really my first 20 years of my life very much uh part of this ecosystem, part of this universe.
1:151 minute, 15 secondsUm I'm I'm very grateful for it. Um, I'm very much a product of that. And when I wanted to think about North Korea, I
1:241 minute, 24 secondssort of came to it with a historian's eye as well. I studied history. I was at Princeton University. I wrote my history thesis, in fact, about northern Korea,
1:341 minute, 34 secondsalbeit well before the North Korean state was founded. And so, I've always sort of had this this this interest in Korea. And what really struck me was
1:411 minute, 41 secondsthis idea that Kiml Sun was raised devoutly Presbyterian. He was the
1:481 minute, 48 secondsgrandson and the son of some of Korea's very first converts to Christianity in the late 1800s.
1:551 minute, 55 secondsAnd it was no coincidence to me or or I I reckon it couldn't be a coincidence that when I went to North Korea, and if
2:032 minutes, 3 secondsyou can't go to North Korea, that's fine. Put on YouTube. You can watch footage of the streets of Pyongyang. You can see the parades in Kimlang Square.
2:102 minutes, 10 secondsYou can see all of that. Um, and I think what you'd find is you'd find that there is just this really deep element of religiosity there. The way they bow
2:192 minutes, 19 secondsbefore the statues, the way they wear Kim's face pinned over their hearts, the way they take a governmentisssued duster
2:272 minutes, 27 secondsand the first thing they do in the morning is to dust the portraits that they have in their room of Kim Sang and now his son Kim Jong-. uh the way they sing his praises, the way they quote his
2:362 minutes, 36 secondswords, it was just very religious to me and something about the power of that cult of personality, the power of that
2:442 minutes, 44 secondsideology um seemed to have it must have been rooted in Kiml Song's own personal story. He ruled the country for 49
2:532 minutes, 53 secondsyears. He came to power when he was just 33 years old. That's 20 years younger than when came to power. 20 years younger than when Stalin came to power.
3:023 minutes, 2 secondsHe just had a much longer runway to work with and he was much more deeply steeped in religion in his case Presbyterian
3:103 minutes, 10 secondsProtestant Christianity than either Stalin or Mao was. And I just had to try
3:163 minutes, 16 secondsand unlock that mystery because to me it seemed like we weren't really understanding North Korea if we just
3:243 minutes, 24 secondslooked at it through the lens of nukes and missiles or through the lens of um you know it's a nation state with you
3:333 minutes, 33 secondsknow a seat at the United Nations and it's this and that and that's all true but I feel like it kind of misses the point. So that's sort of the lens that I sort of came into this with and I think
3:413 minutes, 41 secondsit's a secret to understanding the power and to understanding by the way the question of why it is that in the year
3:473 minutes, 47 seconds2026 as we're recording this now you've seen the Soviet Union go down. You've seen East Germany go down. Cuba is not
3:573 minutes, 57 secondsin the greatest shape it's ever been. um Vietnam, China used to be socialist block allies and both of them have have largely become quite capitalistic and
4:064 minutes, 6 secondscertainly integrated into the world system. But North Korea not only remains as isolated as it ever has been. But
4:134 minutes, 13 secondsarguably it's also stronger than it ever has been. And that is partly because of nukes, but I think it's also partly because of the power of ideology and the
4:214 minutes, 21 secondsway that Kiml and his descendants harnessed that.
4:254 minutes, 25 secondsYeah, we definitely have to talk more about the power of that ideology. One thing that you brought up, you raised a lot of interesting questions, is that you've been to North Korea. Now, in your
Chapter 2: Experiencing North Korea: A Personal Account
4:344 minutes, 34 secondsbook, the speaker is sort of a detached observer. Um, what was it like to go to North Korea?
4:424 minutes, 42 secondsSo, I went twice. I went in 2013 and at that time I went effectively as a tourist. I didn't go in as a journalist
4:494 minutes, 49 secondsper se. I did go in as a journalist in 2017. They invited the Wall Street Journal to come to North Korea. They
4:564 minutes, 56 secondsalso invited the New York Times and they invited the New Yorker. And in uh that case, we came in in three separate trips. I can't even remember what the
5:045 minutes, 4 secondsorder of it was, but we came in and spent a week and we came out and the New York Times went in, spent a week and came out and the New Yorker went in for a week and came out. Something like
5:135 minutes, 13 secondsthat. But 2013 was was my first glimpse of North Korea. And there um I went in as a tourist. That was possible at the
5:215 minutes, 21 secondstime. I'm a Canadian citizen, which also makes it a little bit easier than if you're an American citizen. Um, but there I was able to just
5:305 minutes, 30 secondsstep into this world that I had only seen in pictures and seen in videos and
5:385 minutes, 38 secondsread about. And I just I just I remember my impression so distinct. It was
5:455 minutes, 45 secondslooking around me and having to pinch myself and recognize that this place isn't just something that people talk
5:525 minutes, 52 secondsabout. It hasn't been exaggerated. This is really the country. This place really exists. There are really 25 million
6:006 minutespeople living in this socialist utopia, they would say. I mean, some people would call it dystopian. They would call it a
6:076 minutes, 7 secondssocialist paradise where you are walking down the street and there's Kim Son's statue at the end of the street. You look on your right, there's a mosaic of Kim Son. You open your newspaper,
6:176 minutes, 17 secondsthere's Kim Sung on the front page. You turn on your TV, there's Kim Son on the TV. You walk into any room in North
6:236 minutes, 23 secondsKorea and the most prominent wall in the main room will have nothing on it. No furniture in front of it, no paintings
6:316 minutes, 31 secondson it, no window on it. The only thing that will be there will be a portrait of Kiml Song and and now Kim Jong-il as
6:386 minutes, 38 secondswell. And again, pinned over the heart of every single North Korean will be a badge with Kim Sung's face on it. So,
6:486 minutes, 48 secondsI had to pinch myself as I said and just I couldn't believe that this place really existed. It wasn't something that Hollywood gave us. It wasn't something
6:566 minutes, 56 secondsthat some myth maker gave us. It wasn't that, you know, the mainstream media gave us this false impression of this place. It really is like that. Now,
7:067 minutes, 6 secondsit's also easy to forget that there are real people there. I mean, the people, the 25 million people in North Korea,
7:107 minutes, 10 secondsprobably didn't have very much of a say in where they were born, just as as neither you nor I had much of a say in where and when we were born. Um, so they're real people with real lives. And
7:187 minutes, 18 secondsyet, they do live in this reality that is just so different from ours. So, that was 2013. 2017, again, I was invited in
7:267 minutes, 26 secondsas a journalist. And in that case, it was interesting because um I didn't have to necessarily be um cloak and dagger
7:347 minutes, 34 secondsabout it. Not that I was cloak and dagger the first time I went in as a tourist and I didn't write anything about the the the the trip. Um but I did
7:417 minutes, 41 secondswrite about the trip in 2017 and that was quite eye opening. And in that case,
7:457 minutes, 45 secondsuh the North Koreans were trying to send a message to the world. Keep in mind 2017, this is when President Trump was in his first term in office. He was
7:527 minutes, 52 secondsthreatening fire and fury against North Korea. He was promising maximum pressure sanctions against North Korea. He was warning about a big button on the Oval
8:018 minutes, 1 secondOffice desk that I can push and I can take care of North Korea and all the rest of it. And it was in that context that North Korea wanted to invite
8:088 minutes, 8 secondsmembers of sort of the leading uh mainstream press outlets from the US and we were
8:168 minutes, 16 secondsthere obviously to send a message. I think the message they were trying to send to the US was to say we are not afraid of you. We are not affected by
8:248 minutes, 24 secondsyour sanctions. we are standing here strong and we're ready to go toe-to-toe with you. Here's our nuclear I mean they didn't show us their nuclear arsenal.
8:328 minutes, 32 secondsThey didn't show us their missiles, but that was implied in a lot of the the messaging that we got from them. But what was also interesting and and and this is my last point here is just that
8:408 minutes, 40 secondsthey they asked us, "What would you like to see?" We were there for a whole week.
8:448 minutes, 44 secondsThey put us up in the same guest house that Jimmy Carter stayed in when he visited North Korea in 1994.
8:498 minutes, 49 secondsUm and they asked us where what do you want to see? And so we said, "Well, we want to see we'd love to see your nuclear program. We'd love to we'd love to interview Kim Jong-un if you'd let
8:588 minutes, 58 secondsus." We knew that those were probably not going to be granted. And indeed,
9:019 minutes, 1 secondthey weren't. But I was able to slip in one other request. And I said to them,
9:069 minutes, 6 seconds"You've invited us to come over a weekend.
9:109 minutes, 10 secondsWould you let us attend church on Sunday?" And to my surprise, they said,
9:169 minutes, 16 seconds"We can do that." And there are two Protestant churches in Pyongyang uh which we can get to at some point. They were both built in the late 1880 uh
9:249 minutes, 24 secondssorry the late 1980s early 1990s and uh we were able to go to both of them on Sunday morning. We attended uh church
9:329 minutes, 32 secondsservice at 1, the bigger one and then they took us to the smaller one afterwards by which time the service was already over but we were still able to
9:409 minutes, 40 secondswalk in and take pictures and and look around. So that was quite eye opening.
9:459 minutes, 45 secondsAnd of course by that point I I'd actually it's right around the time I sold this book. It took me a long time to write it um and research it. But I
9:539 minutes, 53 secondsalready did have the inkling in my mind that I wanted to write about Christianity in North Korea. So it was really cool to be able to go and see that. So what was the church service
10:0110 minutes, 1 secondlike? I mean I'm imagining this country where you have a godlike memory of a leader. You know someone whose picture
10:0810 minutes, 8 secondsis still everywhere long after he's dead and you have a a Christian service. How does that match up?
10:1610 minutes, 16 secondsIt's a great question. Um, I will just start by describing exactly what I recall. Keep in mind this is 2017. It's 2026. So, I'm looking through 9 years of
10:2510 minutes, 25 secondsmemories here. But uh but my recollection of it was that it was I if
10:3110 minutes, 31 secondsyou didn't know where you were, if you did not know you were in Pyongyang and you had just walked right into the
10:3810 minutes, 38 secondschurch, if you had been teleported into the entrance of the church and just walked in, you wouldn't know you were in North Korea. Um I mentioned that in every building in North Korea, virtually
10:4710 minutes, 47 secondsevery building, you'll have portraits of Kiml Sang and Kim Jong-il on the main wall of the most prominent wall of that room. There are exceptions and this
10:5410 minutes, 54 secondschurch was one of the exceptions. I didn't see his portrait anywhere. Um,
10:5910 minutes, 59 secondsthey had a cross. It looked like it looked like a church. There were pews.
11:0211 minutes, 2 secondsThere was a red carpet. There was a a a stand over on the side where the choir would sit and stand and sing. And they
11:1011 minutes, 10 secondswere wearing robes that looked like robes that you would see in any church in America or South Korea or something like that. Um, they had a pulpit at the
11:1811 minutes, 18 secondsfront and you had a preacher come up and preach from the Bible, from the Bible,
11:2411 minutes, 24 secondsnot some North Korean Bible, but from the Bible that that that anyone can look up. Um, and uh, there was a Bible and a
11:3111 minutes, 31 secondshimnil in front of every spot on the pew. You could pick it up if it was it was in Korean, of course, but you could flip through it and you could see that.
11:3811 minutes, 38 secondsNope, there there you go. All 66 books are there from Genesis to Revelation.
