*** TOPIC OF THE WEEK

North Korea Bolsters Personality Cult on Kim Jong-il's Birthday

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- With the anniversary of its deceased leader's birth approaching, North Korea is in a festive mood and preparing a number of events to celebrate Kim Jong-il's 70th birthday, which falls on Feb. 16.

   While stepping up propaganda activities praising Kim Jong-il's works during his lifetime in an effort to boost his personality cult, the socialist country has also vowed to uphold Kim's policies in what is seen as an attempt to justify the hereditary power transfer from the former leader to his son and chosen heir Kim Jong-un.

   The socialist state has designated Kim's birthday "the greatest auspicious holiday of the nation," and named it the Day of the Kwangmyongsong (Shining Star). Kim Jong-il's birthday is one of the most important holidays in North Korea, alongside his father and nation's founder Kim Il-sung's April 15 birthday -- dubbed the Day of the Sun.

   Despite its economic difficulties, the impoverished country spares no money in celebrating both holidays every year.

   This year, the North plans to celebrate the holiday with cultural events, festivals, public gatherings and international forums.

   South Korean officials say North Korea is choreographing a mass military parade by mobilizing a massive number of troops, including reserve forces at Mirim Airport near Pyongyang.

   In one example, the North's state media said people across North Korea have started pilgrimages to Kim Jong-il's birthplace to celebrate the dead leader's birthday and to pledge loyalty to his son and successor.

   North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Feb. 7 more than 2,000 working people from all walks of life, including school students and children, visited the former home of Kim Jong-il at a secret camp in Mount Paektu every day of his 70th birth anniversary.

   North Korean media often employ phrases such as the "bloodline of Mt. Paektu," Kim Jong-il's supposed birthplace, or "inheritance" when lauding the country's leadership.

   According to the official news agency, while viewing relics at the site, visitors reflected deeply on the revolutionary career of Kim Jong-il "who performed undying feats for the country, the people, the times and history with his outstanding political caliber and leadership ability. Oath-taking meetings are being held by many study tour groups in front of his birthplace."

   Such meetings across the country included those by school students and children, the Ministry of Railways and officials from the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea, the KCNA report said.

   Teenagers in the country visited Kim's birthplace at Mount Paektu near the border with China, the KCNA said. North Korean school children are required to visit Paektu, which is the highest mountain in the peninsula, to pay respect to the Kim family.

   The young visitors laid flowers before portraits of Kim, who died in December aged 69, and those of his mother and his father and founding president Kim Il-sung, before chanting slogans to pledge their loyalty to the Kim family.

   They also pledged allegiance to new young leader Kim Jong-un in strict observance of the last wishes made by Kim Jong-il in October last year before his death.

   Kim Jong-il was in charge of the nation for 17 years and his youngest son Jong-un, who is believed to be in his late 20s, was quickly proclaimed the "great successor" and appointed as the top military commander in the second dynastic succession of the socialist state.

   "The participants... reaffirmed a pledge to faithfully follow the leadership of respected comrade Kim Jong-un," the KCNA said.

   Groups of North Korean workers across the nation are making trips to the mountain, KCNA said, adding that the birth date next week would be celebrated "lavishly."

   Official accounts say Kim was born at the mountain, but independent experts say his birthplace was a guerrilla camp in Russia, from where his father Kim Il-sung was fighting Japanese forces who had colonized the Korean Peninsula.

   In another program, the North has announced a flower festival in honor of its deceased leader. The 16th Kimjongilia Festival (based on a hybrid flower named for Kim Jong-il) is scheduled to take place in Pyongyang on the occasion of "the Day of the Shining Star."

   The flower festival will open at the Kimilsungia-Kimjongilia Exhibition in mid-February this year, the news outlet said. "The festival will serve as that of wishing immortality and paying highest respects of the Korean army and people and the world's progressives to leader Kim Jong-il."

   Meanwhile, the North said the Order of Kim Jong-il has been instituted in the country on the occasion of Kim's birthday. The Presidium of the North's Supreme People's Assembly on Feb. 3 released a decree on instituting the order.

