Mick Hartley

How is the appearance of Kim Jong-un's daughter at the nuclear weaponry display last week being spun by the regime? From the Daily NK:

As North Korea flexes its nuclear muscles, the Social Women’s Union of Korea (SWUK) recently organized emergency lectures to press its members to learn from the dedication of Kim Jong Un and his family, Daily NK has learned.

A Daily NK source in North Hamgyong Province said Tuesday that SWUK’s executive committee, acting on orders from the country’s leadership, instructed SWUK’s provincial chapters to hold emergency lectures titled, “Let’s sternly crush the frantic efforts of hostile forces to tear down our class system.”

The source explained that the North Korean government had organized these lectures to highlight the political significance of Kim Jong Un’s appearance at the Nov. 19 test launch of the Hwasong-17, a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile, alongside his wife Ri Sol Ju and his daughter. The family’s attendance at the launch supposedly typified how the revolutionary family contributes to the nation’s development.

The source said that the lecture script included the following line: “The Marshal [Kim Jong Un] appeared at the launch pad along with his beloved daughter in order to make our country the greatest nuclear weapon state on the planet for the sake of future generations.”

The lecture moved on to criticize SWUK members: “Despite the example shown by the Marshal’s family, members of the SWUK are provoking discord at home by attempting to divide the household burden with their husbands, who are busily engaged in jobs that strengthen our nation and aid its development. Our members are failing to fully support their husbands.

“The Marshal and his wife Ri Sol Ju personally attended an inspection of the perfection of our nuclear power along with their beloved young daughter. The Marshal’s love for future generations and his supreme dedication to protecting them tearfully evokes the warmest emotions. When our members fail to take any responsibility for their own children, they are ruining our future generations and sympathizing with the reactionary thought and culture of our enemies.”

The lecture brought up hot-button issues in North Korean society today, sharply criticizing SWUK members for getting carried away with American and Korean movies and television shows, which are corrupting not only themselves but their children as well.

The lecture described the role of SWUK members in the following terms. “In order to crush our enemy’s efforts to tear down our revolutionary base, our ideological base and our class base, it is particularly important for women to consolidate control over their children as they take the lead in effectively serving as wives and mothers in the family.”

Women serving as wives and mothers: how revolutionary!

Those who saw the appearance of the daughter as a sign of her grooming to be next in line for the leadership may need to reconsider. There's no place for bourgeois notions like feminism and women's rights in the Great Socialist Nation.