11:4211 minutes, 42 secondsUm, pick a random verse. You want to look up John 3:16? There it is. All the verses are there. It's a real Bible. Um
11:4911 minutes, 49 secondsand and and the final thing and I asked uh one of the church leaders after the service about this. I said, I noticed
11:5711 minutes, 57 secondsthat here I don't see too many people wearing the Kim Sung badge over their hearts. And the answer I got was just hard for me to forget. He said, "Yeah,
12:0912 minutes, 9 secondsfor us here at church, we're not required to wear it." And you know to me um you can interpret that
12:1612 minutes, 16 secondsany number of ways but the way I interpreted it I can't prove that my interpretation is a correct one but the way I interpreted it was that
12:2412 minutes, 24 secondseven Kiml Sun the child of Christians uh devout Christian converts he understood that in this house of worship um even he
12:3412 minutes, 34 secondswasn't going to try and you know supplant God in a certain sense. Now, if that's really the
12:4112 minutes, 41 secondstakeaway, even as I say that, I understand that that doesn't make a whole lot of sense because once you step outside the church, he has seems to have
12:4912 minutes, 49 secondsno problem asserting his own kind of lordship, if you want to call it that,
12:5312 minutes, 53 secondsover yeah,
12:5412 minutes, 54 secondsthe Christian God or over over anyone else really. But anyways, I'll just I'll just leave that out there for the listener u because I don't have an
13:0313 minutes, 3 secondsanswer. I don't know why, but I can tell you that I didn't see Kimong's portrait in there. I didn't see the badge over the hearts. And what you would have heard was you would have heard a sermon
13:1113 minutes, 11 secondsthat frankly would not have been that different from one you might have heard in South Korea where there is no restriction on Christian worship there.
13:1913 minutes, 19 secondsAnd of course, South Korea for many listeners will know is is one of the most heavily Christianized countries in the world. Mhm. Well, Jonathan, I think
Chapter 3: Kim Il Sung's Christian Roots
13:2713 minutes, 27 secondswe're going to work backwards a little bit because you're talking about this in the present day and how Kim IlSung seemed to you think recognize at some
13:3513 minutes, 35 secondspoint that he wasn't going to completely take over the church and how things function within a church. And yet, I
13:4313 minutes, 43 secondsmean, he's completely taken over the country. We use the phrase cult of personality very very accurately here. Um, so what was going on in his life?
13:5113 minutes, 51 secondsAnd it seems it was something toward the end of his life from your writing that that maybe gave him that that little bit of a gap that he was allowing.
14:0014 minutesYeah. So Kiml Sun, as I mentioned, was the son and grandson of Christian converts. He was raised in genuinely
14:0914 minutes, 9 secondswhat I would call a Christian bubble. He went to church every Sunday with his mother and his father. He writes about this in his memoir which was probably
14:1814 minutes, 18 secondsghost written by his ghost writers by his haggraphers but um and indeed if you read his eight volume memoir not many
14:2614 minutes, 26 secondspeople have um in the North Korea watching world many North Koreans have read it because it's virtually mandatory
14:3314 minutes, 33 secondsreading for North Koreans but outside of North Korea very few scholars of North Korea have really read it front to back because the general view is that it's it's it it's It's almost all fiction.
14:4514 minutes, 45 secondsAnd I'm not going to disagree with that characterization. But what's so interesting is that the first volume of the 8 volume memoir, which covers, as you might imagine, the first years of
14:5414 minutes, 54 secondshis life, the first 20 years of his life, he writes extensively about his relationship with the church, with pastors, with elders, with deacons, with
15:0215 minutes, 2 secondsso on and so forth. He describes prayer meetings, pre-dawn prayer meetings that were held to free his father when his
15:1015 minutes, 10 secondsfather was imprisoned. Um, he writes about learning to play the organ in church. He writes about speaking at the
15:1615 minutes, 16 secondsYMCA as a teenager. Um, he writes about living in the pastor's annex of a
15:2415 minutes, 24 secondsMethodist church for several years in Manuria. So this is a guy who
15:3215 minutes, 32 secondsat the end of his life in a memoir that's published by the North Korean state and is virtually mandatory reading for almost all North Koreans, he goes
15:4015 minutes, 40 secondsinto a lot of detail about his Christian upbringing and he doesn't try to hide it from it. In fact, I mean many of these
15:4815 minutes, 48 secondsdetails he didn't have to include that he learned the organ in church. I don't know that anyone would have known that if he hadn't included that there. And
15:5515 minutes, 55 secondsyet there it was. And I can't psychoanalyze him. He died in 1994. He self- mythologized to a degree
16:0416 minutes, 4 secondsthat almost, you know, is unmatched in history. I can't put him on the couch and ask him all these sorts of questions.
16:1116 minutes, 11 secondsSo, I can't say why he put this all in there, but we do know that he did put it all in there. And I think I think I
16:1916 minutes, 19 secondsthink we'd be right to take it at face value to a certain degree. I don't think that this is purely a cynical I don't think he invented this. Um
16:2816 minutes, 28 secondsbut yes towards the end of his life he released this memoir in serialized form all eight volumes. The last two volumes
16:3616 minutes, 36 secondswere actually published postumously. Um and he also constructed these two churches in Pyongyang. Uh the one that I
16:4516 minutes, 45 secondswent to the the one where I actually attended service was called Pungu Church. But the second one is more interesting because he built that one on the birthplace of his mother. And this
16:5416 minutes, 54 secondsis on the outskirts of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. Um, and his mother was what the missionaries at that time would have called a Bible woman.
17:0317 minutes, 3 secondsUh, because the Presbyterian missionaries from the American Midwest,
17:0817 minutes, 8 secondswho largely were responsible for turning Pyongyang into such a big center of Christendom, were quite conservative in their values. They didn't go to horse
17:1617 minutes, 16 secondsraces. They didn't play cards. They didn't dance. They didn't smoke. They didn't drink. They didn't even clap hands in church. They thought even
17:2317 minutes, 23 secondsrhythmic clapping was was a bridge too far. Right? So, this is this is the sort of of missionaries we're talking about
17:3017 minutes, 30 secondshere. And they were not the type who would allow a woman, no matter how
17:3717 minutes, 37 secondsdevout, to take a formal leadership position in the church. Uh, of course things have changed um to some degree um
17:4517 minutes, 45 secondsin the year since but at that time the position that Kimlong's mother had was of a Bible woman. So it was an informal position but effectively she was a an an
17:5417 minutes, 54 secondsevangelist. Her job was to go into different villages meet with the woman there um share the gospel but also take
18:0218 minutes, 2 secondsan interest in their lives and and share news from the outside world as she would travel around. So this was Kiml son's mother and he built this church on the
18:1118 minutes, 11 secondsbirthplace of his mother just before he died around the same time that he invited uh Billy Graham the of course
18:1918 minutes, 19 secondsthe American evangelist to come to Pyongyang twice and Pyongyang and Pyongyang is also an interesting city for Billy Graham because his wife Ruth
18:2718 minutes, 27 secondsBelgraham went to high school in Pyongyang in the 1930s because Pyongyang was so Christian. It was known as the
18:3418 minutes, 34 secondsJerusalem of the East and it had the best school for missionary children in all of Asia. Ruth Bell's parents were
18:4218 minutes, 42 secondsfather was a missionary to uh China and therefore he sent his daughter to Pyongyang because that was where the best school was for a missionary child
18:5018 minutes, 50 secondsto go. So you have all of these interlocking things and they all meet at the end of Camille Sang's life where you see the nostalgia and the connection to
18:5818 minutes, 58 secondshis childhood sort of reemerge again. I don't I don't I don't I I I I really don't want to psychoanalyze him. I don't really want to know or claim to know
19:0719 minutes, 7 secondsexactly what was running through his mind or through his heart. But one has to think. I don't think I'm taking a massive leap here to suggest that
19:1519 minutes, 15 secondsnostalgia must have played some role in this. I think towards the end of many people's lives. I'm not in my 80s, but I imagine that when I'm in my 80s, I will
19:2319 minutes, 23 secondsspend a lot of my time looking back fondly, thinking about my childhood,
19:2719 minutes, 27 secondsthinking about my mother, thinking about my father. And it may be as simple as that. There may have been a political calculation in there, too. A lot of
19:3419 minutes, 34 secondspeople have suggested that. And I mentioned some cynicism before.
19:3819 minutes, 38 secondsCertainly there is that possibility because it did open up a sliver of um a channel to engage with the Korean diaspora, the Korean Christian diaspora,
19:4819 minutes, 48 secondswhether it be in South Korea or in the US or in other parts of the world where many of these pastors, many of them were
19:5519 minutes, 55 secondsleft-leaning, would come to Pyongyang and they would talk uh to Kiml Sang.
19:5919 minutes, 59 secondswould meet with him, but they would also basically repeat or convey a lot of the political ideas that Kim Sen had and bring them back to South Korea or to the West. So,
20:1320 minutes, 13 secondsthere's probably all of the above. That's that that's my working theory,
20:1620 minutes, 16 secondsbut I can't prove it one way or the other.
20:1920 minutes, 19 secondsYeah. You take a modest approach in your book to a quote uh understanding the motivations and pathologies of any individual can be a perilous task. Never
Chapter 4: The Evolution of Kimilsungism
20:2820 minutes, 28 secondsmind the self- mythologizing eternal president of one of the most closed states the world has ever known. And you use the the phrase um the word heographer.
20:3820 minutes, 38 secondsWhat does that even mean?
20:3920 minutes, 39 secondsWell, it is a mythologizer, I think, is one way to put it. I mean, certainly it is puffing someone up. I think you could say it's um it's taking liberties with
20:4920 minutes, 49 secondsthe truth. But I I have to grant you that if you really want to push me on what that word means, it's a slippery
20:5620 minutes, 56 secondsword in the same way that cult is a slippery word um or propaganda. These are words that are very very freighted
21:0621 minutes, 6 secondswith um extra connotations, mostly pjorative. Um so I do need to be careful about that. But I feel pretty
21:1321 minutes, 13 secondscomfortable when it comes to North Korea using that h word, haggio, hateer,
21:1821 minutes, 18 secondsbecause it just has departed from reality so much that
21:2621 minutes, 26 secondsit's very hard to say with a straight face that this is serious um a serious attempt at reflecting reality. In many
21:3421 minutes, 34 secondscases, you know, there's actually more truth in what North Korea says than many of its critics will let on. But that's
21:4021 minutes, 40 secondsnot to say that a lot of it isn't just utterly detached from reality. Um certainly um some of the attributes and
21:4921 minutes, 49 secondsqualities attributed to Kim Sung and his descendants. I don't think um any serious you know um defense could be made of some of the claims made. Right.
21:5821 minutes, 58 secondsSo so that's what I would say.
Chapter 5: True Propaganda from North Korea
22:0122 minutes, 1 secondJonathan, what are some of those truths that that stand out to you that uh the rest of us might not accept readily? You mean that North Korea would propagate?
22:1022 minutes, 10 secondsMhm. Well, I think what North Korea would understand better than most is
22:1722 minutes, 17 secondsthat um I mean I think they do have a real deep understanding of
22:2522 minutes, 25 secondsum the power of um of ritual, the power of ideology, the
22:3222 minutes, 32 secondspower of um of faith in a certain sense. I mean I think in many countries in the developed
22:4122 minutes, 41 secondswest um I know that this is changing to a degree. You do see levels of religiosity rising again in America and
22:4822 minutes, 48 secondsin Western Europe. Uh the surveys show that it turn tends to be young men but young women as well that more are
22:5622 minutes, 56 secondsturning to faith than say 20 30 years ago. And if you talk to people who study religion uh in the west they would have
23:0323 minutes, 3 secondssaid that it looked like it was a terminal decline in terms of the number of people who were considering themselves um Christian or identifying
23:1123 minutes, 11 secondswith this or that faith. You're starting to see a little bit of an uptick. But nonetheless, I think the larger point stands that in the west, I think the
23:2023 minutes, 20 secondscentrality of um religion is is underappreciated to a certain degree.
