Kim Jong-un uses calendar swap to escape shadow of his forebears

The North Korean despot is gradually building a personality cult of his own.

Kim Jong-un, second left, visits a flood restoration construction site in North Pyongan Province following flooding from heavy rain during the summer. Picture: AFP

Despots around the world have tried to impose themselves on systems for reckoning time. Now North Korea has abandoned its unique calendar, the latest sign of the growing confidence of its ­supreme leader, Kim Jong-un.

The newspaper of the Korean Workers’ Party, as well as the state-run Korean Central Television, have dropped the Juche system for counting the years in favour of the western Gregorian calendar.

Since last month, the Rodong Sinmun, or Workers’ Newspaper, and KCTV have dated their stories 2024, rather than Juche 113.

Juche is North Korea’s ideology of self-reliance, and the calendar begins with the birth of the first president, Kim Il-sung, in 1912, taken to be Year 1.

It was one of the ways in which his successors glorified the founder after his death, creating a near-divine figure from whom they derived their own authority. However, in recent years Kim has diminished the Kim Il-sung cult and stealthily begun to replace it with one centred on himself.

When North Korea unveiled a new assault rifle, it was named the Type 111, after the Juche year – 2022 – in which it was launched. Fragments of North Korean shells found in Ukraine have been found to use the calendar to indicate their year of manufacture.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency, whose website can be accessed from outside the country, is still using the Juche system in its online articles, but there have been reports that Juche dates are being removed from North Korea’s many propaganda monuments.

“This seems to be part of Kim Jong-un’s efforts to establish his own cult of personality, which has been evident since the start of this year,” an official from South Korea’s unification ministry told the Yonhap news agency.

The Juche calendar was introduced in 1997, three years after Kim Il-sung’s death. For all the energy expended by state media on glorifying his successors, an important element of the personality cult has always been a pretence of self-deprecation. His son and grandson affected humility in comparison with their even more glorious forebear.

Only years after his father’s death did Kim Jong-il begin to take on his leadership titles, and even in death Kim Il-sung remains “eternal president”. Kim visibly modelled himself on his grandfather after coming to power in 2011, imitating his haircut and wearing a fedora. ­Recently, though, there have been signs that he is casting off that modesty.

This year, for the first time, state media failed to refer to Kim Il-sung’s birthday on April 15 as “The Day of the Sun”.

In the same month, North Korea broadcast a new song, Friendly Father, in praise of Kim Jong-un, with a video of ecstatic citizens singing his name and praising his promised “bright ­future”.

In May, a portrait of Kim began to be displayed with those of his father and grandfather. Photographs of the two older leaders have long been displayed in every school, workplace and state institution, and in many private homes, but this was the first time that they had been seen with that of the young Kim.

In June, state media showed photos of Workers’ Party officials wearing badges bearing Kim’s face – formerly they had showed only the dead leaders.

The process is still fairly subtle. Although the birthdays of his ­father and grandfather are public holidays, Kim’s birthday on January 8 is still not marked on official calendars.

Hong Min, of the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, told the NK News website: “When viewed from a broader perspective, this may also serve to highlight the Kim Jong-un era more distinctly – to emphasise his status as a leader achieving great accomplishments in this era.”

THE TIMES