   "This institution is to give state commendation to officials, service personnel, working people, military units, organs, enterprises and social and cooperative organizations who have made distinguished service in the drive to accomplish the revolutionary cause of Juche, the cause of building a thriving socialist nation," the decree read.

   The Order of Kim Jong-il and the Order of Kim il-sung are the highest awards in the country. The order is 67 millimeters long and 65 mm wide with an engraved portrait of a smiling Kim Jong-il at the center of a golden ear of rice above a shining golden five-point star.

   The upper part features the emblem of the Workers' Party of (North) Korea and the lower part the national flag of the DPRK (North Korea). On its back is the text "Order of Kim Jong-il" and a serial number and pin. The miniature medal has a five-point star at the center of a golden plate 33 mm wide and 10 mm long.

   Also to mark the late leader's birthday, North Korea's media asked party members, service people and other citizens to make it an iron rule in their work and life to create and make leaps forward in leader Kim Jong-il's way, as befitting officials, party members and people trained by him.

   Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Workers' Party, said Kim Jong-il's is the original way of work and creation whose validity and inexhaustible might has already been fully displayed in the protracted and arduous practice of the Korean revolution.

   "His way is the people-centered way of creation that calls for relying on the popular masses and giving full play to their mental powers in order to push ahead with socialist construction," the newspaper said.

   "It is also the revolutionary way of struggle in the 21st century as it helps conduct all works in a creative and innovative manner under whatever conditions and circumstances and make uninterrupted strides."

   Minju Joson, the Cabinet newspaper, said Kim Jong-il is "always with us and his venerable name and image serve as the banner of the eternal victory of the DPRK."

   The North has said it will erect statues of the former leader and erect portraits and "towers to his immortality" across the country.

   The North Korean media also claimed people around the world have awarded the late leader as many as 1,200 honorific titles. "People across the world call him the 'champion of justice,' 'guardian of peace for mankind,' 'great prophet' and 'saint,'" a dispatch said on Jan. 12.

   The new name for Kim Jong-il's birthday, the day of the Shining Star, was also the name given by North Korea to what it says was a satellite it launched into orbit in April 2009 as part of a peaceful space program.

   South Korea and the United States said at the time the launch was meant to test North Korea's ballistic missile technology and that no object entered orbit.

   The North also produced a new poster for the Day of the Shining Star. The poster is said to represent the firm faith and will of all service personnel and North Koreans to hold Kim Jong-il in high esteem forever.

   Depicted in the poster is Kim Jong-il's former home in the secret camp on Mount Paektu, against a background of Jong-il Peak. Engraved in bold relief is the Kimjongilia flower.

   The poster also displays the words, "70th birth anniversary of the great leader Comrade Kim Jong-il," "The Day of the Shining Star" and "Commemoration." North Korean media including the KCNA said the poster helps recall with deep emotion the revolutionary career of Kim Jong-il, who, born on Mount Paektu in a snowstorm, led the Korean revolution and the human cause of independence to victory for several decades and made a long journey in a snowstorm till the last moments of his great life.

   According to Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper published in Japan, the term "Shining Star" originated from the secret camp on Mount Paektu.

   In an article, Choson Sinbo, published by the Chongryon, a pro-North Korean residents association in Japan, said the name Kwangmyongsong came from anti-Japanese guerrilla members' praise and expectations for "General Kim Jong-il," the son of the great legendary hero Kim Il-sung.

   Saying the appellation, which refers to a great configuration, was formed during the hereditary succession on Feb. 16, 1942, the newspaper said the shining star translates as one leading the Korean people in the right direction for bright future.

   Even the Japanese police knew the birth of the great man Kim Jong-il, the newspaper said. It claimed the Japanese police stationed near Mount Paektu made a report to their superiors in January 1944 that a precious baby boy who was destined by the heavens had been born on the mountain.

   The police said the news of a great man's birth shattered public sentiment during the wartime period, when Japan was involved in the height of World War II. Korea was under Japan's colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.

   The newspaper said the "historic title of shining star" was known to the world when the country's founding leader Kim Il-sung praised his son in a poem on the occasion of the 50th birthday of Kim Jong-il. "The Korean people became aware once again of the precious meaning of the shining star in the midst of their great ordeal after the death of eternal president Kim Il-sung," it added.

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