23:3023 minutes, 30 secondsAgain, I I catch myself as I say that because of course there are a lot of politicians in America and in the West
23:3823 minutes, 38 secondsthat will make very explicit appeals to Christianity or to other religions.
23:4223 minutes, 42 secondsCertainly Islam in many parts of the world is not hiding in the shadows. It's very much front and center. Um and yet I
23:5023 minutes, 50 secondsthink North Korea is both more um heavy-handed about it or more or le or
23:5823 minutes, 58 secondsless less less ashamed about using it and also more subtle in a certain sense.
24:0424 minutes, 4 secondsThey certainly wouldn't call themselves religion. They do use the socialist language of saying that religion is the opiate of the masses. They wouldn't
24:1224 minutes, 12 secondsconsider the ideology of North Korea to be a religion. Um, but I would contest I
24:1924 minutes, 19 secondswould contend that it is. And the the word that they use is Kiml Sunism. And of course, that's named for Kiml Sun.
24:2924 minutes, 29 secondsAnd it is built around one man who's no longer alive, but who has passed power down to his son and to his grandson.
24:3624 minutes, 36 secondsperhaps soon to a fourth generation. So there is that there and a and and and over the years it became a religion. It
24:4424 minutes, 44 secondsdidn't start as a religion per se. It started with the iconography of Stalin effectively borrowing from the
24:5224 minutes, 52 secondstechniques that he had introduced already in the Soviet Union. Of course North Korea when it was founded as a state in 1948 was founded under the the
25:0025 minutesthe the sponsorship effectively of the Soviet Union with sort of a mini Stalin kind of a cult. But over the years it
25:0825 minutes, 8 secondssurpassed Stalin. It surpassed Stalin quite quickly. And into the 80s you started to see a lot of doctrine, a lot
25:1525 minutes, 15 secondsof theology really come into the ideas that that that that that make up Kiml Sunism. And a lot of it is strikingly
25:2425 minutes, 24 secondsChristian. And um and I think at that point that's that's sort of what I mean when I say it is both more disguised. They
25:3225 minutes, 32 secondsdon't call it a religion. And yet in some ways they're less ashamed about it.
25:3625 minutes, 36 secondsYou know, I think in the West in America, sure, you have people who are making open appeals to God and country and to and and to one nation under God
25:4525 minutes, 45 secondsor this or that. Um and they're sincere about it, but that's matched with an equal sort of reaction against that,
25:5525 minutes, 55 secondsright? And you don't really have that kind of pluralism, certainly not North Korea. Um it permeates society.
26:0126 minutes, 1 secondYeah. So Jonathan, a phrase that you use in the book is a cult of personality.
Chapter 6: The Nature of a Cult of Personality
26:0526 minutes, 5 secondsWhile we're on terms, what does that mean to you?
26:0926 minutes, 9 secondsWell, I think a cult of personality is where a single individual is elevated
26:1626 minutes, 16 secondsabove all others to a degree that is just requires its own classification. Um
26:2426 minutes, 24 secondscertainly we in the west or anywhere elevate mere mortals. We're all mere
26:3126 minutes, 31 secondsmortals, but some are elevated above others. And we know that. I mean, pop stars, rock stars, movie stars,
26:3826 minutes, 38 secondspoliticians, um public intellectuals, um Instagram stars, Tik Tok stars, right? I
26:4526 minutes, 45 secondsmean, at this point, um almost anyone can be a celebrity. And when you meet a celebrity, um what do we
26:5326 minutes, 53 secondsall do? We we we do actually almost treat them like they're somehow above us. that they don't need to sleep or something or that they're not they don't get tired or that they don't need to eat
27:0127 minutes, 1 secondor something that they're almost super human or something like that. You know,
27:0527 minutes, 5 secondsyou see pictures, I don't know, you look at pictures of of of concert attendees at a Beatles show in 1964 and they're
27:1327 minutes, 13 secondsabout to swoon. They almost have a physiological reaction. Their heart starts pounding. They're almost their face turns red. They're screaming.
27:1927 minutes, 19 secondsThey're passing out. They're it's almost hysteria almost. And yet we know that these four Beatles are just just human
27:2627 minutes, 26 secondsbeings, right? We know that and yet we we we don't know that. But does that quite reach the level of a cult of personality? I don't know that too many
27:3527 minutes, 35 secondspeople would say that the Beatles, John Lennon or Paul McCartney or something had a person cult of personality around them. I think that's a slightly different thing. That's celebrity. Um so
27:4327 minutes, 43 secondsit's not celebrity. It's a different class because it enters the class of worship. And I suppose you could say
27:5027 minutes, 50 secondsthat these fans would have worshiped Elvis or worshiped John Lennon or something like that. But
27:5927 minutes, 59 secondslook, at the end of the day, it's a little bit squishy. Perhaps it is like the definition of pornography. You know it when you see it. Um certainly there's some element of that to it. Um and with
28:0728 minutes, 7 secondsmany of these abstract ideas, I I I don't know that you can draw a line around this and say this is clearly a cult of personality, but I think we do know it when we see it. It does have an
28:1528 minutes, 15 secondselement of religiosity. It does elevate an individual and puts that individual on a pedestal
28:2228 minutes, 22 secondsthat isn't mere celebrity. It goes beyond celebrity. Um, I think that's my best stab at it. But, but I will be the
28:3028 minutes, 30 secondsfirst to grant you I don't have I can't pin this down scientifically.
28:3328 minutes, 33 secondsYeah. Well, Jonathan, you said an element of religiosity. From reading your book, there are more than parallels between Christianity and Kimosongism.
Chapter 7: Replacing Jesus with Kim Il Sung
28:4228 minutes, 42 secondsalmost lifted and we've just replaced the central character. I mean, what are what are some of those uh connections?
28:5028 minutes, 50 secondsSure. Well, a lot of people will point to, of course, um the singing of his praises. Um if you read North Korean
28:5728 minutes, 57 secondstext, they will put Kimmel Sun's words in a slightly bigger font and they'll make it bold face. Um like many Bibles will do that with the words of Christ.
29:0529 minutes, 5 secondsUm you have uh something that they call the 10 principles and this is understood
29:1329 minutes, 13 secondsto be the central sort of underlying philosophy for all North Koreans. And the 10
29:2229 minutes, 22 secondsprinciples um are a pretty clear echo of the ten commandments. And many North Koreans who leave the country and first
29:2929 minutes, 29 secondsencounter the Bible will be struck by this and they'll say the ten commandments and they'll read the ten commandments and they'll say this is just like what we've been taught. Um and
29:3929 minutes, 39 secondsI mentioned in the 1980s you saw a kind of theology develop in North Korea around this Kiml sonism. And that
29:4629 minutes, 46 secondstheology included this sense that you don't just have a biological physical life. Obviously, we all have we
29:5529 minutes, 55 secondsunderstand what it is to have a biological physical life. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. One day we will die. What happens afterwards? Well,
30:0330 minutes, 3 secondsdifferent religions are going to give you different answers. But we know that the physical body is going to to die. Um what's interesting about Kim Sungism in
30:1030 minutes, 10 secondsthe 1980s is it develops this idea of a socopolitical life, a life that isn't flesh and blood. It is um your your
30:2030 minutes, 20 secondssocopolitical almost like a soul. And if you sacrifice yourself in the name of Kiml Sang and you do some great feat or
30:2730 minutes, 27 secondssome great deed for him, your body may perish in the physical realm but your socopolitical life you can go and attain
30:3530 minutes, 35 secondsmeasure of immortality, transcendence through Kiml Sun. And of course to me that that sounds pretty Christian to me.
30:4330 minutes, 43 secondsThis idea too that Kiml Sun is a father figure and Stalin called himself a father to the people and many this this
30:5030 minutes, 50 secondsimagery of father is obviously not unique to North Korea and not unique to Kiml Sun but he arguably took it a whole lot further because the country is
31:0031 minutespeople in the country are supposed to think that we have two fathers. We have our biological father um but we also
31:0731 minutes, 7 secondshave this kind of spiritual father and Kimong of course after he died um effectively attained immortality. He was
31:1531 minutes, 15 secondsmade the eternal president of North Korea and he remains the eternal president of North Korea 30 years after
31:2231 minutes, 22 secondshe died. Um so you have all these sorts of parallels and of course you can talk about um yeah all the other rituals that they
31:3131 minutes, 31 secondshave. They have to confess their sins every week. They need to go to a church-like building to study the words
31:3631 minutes, 36 secondsof Kiml Song. A lot of these you can say that they're Christian, but I also have heard the criticism and the push back when I talk about this. I say, well,
31:4731 minutes, 47 secondsnone of that is exclusively Christian. Some I mean all elements of you know,
31:5231 minutes, 52 secondsreligions have have all religions have some of these elements to them. And I and I grant you that. And the whole point of the book is not to say look at
32:0132 minutes, 1 secondChristianity, look at Kiml Sang, look at Christianity, look at Kim. I don't I don't know that you can do a onetoone tracking here. Certainly the idea that
32:0732 minutes, 7 secondsyou bow before the statue of Kim is not something that would be countenanced in most Christian churches these days,
32:1332 minutes, 13 secondsright? But but that's that's a part of Kiml Sunism. So I wouldn't say that it tracks one to one. But I would say that there's certainly a lot of inspiration
32:2132 minutes, 21 secondsfrom there. And when you go back to the person who is the central pivot upon which this all stands, which is Kim Sung, the guy who at age 33 comes to
32:2932 minutes, 29 secondspower there and leads it for 49 years. I think when you put those two pieces together, I think that's where you have the beginnings of an answer to trying to
32:3832 minutes, 38 secondsexplain how North Korea became the way it is.
32:4132 minutes, 41 secondsMhm. With Billy Graham's visit too, I mean, what did he say about seeing the birthplace of Kim Song that it all it lacked was the wise men or something along those lines?
32:5032 minutes, 50 secondsYeah. So, Billy Graham arrives in uh Pyongyang March 31st, 1992. Of course,
32:5632 minutes, 56 secondsby this point, he is the most famous preacher in the world. Um, and the first place they take him is they take him to Manyong, which is the village where Kim
33:0533 minutes, 5 secondswas born, just on the outskirts of Pyongyang, very convenient. Um, you can almost stop there on the way in from the airport. Um, and they take him there and
33:1433 minutes, 14 secondsit's like this thatched hut, this very humble sort of thatched hut with uh with kind of like a nativity scene there. And
33:2333 minutes, 23 secondsso Billy Graham with his uh sons and with other missionaries that are with him makes that remark. He makes that joke. He says, "All they're missing here
33:3033 minutes, 30 secondsis the three wise men, right? A manger and the three wise men." And of course,
33:3533 minutes, 35 secondsI mean, it's a joke, but obviously what he's trying to say is this does look mighty familiar, doesn't it? you know,
33:4033 minutes, 40 secondsand and of course to someone like Kim Sung, I mean, it's tempting because there's evidence that he performed in
33:4933 minutes, 49 secondschurch plays. In my mind's eye, that's a nativity play. I can almost imagine him playing, I don't know, Joseph, or maybe he's u playing one of the three wise men
33:5733 minutes, 57 secondsor something like that in a in a nativity play. Um, and then he sets up his own little nativity scene here on the outskirts of Pyongyang. So, yeah.
34:0634 minutes, 6 secondsI mean, and that birthplace fabricated,
34:0834 minutes, 8 secondsright? I mean, not really where he was born.
34:1034 minutes, 10 secondsNo, no, no. Um, I think I mean, there's there's a small quibble over which particular village he was born in, but the two villages that are the contenders
34:1934 minutes, 19 secondshere are just a short walk apart. I mean, that's that's that's a minor detail at this point. I mean, there's no I don't think there's any serious doubt that he was born on the outskirts of Pyongya. Yeah.
