THIS WEEK countless thousands of North Koreans bade a final farewell to Kim Jong-il at a state funeral in Pyongyang but none of the mourners was so grief-stricken as his son and successor, Kim Jong-un.
Now in yet another extraordinary exclusive the Joe Hildebrand blog has uncovered a transcript of Kim Jong-un’s moving eulogy for his father…
(TAP, TAP) Testing… Testing… Testing… Wow, I just realised that’s the first time I’ve said ``testing’’ without the words ``nuclear weapons’’ in front of it. Boy, things change quickly around here.
Well thanks very much for coming ladies and gentlemen, especially those of you who did so voluntarily.
What can you say about Kim Jong-il? For me it’s nothing but good things _ and for so many reasons: his warmth; his kindness; People’s Edict 117A: Thou Shalt Only Say Good Things About Kim Jong-il. The list goes on.
I remember when I was little Dad said to me: ``Son, one day all of this will be yours.’’ Then he handed me a cyanide tablet. He was always kidding around like that.
The funny thing is that when I was a teenager I didn’t want to follow in my father’s footsteps _ I wanted to be in a rock and roll band. I remember having a fight with the bass player over who’d sing lead vocals. Next thing I knew the bass player was working in a coal mine and his parents had been sent to a re-education camp. Dad was always looking out for me that way.
Actually it’s a little known fact that Dad was a bit of a muso in his youth as well. He once told me he was the best singer/songwriter/lead guitarist in all of Korea. Of course I didn’t believe him at the time so he went and made a phone call and sure enough the next day it was on the front page of the newspaper: ``EXCLUSIVE: Kim Jong-il best singer/songwriter/lead guitarist in all of Korea’’.
I was still a bit suspicious so I asked Communications Minister Stephen Conroy if the Korean People’s Army Daily was a propaganda sheet that unquestioningly parroted the government line but he said it looked pretty good to him so I guess it must be true.
In fact all his life Dad loved to let his hair down and have a good time. I remember all the parties he used to have and all the amazing guests that would visit us: Mao, Brezhnev, Sarah Hanson-Young…
We’d all just sit around drinking vodka and eating turnips. Sometimes we’d play charades which I was really good at, and not just because the answer to everything was always ``Kim Jong-il’’.
Sometimes to mix things up a bit he’d change the answer to ``Kim Il-sung’’. That was Dad _ always full of surprises.
And I remember the other games we used to play at the palace. Dad was especially good at hide and seek. He once hid a stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium from the United Nations for 17 years and that was pretty hard to do. Mum was always yelling at him to get it out of the kitchen.
And it wasn’t just WMDs. One day we were playing hide and seek with my brothers Kim Jong-nam and Kim Jong-chol and Dad hid them so well that nobody’s been able to find them ever since.
Unlike a lot of dads who are always too busy to spend time with their kids or held up at the office, we were always doing things together. Often he’d take me down to the driving range and we’d just whack a few golf balls. Of course he’d get a hole in one every time but he was always very encouraging. He said anyone could get a hole in one every time as long as they relaxed their shoulders, followed through with their swing and were Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
We also used to love doing things around the house together. Dad’s favourite was the gardening _ geez we’d have some laughs. I’d be out there all day planting stuff to no avail and then he’d come along and just walk across the flowerbed and ifvoilanf! Perfect orchids every time.
Of course like any family we had our ups and downs. I remember Dad once had to cut the throats of some counter-revolutionary elements and Mum was really cross at him for that. She said he shouldn’t have used the good scissors.
And of course there was that time he starved two million people to death but nobody’s perfect. Besides, Dad said they were all reactionaries.
Still, all in all it was just your typical childhood. I never would’ve guessed that I’d end up as Supreme Leader but I suppose life’s full of surprises like that.
So anyway, anyone for a round of golf?
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