Chapter 8: The Religious Power of North Korea
34:2934 minutes, 29 secondsOkay. So Jonathan, I'm getting the sense that what I thought that it was, you know, a whole religious system around
34:3634 minutes, 36 secondsthis one man that there is godlike obedience and that sort of thing to him.
34:4034 minutes, 40 secondsWould you say that it's it's downplayed maybe from from my perception? It's it's not as strong as I'm seeing it.
34:4734 minutes, 47 secondsIt depends on exactly how how much you see it. I mean, again, it's not they don't call it a religion. They certainly don't consider it a religion. Again,
34:5634 minutes, 56 secondsthere is a socialist thread that runs through North Korea. Of course, it was founded by the by the Soviets. And and if I can zoom out just a little bit more
35:0335 minutes, 3 secondsfor a moment, I think what I was trying to do with this work was not to come in and say the skeleton key to
35:1135 minutes, 11 secondsunderstanding North Korea is to understand that it's actually just Christianity in disguise. It's just a pseudo-Christian cult in disguise.
35:1935 minutes, 19 secondsThat's that's not quite what I'm saying.
35:2135 minutes, 21 secondsI think what I'm trying to say here is that for a long time we've understood North Korea as a socialist state and certainly that's how it presents itself.
35:3135 minutes, 31 secondsIt calls itself a socialist state. Um and there are indeed elements of socialism there or Stalinism or communism or whatever you want to call
35:3935 minutes, 39 secondsit. Uh certainly Stalinism I think is is pretty safe to say. But that's not to deny that there aren't elements of Confucianism for example in North Korea.
35:4835 minutes, 48 secondsI mean, Confucianism is the bedrock of all of East Asia, certainly China, of course, but but even more so on the Korean Peninsula. And some people will
35:5735 minutes, 57 secondslook at the dynastic succession from Kiml Sang the father to Kim Jong- Il the son to Kim Jong-un the grandson and say
36:0436 minutes, 4 secondsthat looks pretty confusion to me because Confucianism is a lot about patriarchy and a lot about respecting your ancestors and sort of this
36:1336 minutes, 13 secondsprimogenature and this this this you know inheritance and this line through the through the eldest male right so you could say that it's got elements of
36:2136 minutes, 21 secondsconfucutionism in it in it and shamanism. Shamanism is this is this other idea. It's ancient sort of anim animalistic sort of beliefs that
36:2936 minutes, 29 secondspermeated Korea. And you can point to elements of that in North Korea. And you can point to elements of Japanese imperial warship because the Japanese
36:3736 minutes, 37 secondscolonized the Korean peninsula for 50 years. Um, sorry, I'm sorry, 40 years. How did I get to 50 years? For 40 years,
36:4536 minutes, 45 secondsif you include the the time that it was a protectorate. So,
36:4936 minutes, 49 secondswhat I'm trying to say is you have a stew of influencers. There's no question about that. I don't think there's any individual or any place in the world that is the product of one single
36:5836 minutes, 58 secondsinfluence. We're all a blend of our various influences and and and upbringings and everything else. But in
37:0537 minutes, 5 secondsNorth Korea, there's only one ideology that Kiml Sun and his father and his
37:1337 minutes, 13 secondsfather's father would have said that they owe a specific debt to and that is Christianity. Kimlang would not have
37:2137 minutes, 21 secondssaid I'm a Christian. He didn't. But he did say, "I was strongly influenced by Christianity growing up." And he admired
37:2837 minutes, 28 secondshis father. He almost he venerated his father. He almost worshiped his father.
37:3237 minutes, 32 secondsAnd his father would have been even more explicit. And he would have said, "I'm not a Confucian. I'm not a Confucianist.
37:3937 minutes, 39 secondsI'm not a shamanist. I'm not a Japanese imperial worshipper. I'm not a socialist. I'm a follower of Jesus Christ." That's what he would have said if you if you were on this podcast right
37:4637 minutes, 46 secondsnow and you could ask him, that's what he would say. He selfidentified that way and he passed on those values to his son.
Chapter 9: How Kim Il Sung Crushed Christianity
37:5537 minutes, 55 secondsSo Pyongyang is the Jerusalem Jerusalem of the East. We know that this Christian influence is extremely strong there.
38:0238 minutes, 2 secondsBilly Graham's wife is educated there because it's so good at this Christian education and everything. What happens
38:0938 minutes, 9 secondsthat makes the break from that and and veers into Kimosis?
38:1538 minutes, 15 secondspretty straightforward, which is uh two atomic bombs over Japan and Japan's surrender. That led to a scramble to secure the Korean peninsula. Obviously,
38:2538 minutes, 25 secondsit it led to a scramble to secure all of the Japanese Empire. But on the Korean Peninsula, which is what we're talking about today, you had Stalin and his Red Army ready to rush down through Siberia,
38:3738 minutes, 37 secondsthrough Manuria, and into Korea. And you had the Americans who had uh troops in
38:4438 minutes, 44 secondsOkinawa and in China um but were trying to get over to Korea as quickly as they could. So you had the dividing line
38:5238 minutes, 52 secondsdrawn at the 38th parallel which today remains the dividing line that splits the Korean peninsula and the Russians came down and stopped at the 38th
39:0039 minutesparallel. So Pyongyang fell into that range. And so when the Soviets came to power there or or came to occupy northern Korea, let's call it northern
39:0939 minutes, 9 secondsKorea, cuz it wasn't yet a separate nation state, they were looking for somebody to be their puppet, I suppose, is is is the most
39:1739 minutes, 17 secondsdirect word, but if you want to be more respectful, I guess you could say, for their handpicked leader. Uh, and their handpicked leader actually at first was
39:2439 minutes, 24 secondsnot Kim Sang. It was another uh Presbyterian uh in this case a Presbyterian elder named Chmanik who was
39:3339 minutes, 33 secondsabout 30 years older than Kim Sang. He was known as the Gandhi of Korea because he dressed in traditional Korean robes and he advocated non-violence. He wanted
39:4239 minutes, 42 secondsthe Japanese out. But he was also extremely extremely devout as a Christian and he was a conservative. he would have subscribed to the sort of
39:4939 minutes, 49 secondsvalues that many Americans would say they subscribe to which is freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of all these sorts
39:5639 minutes, 56 secondsof things and electoral democracy and having Christian values as a part of the as part of the nation. That was his
40:0440 minutes, 4 secondscredo you could say. But the problem was he this is not really what the Soviets wanted. But they tolerated it because he
40:1240 minutes, 12 secondswas so popular in northern Korea. He was the only figure that was so universally liked across northern Korea that he had
40:2140 minutes, 21 secondsthe legitimacy that they needed in somebody that they wanted to make the leader of their half of the Korean peninsula.
40:2740 minutes, 27 secondsThis is where Kiml Sun comes in. And Kiml Sun is 33 years old as I mentioned.
40:3240 minutes, 32 secondsHe um is nowhere near as popular as Joe Manik. virtually unknown um at the time,
40:3840 minutes, 38 secondsbut he's more pliable and he's willing to make a deal effectively with the Soviets to
40:4640 minutes, 46 secondsresist this idea that Chmanik and many other Koreans had, which is after 40 years of colonization by the Japanese.
40:5340 minutes, 53 secondsWe don't want another situation where some outside power is going to be ruling over us. We need independence right now,
41:0141 minutes, 1 secondtomorrow. Right now. And Kiml Song was willing to set that aside. And so the Soviets picked him. And once the Soviets
41:0841 minutes, 8 secondspicked him, it's interesting because Pyongyang is the Jerusalem of the east as as you mentioned. Most of the Christians in Korea were actually in the
41:1741 minutes, 17 secondsnorth at the time. Most of the communists were actually in the south.
41:1941 minutes, 19 secondsSo you had to have a little bit of this switcheroo here, a partition sort of a situation. And of course, the Korean War followed shortly thereafter and the battle lines moved quite a lot. So there
41:2841 minutes, 28 secondswere opportunities for people to kind of self-sort and go where they wanted to be. But Pyongyang was a center of conservative Christianity in northern
41:3741 minutes, 37 secondsKorea. And so this is where Kiml Sun when he comes to power, he understands this. He understands this deep in his bones because he grew up in this environment. He grew up in this world.
41:4841 minutes, 48 secondsAnd I think he understood that he needed to neutralize Christianity and its power. And so he gets started pretty
41:5541 minutes, 55 secondsquickly. He first tries to co-opt the Christians of Northern Korea. and he enlists his uncle, a distant uncle of
42:0242 minutes, 2 secondshis who was a revivalist preacher to go and try and flip all of the Christians from opposition to the Soviets and to
42:1042 minutes, 10 secondshim to support. And he did succeed to a large degree. He got many pastors to flip their support. But at a certain point,
42:1842 minutes, 18 secondshe also learned that there were limits to this. They defied him and they defied him quite boldly to the point where he
42:2642 minutes, 26 secondshad to or he must have felt he had to turn to a much more coercive approach.
42:3242 minutes, 32 secondsAnd so that's the mainstream understanding of North Korea and Christianity which is North Korea crushed Christianity. Simple as that.
42:3942 minutes, 39 secondsAnd that's largely true although it misses a lot of nuances. It misses the nuance for example that Kim himself was a product of the church. um it misses
42:4842 minutes, 48 secondsthe nuance that uh towards the end of his life Kim son comes back and re-mbbraces certain elements of his own
42:5642 minutes, 56 secondschildhood and allows Christianity to return in a very limited way. Um but that's not to say that that general understanding is entirely false. It is
43:0443 minutes, 4 secondsgenerally true that Kimlang crushed Christianity in North Korea. So Jonathan, how how did he do that? How
Chapter 10: The Incredible Politicians of North Korea
43:1243 minutes, 12 secondsdoes this guy who's a puppet, as you said, brought in just because he's kind of pliable, become the guy who crushes
43:2043 minutes, 20 secondsChristianity and there's this incredible godlike mythology around him that he is actually the greatest general and that
43:2743 minutes, 27 secondshe can level mountains with his hand. I mean, he's Superman. How does this happen? It happens because he is an
43:3543 minutes, 35 secondsincredible politician and not just Kim Sang, but Kim Jong- and Kim Jong-un. I think if you look at Kim Jong-un today,
43:4343 minutes, 43 secondsyou can actually let's talk about him for a little while because I think if you look at how he plays his cards, it's brilliant. Um, yes, it's true that by the time Kim Jong-un comes to power,
43:5443 minutes, 54 secondsNorth Korea does have successful nuclear tests under its belt. So, he's not coming in with nothing. But look at what
44:0344 minutes, 3 secondshe's got. He's surrounded by South Korea, the other half of Korea, but now one of the most prosperous nations in the world.
44:1144 minutes, 11 secondswith 28,500 US troops permanently based there. You have the US backing South Korea as an ally, of course, the world's
44:1944 minutes, 19 secondssuperpower. You have Russia to your north, this massive land expanse that was the leader of the socialist block
44:2644 minutes, 26 secondsfor for for for half a century. And you have China, which of course for many years until quite recently was the world's most populous nation. And then
44:3444 minutes, 34 secondsyou have Japan over there, your former colonizer, which was until recently the world's second largest economy and had built up an empire in the first half of the 20th century that nearly conquered
44:4344 minutes, 43 secondsall of Asia. So you've got this sense that you're isolated and you're tiny and you're small and yet how do you turn
44:5144 minutes, 51 secondsthat hand that you've been dealt and play it as well as Kim Jong-un has? And not only that, but like I said, Kim Jong-il and Kim S before him. Um, the
45:0045 minutesshort answer is they got very good at playing patrons off one another, the
45:0845 minutes, 8 secondsUSSR and the PRC. Uh, they did that throughout the 1950s and the 1960s. They did it masterfully. Um, when they got closer to the Soviets, the Chinese uh,
45:1845 minutes, 18 secondsreached out and wanted to pull them away. When they got too close to the Chinese, the Russians came back and wanted to pull them back. And so they
45:2545 minutes, 25 secondsdid this expertly. And um and it wasn't long before you see Russian diplomats in Pyongyang, but not just Russian diplomats, also East German diplomats,
45:3645 minutes, 36 secondsHungarian diplomats, u you know, all sorts of diplomats from across the eastern block, the socialist block are all writing cables back to their
45:4545 minutes, 45 secondscapitals. And we know this because it's all been declassified where they all just kind of say, "What we see here in North Korea departs entirely from socialism. It's an utter perversion.
45:5745 minutes, 57 secondsIt's an utter it's an abomination. Um,
46:0146 minutes, 1 secondso this is a socialist block that is not unfamiliar with cults of personality.
46:0646 minutes, 6 secondsAnd yet these diplomats looked at what Kiml Sun was doing and they realized that North Korea was always marching to the
46:1546 minutes, 15 secondsbeat of a different drum. It was not like the other countries in the socialist block. And indeed, as I said earlier, you can see the USSR is no
46:2346 minutes, 23 secondsmore. East Germany is no more. Um, the PRC is entirely different now. Cuba is is on its arguably on its last legs it
46:3146 minutes, 31 secondslooks like. And yet North Korea stronger than ever and and and I think a lot of this has to do again not just with nuclear weapons but also with the power
46:3846 minutes, 38 secondsof this ideology that they've implanted in their people.
Chapter 11: Internal Control of North Korea
46:4246 minutes, 42 secondsSo let's talk about how it how it works with the people. We we see that they can play these external forces and yet so much control over the people internally.
46:5246 minutes, 52 secondsUh, I mean Jimmy Carter visit said that it's a religion. Quote, it's a society resembling Waco. So that's, you know,
46:5946 minutes, 59 secondsanother cult reference. I mean, how how does the internal control work?
47:0447 minutes, 4 secondsWell, I think there's so many elements of this. And of course, I I lay it all out in the book. There's no way that I
47:1047 minutes, 10 secondscould cover all of it here, but obviously I think the place to start is with the lack of access to the rest of
47:2047 minutes, 20 secondsthe world. North Korea is called the Hermit Kingdom today as a as a nickname.
47:2647 minutes, 26 secondsUm, and that's actually just an echo of how Korea as an entire nation, the whole peninsula was was called the Hermit Kingdom starting in the late 1800s. It was a nickname. It wasn't entirely true.
47:3647 minutes, 36 secondsThere was more trade and there was more commerce. Um, and indeed today with North Korea, I mean, a bit more before CO, less so after CO, but there is more
47:4447 minutes, 44 secondsinterchange between North Korea and the rest of the world than most people are aware. But that doesn't negate the
47:5147 minutes, 51 secondscentral point that it is indeed actually a very isolated country and it always has been. The difference between North
47:5947 minutes, 59 secondsKorea and the USSR and uh China even during the cultural revolution is that
48:0648 minutes, 6 secondsyou had very little contact with the outside world. Certainly there was no internet um for much of North Korean history obviously um and there was no
48:1548 minutes, 15 secondsloosening. After Stalin died, you saw Kruev come along and launch a process of a dsttoalinization where you saw many of
48:2448 minutes, 24 secondsthe statues come down. You saw cities like Stalenrad get renamed and you saw um Kruev give a secret speech in which
48:3148 minutes, 31 secondshe denounces Stalin's cult of personality. After Mao dies in 1976, you have Dang Xiaoing come to power. Not directly, but but but within a few years
48:4048 minutes, 40 secondshe comes to power and you see him repudiate a lot of the legacy of Maoism and then you saw a lot of Mao statues
48:4748 minutes, 47 secondscome down and you saw a lot of the imagery around Mao um start to disappear. not entirely and a lot of it became kit and a lot of it you know sort
48:5548 minutes, 55 secondsof morphed in its own way but you saw this loosening and of course alongside that in 1970s China was you saw China
49:0349 minutes, 3 secondsstart to open to the world where you started to see Chinese start to go abroad and foreigners come to China I'm sitting in Beijing right now right you start to see this opening you never have
49:1249 minutes, 12 secondsthat in North Korea there was never a period of relative relaxation and loosening so when you have an isolated
49:2049 minutes, 20 secondssort of a country with no release valve and very little coming in and out. Um
49:2649 minutes, 26 secondsthat makes it much easier to propagate a certain truth that doesn't have very much in the way of alternative um
49:3549 minutes, 35 secondscounterpoints to it. Right? So you've got that. There was also a real big emphasis from the very beginning on
Chapter 12: Controlling Narrative and Ritual in North Korea
49:4249 minutes, 42 secondsrewriting history. I think they understood really um deeply how important it is to control
49:5049 minutes, 50 secondsthe narrative to understand history because it's only when you know where you come from that you sort of know who you are right and then there's ritual
50:0050 minutesand I think ritual is also incredibly powerful so every day you start your day by waking up and dusting that portrait
50:0850 minutes, 8 secondsof Kim Sang in your home um when you walk down the street and you go to a statue. You're bow, you know, on your wedding day, on your graduation day, on Kim Song's birthday, on all these days,
50:1950 minutes, 19 secondsyou go to a statue, the nearest statue,
50:2150 minutes, 21 secondsyour neighborhood Kimlong statue, and you lay flowers at his feet, and you bow. And when you get to school or when
50:2850 minutes, 28 secondsyou get to your workplace, the first thing you're doing is you're reciting his words. You're dedicating your day to
50:3650 minutes, 36 secondsKim Sang. And these rituals just pervade life there. And like I said, you turn on the TV, it's Kimmel Sun on the on the
50:4450 minutes, 44 secondssix o'clock news, you open the newspaper, it's Kiml S on page one.
50:4850 minutes, 48 secondsAgain, you know that sort of idea and students the curriculum I mean you pick up these textbooks and they're all about
50:5550 minutes, 55 secondsKim Sang. I mean there are classes on every every student has to take a class called life of Kim Sang life of Kim Jong
51:0151 minutes, 1 secondill life of Kim Jong-un now. And so you're learning about them. I mean they they they they're almost present.
51:0851 minutes, 8 secondsThey're almost like they're with you in a certain sense, right? So when you just put this all together, you I I I think
51:1651 minutes, 16 secondsyou get my point, right? You you you can see how you can start to inculcate um
51:2351 minutes, 23 secondsthis whole worldview into a people with very little access to alternatives.
Chapter 13: Cult Dynamics: Isolation and Control
51:3051 minutes, 30 secondsYes, Jonathan, this is this is the cult leader playbook. This is the abusive relationship playbook at at a massive
51:3751 minutes, 37 secondsscale. I mean, we can just talk through some of these. I mean, isolation, first of all, the hermit kingdom. That's the first thing often that a dangerous
51:4551 minutes, 45 secondsperson will try to do to someone is they will either either isolate them from other people or immerse them in a new social circle so they are effectively
51:5251 minutes, 52 secondsisolated because they just don't have time for their old circle of friends. um the rewriting of history of course they will have these people are master
52:0052 minutesstorytellers and they will have incredible narratives where they are the hero or the victim of everything um the
52:0752 minutes, 7 secondsritual the guy who I've been closest to who's like this he he particularly likes to collect women and he has built a a
52:1652 minutes, 16 secondswomen's only group chat for women who are in ballroom dance with one exception that is him and then he is there every
52:2352 minutes, 23 secondsmorning posting educational videos that they need to watch to keep up with each other and then he makes them compete against each other but he's
52:3152 minutes, 31 secondsalways top of mind and then it is all it is all masked as education as well. It's it's for your own good. It's so you get better. It's so that you learn.
52:3952 minutes, 39 secondsI mean the the whole playbook is there.
52:4252 minutes, 42 secondsUm it's just at an amazing scale with North Korea.
Chapter 14: Understanding Cults: Definitions and Comparisons
52:4752 minutes, 47 secondsYou're right. I mean I look I I I we talked about the word cult and I've been very careful about using that word certainly in isolation. Cult of
52:5552 minutes, 55 secondspersonality I think is is a little bit less controversial at least in my mind.
52:5952 minutes, 59 secondsI think we all can generally agree on what a cult of personality is. I think when you try to agree on what a cult is I think that's where it gets a little
53:0753 minutes, 7 secondsbit more difficult. Um, and so I generally would prefer to use the words religious society for North Korea. It
53:1553 minutes, 15 secondsfeels just a little bit more respectful for for for whatever reason. Although when I think about a cult and if you
53:2153 minutes, 21 secondsreally pushed me on cult again, I don't know that I can give you an airtight waterproof total 100% works all the time
53:3053 minutes, 30 secondskind of a definition. But I would if I had to boil it down and I tried to do it in lay terms and keep it simple, I would
53:3753 minutes, 37 secondsbasically say it is the leader is always right and you can't leave. And to me
53:4653 minutes, 46 secondsthat kind of sounds like North Korea and it kind of sounds like a lot of other religious societies that that that many people would probably agree are are
53:5653 minutes, 56 secondscults, right? So, these are all lay terms. And again, I I I I appreciate how slippery these terms are, and I don't want to try to to to pin it down too
54:0554 minutes, 5 secondsmuch because I don't I don't think that's helpful um or possible. But but certainly, I think that you're right. A lot of these elements that you talk
54:1354 minutes, 13 secondsabout that are in these religious societies are certainly very true of North Korea. And again, that's an implicit um I think a theme of the work that I tried to write and research.
54:2454 minutes, 24 secondsAlthough at the end of the day what I was writing was a work of narrative history. It was it's a it's a it's a spiritual biography of Kiml Sun. That's that's another way to think about it.
54:3354 minutes, 33 secondsMhm. Yeah. Yeah. Happy to concede on the terms. I'm just thinking too that the religious element um is another thing that it that it all mirrors religion and
54:4154 minutes, 41 secondswe see that in so many cults even with the guy whom I've dealt with. He he wouldn't overtly use religion, but much
54:4854 minutes, 48 secondslike a religion, he found uh one of the best salsa dancers in the world. And he he actually conned that guy and got into
54:5654 minutes, 56 secondshis inner circle and took control of his business.
54:5954 minutes, 59 secondsAnd then he would tell people about what that guy does. And he would he would call it the gospel of Oliver. This man's first name is Oliver. And he would tell people like, "I want everybody to know
55:0755 minutes, 7 secondsthe Gospel of Oliver." But what he really did was get a system like an authority like God almost that he could tell people no Oliver says this
55:1555 minutes, 15 secondsOliver went like that and it it allows him to deflect or to sort of bask in the glory of this other
55:2355 minutes, 23 secondsperson much like if you had say you know a cult leader who says I have a unique connection to God or I am you know doing
55:3055 minutes, 30 secondsthis for your good for the salvation of your soul the the religious element just just fits right in. Yes.
55:3855 minutes, 38 secondsKnowing all of this, what what else should we be aware of in terms of of how this happened and how it's affecting the world today?
Chapter 15: The Future of North Korea: Beliefs and Ideologies
55:4455 minutes, 44 secondsLet me start by talking about North Korea specifically. I think a lot of people because I'm in journalism because
55:5155 minutes, 51 secondsum journalism is is very much concerned with what what is happening here and now. Um slightly different from the work of history that I'm writing. I have
56:0056 minutesthought a lot about it. Um, and nobody knows if North Korea will persist, will still be there roughly like it is now, 5
56:0856 minutes, 8 secondsyears from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now. Who's to know? I certainly would not want to go out on a limb uh, one way or the other, but I
56:1656 minutes, 16 secondsthink that what you have now is a state that's been there for 80 years.
56:2156 minutes, 21 secondsThat means that you have very few people alive who can even remember what it was
56:2856 minutes, 28 secondslike before this alternate reality was created by the Kim family. And so what I
56:3556 minutes, 35 secondsfind so interesting is you have a whole generation of people who will live and
56:4156 minutes, 41 secondsdie under this this kind of Truman show that the Kim family created. You know,
56:4856 minutes, 48 secondsthis idea that the Japanese were defeated not by the Americans, not by atomic bombs, they were defeated by Kim Sang, not even by the Red Army. It was
56:5756 minutes, 57 secondsby Kiml Sang himself that did it. Um that uh the Korean War was won by the North Koreans and and all the rest of
57:0457 minutes, 4 secondsit. I mean, this whole kind of alternate reality. Um, and I think what's what's what's interesting is just this idea
57:1257 minutes, 12 secondsthat even if the state were to cease to exist tomorrow, which is not what I'm predicting, you would still have a whole
57:2157 minutes, 21 secondsgeneration, 25 million people for whom this reality is going to be very, very hard to shake.
57:2957 minutes, 29 secondsIt also makes North Korea as an adversary, if that's how you want to look at it. and many in Washington would certainly look at it as an adversary.
57:3957 minutes, 39 secondsYou can't underestimate them because these are to use again religious lingo.
57:4557 minutes, 45 secondsUh they're true believers. They aren't um going through the motions. They aren't doing this because they want to get uh a promotion or a paycheck.
57:5357 minutes, 53 secondsCertainly that exists too, but within the larger framework of no, they really do believe. Um, and even if you were to
58:0058 minutessay that, oh, surely there must be secret unbelievers or or dissident among them. They're just too smart to say
58:0858 minutes, 8 secondsanything about it. But deep down in their hearts, they know better. Even if you were to say that, I don't know, 10%
58:1358 minutes, 13 secondsof them were like that. I love this little statistic, but you'd have out of 25 million people, if you had 20% of the population that was secretly harboring,
58:2258 minutes, 22 secondsyou know, enmity to the regime and actually hated Kim Sung and his successors, um, you'd still have 20
58:2958 minutes, 29 secondsmillion people, which would still mean you would have more believers in this Kim Sangism than you would have followers,
58:3858 minutes, 38 secondspractitioners of Judaism in this world.
58:4058 minutes, 40 secondsSo, it is a world it is, it is a legitimate world religion. Um, and that's even discounting for 20% um, not really believing, which I don't which I
58:4958 minutes, 49 secondsthink is is very generous. I I I I if I had to guess, I'd say 5% maybe. Um, but who knows? Um, so the power of faith and
58:5858 minutes, 58 secondsideology is just it's so powerful. Kim Son understood it. Um, and I think you can look beyond the borders of North
Chapter 16: The Role of Technology in Propagating Ideology
59:0459 minutes, 4 secondsKorea and certainly there are cultic elements I think in a lot of politics.
59:1259 minutes, 12 secondsum today I don't know that it's unique to our time. I think it was very true of course in the early 20th century as well where you saw the rise of many of these
59:2059 minutes, 20 secondsleaders who would have these these cults around them. I do think social media,
59:2459 minutes, 24 secondsthe internet, the ability to propagate these sorts of ideas um the way that we can kind of put ourselves into our own
59:3159 minutes, 31 secondssilos um is certainly a lot easier. I mean, as we all know, even though information is more widely available, at least outside of North Korea, than it
59:3959 minutes, 39 secondsever has been, we're also more siloed in many ways than we ever have been as well. So, I think this idea, too, that,
59:4759 minutes, 47 secondsyou know, I hope I don't take too much of a detour here, but, you know, one of the books that really did inspire me early on in the writing of this book was
59:5559 minutes, 55 secondsabout Jonestown. And Jonestown, of course, was well, arguably the most,
1:00:001 hourlet's call it the most dramatic uh cult perhaps in history, just in terms of its rise, its fall, and the way it ended.
1:00:081 hour, 8 secondsUm, just it's hard to match that in terms of sheer drama. Um, but you know,
1:00:131 hour, 13 secondsthe book I read early on in my research for this, just as kind of a reference, was A Thousand Lives by Julia Shears.
1:00:201 hour, 20 secondsAnd she she writes in her preface or forward that that she doesn't want to use the word cult because nobody
1:00:281 hour, 28 secondswillingly joins a cult. People join a movement. People join a religion. They join a society. They don't join a cult.
1:00:341 hour, 34 secondsThey'll only call it a cult after the fact when they've left and they're scarred and they realize that they were conned, they were duped or something like that, right? But nobody joins a
1:00:421 hour, 42 secondscult. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that we ought not to look at the North Koreans with pity necessarily. I
1:00:491 hour, 49 secondsmean there perhaps perhaps that's justified in many ways but the fact that they would believe this is not something that we should look down upon them for.
1:01:001 hour, 1 minuteFirst of all they were born there and they're sort of surrounded by this. They were immersed in this. But also this idea that
1:01:091 hour, 1 minute, 9 secondseven beliefs that seem really funny to outsiders make a lot of sense when you're inside.
1:01:151 hour, 1 minute, 15 secondsI mean there are a lot of people who look at Christianity and say wait a minute that's crazy right and yet a lot
1:01:231 hour, 1 minute, 23 secondsof people it's not crazy at all it's it's it's it's their truth and you could say the same of any religion of Buddhism of Islam or whatever Kiml Sunism you put
1:01:311 hour, 1 minute, 31 secondsthem all up there I don't know that on the face of it Kim Sunnism is any more inherently ridiculous or forcical or
1:01:411 hour, 1 minute, 41 secondsobviously untrue versus any other religion that's out there in a certain sense and it. Um, and yet we might look down upon it because to us it seems so
1:01:501 hour, 1 minute, 50 secondsridiculous, right? And and so I think it's just having a little bit of respect for that and respect for the power of
1:01:571 hour, 1 minute, 57 secondsreligion and faith and why any of us believes what we believe.
1:02:011 hour, 2 minutes, 1 secondMhm. Yeah. And you described it earlier as being like The Truman Show, which I think, you know, for people who have seen that movie, it's um it's a great way to to sort of get an image on what
1:02:101 hour, 2 minutes, 10 secondsthis can really look like. Um with the the duration of this too, your your book ends with a statement um in the end, the
Chapter 17: How North Korea Controls Information
1:02:201 hour, 2 minutes, 20 secondsreligious society that Kim IlSung built on the ashes of the former Jerusalem of the East would outlive him and elevate
1:02:271 hour, 2 minutes, 27 secondshim to immortality. The tens of millions of Koreans who have lived and died knowing no other reality than the one that Kim IlSung and his descendants
1:02:351 hour, 2 minutes, 35 secondscreated and ruled over as living deities have not been as fortunate. So how did they keep this reality going? How did
1:02:431 hour, 2 minutes, 43 secondsthey manage the information? Um was anybody particularly visionary or skilled with the information there were? Yeah, let's start with this.
1:02:531 hour, 2 minutes, 53 secondsI I I I don't think that Kim son himself was primarily the architect of his own
1:03:001 hour, 3 minutescult of personality. Certainly not by the 1960s. I would say in the very earliest years it's possible that he
1:03:081 hour, 3 minutes, 8 secondsplayed more of a role. But the honest truth is I don't think we can know because there's no one who would have been a
1:03:171 hour, 3 minutes, 17 secondsparticipant in this who would have been able to write an honest account that would survive and make it outside North Korea. And they're all dead by now. So
1:03:241 hour, 3 minutes, 24 secondsthere's just there's there's very little I think perhaps deep down in the archives of North Korea, if the archives are honest and if they're preserved and
1:03:321 hour, 3 minutes, 32 secondsif they're ever open to us, perhaps we might get an answer. But let's set that aside. I think one of the key players that we should definitely talk about is
1:03:401 hour, 3 minutes, 40 secondsKim Jong-un. Kim Jong- was the son of course and the successor of Kim Sun. And people who know anything about him will
1:03:481 hour, 3 minutes, 48 secondsof course picture him and his haircut and um his jumpsuits and his um you know platform risers and everything else, but
1:03:561 hour, 3 minutes, 56 secondsreally the detail that's most pertinent here is his love of film. And that is something that is absolutely unquestioned. Nobody nobody questions.
1:04:051 hour, 4 minutes, 5 secondsHe loved film. He was a he was a movie junkie. And if he wasn't born to Kiml Sun, he might have been a director or a movie critic or an actor or something or
1:04:141 hour, 4 minutes, 14 secondsother or just a film lover. As it turns out, he was the second leader of North Korea. But how did he become that? He
1:04:221 hour, 4 minutes, 22 secondsbecame the successor be in part because he did such a good job in his father's eyes of tur of taking Kimong's
1:04:301 hour, 4 minutes, 30 secondspersonality cult and putting it into overdrive. So I think what you see coming up to the 1960s is you see a
1:04:371 hour, 4 minutes, 37 secondspersonality cult that did already surpass Stalin's but in the hands of Kim Jong-il it was film that he used but it was
1:04:461 hour, 4 minutes, 46 secondsbroader than that because I think what Kim Jong-il understood was not just cinema not just film he understood theatricality
1:04:531 hour, 4 minutes, 53 secondsand he brought a level of theatricality to the cult of Kim son that really took
1:05:001 hour, 5 minutesit from just I don't know junior your varsity personality cult to just, you know, Chicago Bulls 1995 or something like that. He took it to the to the top.
1:05:101 hour, 5 minutes, 10 secondsAll right. And so, and and by the way,
1:05:131 hour, 5 minutes, 13 secondsthat's that that's not a terrible metaphor for the father of Kim Jong-un,
1:05:171 hour, 5 minutes, 17 secondswho of course was a lover of the 1990s Michael Jordan era of Chicago Bulls. But but anyways, my point is just to say that Kim Jong- was really responsible
1:05:261 hour, 5 minutes, 26 secondsfor that. And I think his father recognized that skill but also recognized how important that skill was.
1:05:331 hour, 5 minutes, 33 secondsthe central place that ideology has in the propagation of their rule and father
1:05:411 hour, 5 minutes, 41 secondsand son there they went handinand glove and and and actually what is the most surprising perhaps is that in Kim Jong-un they were able to find a third
1:05:501 hour, 5 minutes, 50 secondsgeneration leader who who who understood the family business who really understood it very well and arguably did
1:05:581 hour, 5 minutes, 58 secondsit perhaps even better than Kim and Kim Jong-il and who at his relatively young
1:06:041 hour, 6 minutes, 4 secondsage, presuming his health um keeps up and presuming he isn't ousted in a coup or something like that, um could end up
1:06:121 hour, 6 minutes, 12 secondsruling even longer than his grandfather at 49 years. Who knows? I mean, I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know that I'm saying I want that to happen, but
1:06:201 hour, 6 minutes, 20 secondsI'm certainly saying it could happen. Um and that's just something we have to think about that if he rules for another two decades or so, it'll be a century.
1:06:281 hour, 6 minutes, 28 secondsThere will be nobody living in North Korea who can remember a reality other than the reality that the Kim has created.
1:06:361 hour, 6 minutes, 36 secondsWow. A century under the Truman show. That that's one way to put it. That seems like an unbreakable spell.
1:06:441 hour, 6 minutes, 44 secondsI don't want to say it's unbreakable,
1:06:451 hour, 6 minutes, 45 secondsbut certainly it will not be easily broken, right? And so there's this idea that I don't think it's that strong, but you do see some people who write about
1:06:541 hour, 6 minutes, 54 secondsthis notion. I mean if you go back and read in the 80s and you read in the '90s a lot of scholars a lot of forecasters would have said at that time when Kim
1:07:021 hour, 7 minutes, 2 secondsdies this is going to all disappear. Kim is the center of this universe here. He
1:07:101 hour, 7 minutes, 10 secondsis a charismatic man. He and he was and by the way he was genuinely charismatic.
1:07:141 hour, 7 minutes, 14 secondsKim Jong- less charismatic, but Kim Jong-un in his own peculiar way does have a charisma of his own too that I I
1:07:221 hour, 7 minutes, 22 secondsthink we would underestimate at our own peril. But Kibong was unquestionably charismatic and he,
1:07:321 hour, 7 minutes, 32 secondsyou know, he he he understood and and and he was able to to to to just spin this out and and really
1:07:421 hour, 7 minutes, 42 secondstake it to this incredible level. And I think the thought was when he dies,
1:07:481 hour, 7 minutes, 48 secondsthere's no way this thing is going to is going to be able to hold. Um but but I think North Korea if anything
1:07:571 hour, 7 minutes, 57 secondshas been underestimated again and again and again and the personality cult no matter how ridiculous it may look on the outside is incredibly robust and I think
1:08:071 hour, 8 minutes, 7 secondsagain that's that's that's another way of answering your question like what is it that we're not understanding or what is it that North Korea understood? It
1:08:131 hour, 8 minutes, 13 secondsunderstood that no matter how far forcical, how fanciful some of these ideas may look, they'll be taken dead
1:08:211 hour, 8 minutes, 21 secondsseriously if you propagate them with enough conviction and with enough repetition.
1:08:281 hour, 8 minutes, 28 secondsMhm. Yeah. And the durability to last so long that that is similar to religion again. So that that power there. And
Chapter 18: Is North Korea the Greatest Cult in History?
1:08:361 hour, 8 minutes, 36 secondsJonathan, when you said that there are probably more North Koreans who are into Kimongism than there are people
1:08:431 hour, 8 minutes, 43 secondspracticing Judaism, I mean that that just puts it all together. Um, another thing about this durability too, another quote, you quoted somebody who's probably writing under a pen name. Um,
1:08:531 hour, 8 minutes, 53 secondssuch a thoroughly regulated and controlled society has never existed in human history. This is not an ideal society, but an abnormal society. This
1:09:021 hour, 9 minutes, 2 secondsis an inhuman society. So, has there ever been a more durable cult?
1:09:091 hour, 9 minutes, 9 secondsI would argue no. Um, and we we've talked about this a little bit, and I've I've done some thinking on this as well.
1:09:161 hour, 9 minutes, 16 secondsI invite feedback if I'm missing something. If there's a listener out there who says, "Oh, you forgot about soand so." Please let me know. I I would
1:09:231 hour, 9 minutes, 23 secondslove to. But you could go back to the ancient times. You could go back to the Aztecs. You could go back to the Egyptian pharaohs. You could go back to Julius Caesar Augustus. Caesar Augustus.
1:09:341 hour, 9 minutes, 34 secondsYou could go back to to Louis the 14th.
1:09:371 hour, 9 minutes, 37 secondsUm, of course Louis the 14th. Now you're coming closer to the to the present day. You could come to of course Stalin, Mao,
1:09:441 hour, 9 minutes, 44 secondsHitler. Um, of course you can talk about all of these cultural personalities. And yet, as I mentioned earlier, they all
1:09:521 hour, 9 minutes, 52 secondshad reached incredible peaks, but those peaks generally didn't last much longer than a few years. Um the cultural
1:10:001 hour, 10 minutesrevolution in China began in 1966 and it basically it petered out in terms of its ferveny by 69. It it did continue until
1:10:091 hour, 10 minutes, 9 secondsclose to mound's death. But um but really we're talking about 3 to four years of its peak intensity in the USSR.
1:10:171 hour, 10 minutes, 17 secondsIt was also this period between 1945 after the the end of World War II and Stalin's death in 53. That's about 8
1:10:241 hour, 10 minutes, 24 secondsyears there. Um, but you can't even come close to North Korea. Now, certainly North Korea's
1:10:301 hour, 10 minutes, 30 secondspopulation isn't the same as the USSR or the PRC's. I mean, those are obviously much bigger countries. So, if you want to do the math and you want to do a
1:10:381 hour, 10 minutes, 38 secondsmultiplication times the number of people, how many years? And then I don't know how you come up with a number for the intensity of the cult, but if you
1:10:461 hour, 10 minutes, 46 secondswanted to turn this into some sort of a mathematical equation, I still think that what you come up with is a smaller population for North Korea, but much
1:10:541 hour, 10 minutes, 54 secondslonger durability and much higher intensity for more of that time. And I think the equation will tell you that
1:11:011 hour, 11 minutes, 1 secondthis is the biggest personal biggest and most durable and largest and most intense personality cult in human
1:11:081 hour, 11 minutes, 8 secondshistory. And and again, I mean, one other quick thought too. I mean,
1:11:121 hour, 11 minutes, 12 secondsJonestown, you could toss, let's toss in Jonestown, just for the sake of it. You had about a thousand people. The intensity level, you could say maybe
1:11:191 hour, 11 minutes, 19 secondseven let's just say for the sake of argument, it was the most intense personality cult of all time. I don't know how you prove that. I don't even know if that's true, but let's say you
1:11:261 hour, 11 minutes, 26 secondssaid that. But the the the the length at which it lasted and the number of people, a thousand people, is just it's it's tiny. It's minuscule compared to
1:11:351 hour, 11 minutes, 35 secondsthe scale of these other ones we're talking about. So, so yeah, I think North Korea takes it hands down. But I'm happy to be corrected if somebody out there thinks, "No, no, no. This one,
1:11:441 hour, 11 minutes, 44 secondsaccording to your equation, intensity times population times durability, I get a higher cult quotient." Um, you know,
1:11:511 hour, 11 minutes, 51 secondswith this um teaching or this society or this cult or whatever, I want to hear about it.
1:11:591 hour, 11 minutes, 59 secondsYeah. with the with the cult scholars who whom I've talked to. We haven't got to the cult quotient yet, but maybe you'll launch some new papers.
Chapter 19: Oppression Through Mass Media and Surveillance
1:12:061 hour, 12 minutes, 6 secondsJonathan, you mentioned Louis the 14th too, uh, you know, famous for, you know,
1:12:111 hour, 12 minutes, 11 secondsma, you know, I am the state. Um, that seems untouchable and yet what do you think was lacking for him that maybe the the Kims have in Spain?
1:12:221 hour, 12 minutes, 22 secondsYeah, I I I gave a little bit of thought to this, too. I mean, I looked up what the population of Louis the 14th era France was. there was about 25 million
1:12:301 hour, 12 minutes, 30 secondspeople which is actually the population roughly of North Korea today. So they presided over a similar number of people. Um but again I mean the
1:12:381 hour, 12 minutes, 38 secondsdifference is Louis the 14th of course didn't have well he did have successors of course although didn't ultimately end
1:12:461 hour, 12 minutes, 46 secondswell but but they did have um but the Kim had three solid generations. But the
1:12:551 hour, 12 minutes, 55 secondsmore important point I've saved for last year of course is that the tools at the disposal of the Kim family utterly surpass and put to shame what Louis the
1:13:031 hour, 13 minutes, 3 seconds14th could have done because technology because of what's available what's possible in the 20th and 21st centuries
1:13:101 hour, 13 minutes, 10 secondswhere you have um the means of propagating information but also the means of surveillance and the means of
1:13:171 hour, 13 minutes, 17 secondsrepression to make sure that any alternative views are squaltched. And so
1:13:241 hour, 13 minutes, 24 secondsI think it's almost I mean Louis the 14th he couldn't how could he possibly have have I mean to reach every one of
1:13:321 hour, 13 minutes, 32 secondshis last subjects you'd have to you'd have to you'd have to get someone on horseback to head out to the farthest corners of France with some sort of a
1:13:401 hour, 13 minutes, 40 secondsmessage and then bludgeon them with this message until it you know seeped into their psyches and everything else. It just it wasn't possible. And you can do
1:13:481 hour, 13 minutes, 48 secondsthat on mass in this mass era that the Kim cult came of age in.
1:13:541 hour, 13 minutes, 54 secondsOkay. So Louis the 14th what he had in,
1:13:571 hour, 13 minutes, 57 secondsyou know, putting himself in a statue, a painting, a palace, great, but it doesn't compare to the power of of mass media.
1:14:051 hour, 14 minutes, 5 secondsYeah. I mean, the farmer, the peasant out in the countryside would never have had a chance to see that painting.
1:14:111 hour, 14 minutes, 11 secondsYeah. Well, Jonathan Chang, before we get to our last topic on kind of the end of cults and things like that, um, for people who want to check you out with all mass media and such, uh, where should people look for you online?
Chapter 20: find Jonathan Cheng online
1:14:221 hour, 14 minutes, 22 secondsSure. Well, um, I'm on Twitter, uh, X,
1:14:251 hour, 14 minutes, 25 secondsum, I believe it's called now, J Chang WSJ. That's, um, my, you know,
1:14:291 hour, 14 minutes, 29 secondsprofessional work account. Um, I do post on my book there, but primarily I'm posting on my day job, which is, which is as a bureau chief, uh, in China for
1:14:371 hour, 14 minutes, 37 secondsthe Wall Street Journal. But the easiest thing to remember is korean messiah.com.
1:14:411 hour, 14 minutes, 41 secondsSo, I bought up that domain. I tend to keep it going for as long as I can keep it going. And there, um, you'll find all sorts of resources, including
1:14:491 hour, 14 minutes, 49 secondssupplemental notes. Um, this book is heavily footnoted. And despite it being heavily footnoted and 768 pages, I still
1:14:571 hour, 14 minutes, 57 secondshave a lot of director's cut material that I couldn't even get into the book.
1:15:011 hour, 15 minutes, 1 secondAnd so, all of that will live on the korean messiah.com website.
1:15:061 hour, 15 minutes, 6 secondsExcellent. We'll put some links in the description for everyone to check out.
Chapter 21: The End of North Korea's Cult
1:15:091 hour, 15 minutes, 9 secondsAnd Jonathan, last of all, let's let's talk about uh the end of of cults and things like that. How could this come to an end?
1:15:181 hour, 15 minutes, 18 secondsWe touched upon it a little bit already.
1:15:211 hour, 15 minutes, 21 secondsUm obviously I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know. Um I think if you want to class it into two general realms, you
1:15:291 hour, 15 minutes, 29 secondshave internal and external. um internal I just if I if if you or anyone has any
1:15:361 hour, 15 minutes, 36 secondsevidence that there's signs of internal instability or some sort of a palace coup or something then that's news to
1:15:431 hour, 15 minutes, 43 secondsme. I will say that the death of Kim in 1994 as I mentioned earlier was seen as almost certainly the death nail for the
1:15:501 hour, 15 minutes, 50 secondsregime. It turned out to be an incorrect prediction. That was also the same time by the way that a massive famine swept
1:15:571 hour, 15 minutes, 57 secondsNorth Korea. And so this idea of there being North Korean defectors, North Koreans who fled over the northern
1:16:051 hour, 16 minutes, 5 secondsborder of North Korea into China and made their way to South Korea. There are more than 30,000 of these people who have done it over the last few decades.
1:16:131 hour, 16 minutes, 13 secondsUm that it was that period where you had the system almost entirely break down.
1:16:181 hour, 16 minutes, 18 secondsAnd yet what was so interesting is that even at the depth of the famine, even when people were eating tree bark or were eating um whatever they could get
1:16:271 hour, 16 minutes, 27 secondstheir hands on, rats or or or or insects, anything to survive, um the
1:16:331 hour, 16 minutes, 33 secondsstate kept their budgets for venerating their leaders. So you have
1:16:411 hour, 16 minutes, 41 secondsthese accounts from North Koreans who fled the country who say, "I had nothing to eat." And yet every night the flood
1:16:491 hour, 16 minutes, 49 secondslights were on to light up the statue of Kiml Sang when electricity and resources were scarce. Um they were continuing to
1:16:571 hour, 16 minutes, 57 secondsprint all of their material to extol the Kims because again I think the Kims
1:17:041 hour, 17 minutes, 4 secondsunderstood that that was perhaps more important almost than feeding their people was to make sure that they didn't
1:17:111 hour, 17 minutes, 11 secondsgive up their faith. they didn't lose faith in the Kim because that is what I think it was a recognition that they understood that that was really what was
1:17:191 hour, 17 minutes, 19 secondsholding it together. Um so that's the internal one. The external threat of course would be if there were some sort of a of a of a of a war of an attack.
1:17:311 hour, 17 minutes, 31 secondsBut I think as we've seen in recent weeks with Iran, with Venezuela, um North Korea is in a different category.
1:17:391 hour, 17 minutes, 39 secondsNorth Korea has its nuclear arsenal already. It's conducted six nuclear tests and now has an arsenal of ICBMs uh
1:17:481 hour, 17 minutes, 48 secondsthat are capable of reaching the American mainland. Uh and they have the so-called they're working they're pretty
1:17:551 hour, 17 minutes, 55 secondsclose I think on a nuclear triad. In other words, they're able to have second strike cap capability that if they were struck first that they could answer back
1:18:031 hour, 18 minutes, 3 secondswith um a submarine launch ballistic missile for example. Um so it's I I wouldn't say it's impervious to external
1:18:111 hour, 18 minutes, 11 secondsthreat. now, but it's a whole lot harder. I don't think you see very much chatter at all after Venezuela and Iran that anyone should even try and
1:18:201 hour, 18 minutes, 20 secondscontemplate this, that President Trump or anyone else should try to contemplate this with North Korea because it's a different ballgame over there. Um,
1:18:281 hour, 18 minutes, 28 secondsI'll give one final thought to this,
1:18:301 hour, 18 minutes, 30 secondswhich is that I think if it were to come to an end,
1:18:361 hour, 18 minutes, 36 secondsI think it would probably happen in a way that is sort of a a sequence of events that's
1:18:441 hour, 18 minutes, 44 secondsjust really hard to predict. And it may start with a misunderstanding or an unexpected event. Um, obviously it
1:18:531 hour, 18 minutes, 53 secondsdidn't happen with CO, but CO that that sort of thing. I could see something like that coming out of left field that
1:19:001 hour, 19 minutesis just unforeseen and that leads to one decision in one capital that leads to another decision elsewhere that leads to
1:19:081 hour, 19 minutes, 8 secondsanother decision that somehow creates the circumstances for it. But this is just me hypothesizing. Obviously, I have
1:19:151 hour, 19 minutes, 15 secondsno idea. Um, I suppose you could also get like a glass nas and paristroka sort of uh scenario too, but I think those
1:19:231 hour, 19 minutes, 23 secondspredictions have come and gone as well and perhaps into the fourth generation.
1:19:271 hour, 19 minutes, 27 secondsBut but I don't know. I mean, at this point, I'm grasping at straws here because I don't know that I see a way necessarily for the North Korean state
1:19:361 hour, 19 minutes, 36 secondsas it is to quote unquote end whatever that whatever that may mean. But that doesn't mean it won't happen. Um, you know, things look like they will continue in perpetuity until they don't.
1:19:481 hour, 19 minutes, 48 secondsRight. Jonathan, you did mention North Korea's nuclear arsenal. Um, we quoted Louis the 14th earlier. Now, the the the
Chapter 22: Nuclear War with North Korea
1:19:551 hour, 19 minutes, 55 secondsidea of the mad king, Napoleon said something like the deluj like after me the flood. Um, do we have a mad king in
1:20:031 hour, 20 minutes, 3 secondsNorth Korea who would have the same attitude and and go nuclear just because I genuinely
1:20:121 hour, 20 minutes, 12 secondsdon't know. Let's start with that. But I also deeply suspect not. Um, and I think
1:20:191 hour, 20 minutes, 19 secondsthat there is this idea that really I think took firm hold during Kim Jong-
1:20:241 hour, 20 minutes, 24 secondsIl's years that this guy was a madman that he just might go and blow it all
1:20:301 hour, 20 minutes, 30 secondsup. Um, and I think to a certain extent the Kim don't mind that portrayal
1:20:391 hour, 20 minutes, 39 secondsbecause it does give them an edge at the poker table if you want to use that analogy, right? And so Kim Jong-un I
1:20:481 hour, 20 minutes, 48 secondsthink has very much carried on that tradition. I think by the time of Kim Jong-un though I think a lot of external
1:20:551 hour, 20 minutes, 55 secondsobservers have basically ceased to underestimate North Korea. So I think the idea that they're mad is actually
1:21:041 hour, 21 minutes, 4 secondssomething that is perhaps less commonly floated out there. I think instead I think more people are willing to give
1:21:131 hour, 21 minutes, 13 secondscredit to the hyperrationalist sort of view of North Korea that these guys know what they're doing. These guys have been in this business now for 80
1:21:211 hour, 21 minutes, 21 secondsyears. They know how to play their cards well. Again, to go back to this analogy.
1:21:261 hour, 21 minutes, 26 secondsAnd I'm not saying that he wouldn't push the button, but I don't think he would do it
1:21:351 hour, 21 minutes, 35 secondswilly-nilly. That's for sure. I also but I do think that he would do it if he had
1:21:421 hour, 21 minutes, 42 secondsnothing to lose and if the US or some other entity were to try and go for the kill as it were. Yes, I do think that
1:21:501 hour, 21 minutes, 50 secondsNorth Korea would probably launch and that would be very bad for the world.
1:21:541 hour, 21 minutes, 54 secondsBut again, we're talking hypotheticals and who knows. Mhm. Yeah. And as you pointed out,
1:22:011 hour, 22 minutes, 1 secondthere's there's a logic to looking a little bit crazy um when you're the underdog in this case. And I' I've had Annie Jacobson on the show who wrote a book called Nuclear War. And uh in her
1:22:101 hour, 22 minutes, 10 secondsscenario too, she she uses North Korea as the aggressor. And she points out that in tests, other countries when they test ICBMs, they let their ally they let
1:22:181 hour, 22 minutes, 18 secondstheir enemies know. They let everybody know so that nobody gets spooked about a launch except North Korea. And it just
1:22:261 hour, 22 minutes, 26 secondskeeps everybody on edge about North Korea and a little more alert. And that may be um a bit of a strategy.
1:22:341 hour, 22 minutes, 34 secondsYeah. And they're brilliant as I said at playing a relatively weak hand very very very well.
1:22:411 hour, 22 minutes, 41 secondsYeah. So Jonathan in the idea of how this all ends um what does Kim IlSungism say about end times? What is the vision for how it would come to an end?
Chapter 23: North Korea's Vision for the World
1:22:521 hour, 22 minutes, 52 secondsIn Kiml Sunism's own conception you're saying?
1:22:551 hour, 22 minutes, 55 secondsYeah. The equivalent of a a book of revelations or something.
1:22:591 hour, 22 minutes, 59 secondsYeah. It's actually a great question and it's an interesting one because Kim Jong-un, let me let me give you the
1:23:061 hour, 23 minutes, 6 secondsspoiler first, but Kim Kim Jong-un has repudiated his grandfather's vision of the end
1:23:131 hour, 23 minutes, 13 secondstimes to a certain extent. And that actually, I would argue, is perhaps the biggest assertion of Kim Jong-un's own
1:23:231 hour, 23 minutes, 23 secondsagency and his own authority. Um, in many ways, Kim Jong-un modeled himself after his grandfather. um he did it literally in his dress and in his
1:23:311 hour, 23 minutes, 31 secondshaircut and in his whole demeanor um and that's pretty well documented. Even North Korea itself in its um in its
1:23:391 hour, 23 minutes, 39 secondsportrayals of Kim Jong-un have made explicit that they are echoing Kiml. But on this point, he's done something I
1:23:461 hour, 23 minutes, 46 secondsthink is quite daring in repudiating a key core plank of what Kim Sangism was all about, which is to finally get to
1:23:531 hour, 23 minutes, 53 secondsthe answer to your question that their conception of the his conception of the end times really is this kind of utopia
1:24:021 hour, 24 minutes, 2 secondsin which the evil imperialists represented by the Americans and their South Korean puppet lackey are finally defeated and ousted from the Korean
1:24:111 hour, 24 minutes, 11 secondspeninsula by the North Koreans and by the forces of good and that the people of Korea, both Koreas divided by
1:24:201 hour, 24 minutes, 20 secondsoutsiders, by the Americans and also by the Soviets, although they put the emphasis more on the Americans, um are finally allowed to unite together as one
1:24:291 hour, 24 minutes, 29 secondspeople under Kim. So that's sort of the point. But what Kim Jong-un has done is he came along and he said, "Actually,
1:24:361 hour, 24 minutes, 36 secondsI'm not so hot on unification. I'm actually kind of okay with North Korea,
1:24:431 hour, 24 minutes, 43 secondsus north of the 38th parallel, being our country. The South Koreans are not our brethren. They are our enemy. They are a
1:24:521 hour, 24 minutes, 52 secondsdifferent people. Right? So that's that's that's really interesting. And I don't know how that theology, if you want to call it that, is going to
1:25:001 hour, 25 minutesevolve, but it certainly is a major deviation. And you can put that alongside a couple other deviations,
1:25:051 hour, 25 minutes, 5 secondswhich is, for example, the the elevation of women around the leader. You didn't see that around Kim son. You didn't see that around Kim Jong-il. But Kim Jong-un
1:25:131 hour, 25 minutes, 13 secondshas surrounded himself not only with his wife, not only with his sister, but also with his daughter. And I think that is something that also is different. But but but that's another discussion for another day.
1:25:241 hour, 25 minutes, 24 secondsYeah. Well, Jonathan Chang, you have written the definitive work on on this whole question. Um, anything else you'd like to add?
1:25:301 hour, 25 minutes, 30 secondsI hope um people will go out and read the book. I mean, I am a journalist. I am not a scholar per se. I've tried to
1:25:391 hour, 25 minutes, 39 secondsdo my best to write this book in a way that I've I hope is going to be not only
1:25:461 hour, 25 minutes, 46 secondsfair, not only um trying to be very dispassionate, but also is hopefully entertaining as well. And I hope it's
1:25:541 hour, 25 minutes, 54 secondsthoughtprovoking. I hope it's not just seen as a North Korea book. It certainly is a North Korea book. I'm not going to deny that it's it's it's about North
1:26:011 hour, 26 minutes, 1 secondKorea. But you've read the book and I just want to convey this idea that I think really what I'm trying to get at
1:26:081 hour, 26 minutes, 8 secondsis something larger than just one country of 25 million people. This is really about who we are as people, why
1:26:151 hour, 26 minutes, 15 secondswe believe the things we believe and how powerful faith can be. And it can be a power for good and it can be a power for
1:26:221 hour, 26 minutes, 22 secondsfor for ill. And um I'm not going to tell you what I think u is happening in North Korea, but I think you can read it and you can come to your own
1:26:301 hour, 26 minutes, 30 secondsconclusions. And that's really what I've tried to do here.
1:26:331 hour, 26 minutes, 33 secondsYes. Well, Jonathan Chang, for using your unique experience, your skills,
1:26:371 hour, 26 minutes, 37 secondsmore than a decade of your life to to communicate this to all of us and for taking this interview with me. Thank you so much.
1:26:431 hour, 26 minutes, 43 secondsThanks so much for having me, Brad. This is This has been really fun.
