North Korea’s next leader will be… someone. Maybe.
Maybe this guy!
He seems OK. Maybe.
Interviews with scholars, analysts, diplomats and recent refugees suggest that Mr. Kim [Jong-Un], much like his country, largely remains a riddle. “We know more about distant galaxies than we do about North Korea,” a Western diplomat said privately.
A hundred days after his elevation, the regime’s powerful mythmaking apparatus has hardly mentioned the heir apparent, to the surprise of most North Korea watchers. Ordinary citizens seemingly know little about him, and his personal biography still contains the same large, unexplained gaps it has since he was first mentioned as a potential successor: he studied as a teenager in Switzerland, or so it seems; he speaks several languages, or maybe just the one; he’s married, or perhaps he’s single; he dearly loves his oldest brother, or has plotted with Chinese agents to have him killed.
Heck, maybe he’s not going to take over at all.
“In the official news media, Kim Jong-un is no more prominent or celebrated a figure than Joe Biden is in our own,” said Mr. Myers, adding: “Let’s not forget, the official media has yet to state explicitly that Kim Jong-un is Kim Jong-il’s son,”
Mr. Lankov said there still were no billboards, posters, portraits or other noticeable displays featuring Kim Jong-un in the North. Reports of people wearing Kim Jong-un lapel badges are false, he said, noting that badges of Kim Jong-il himself are almost unknown in North Korea. The ubiquitous lapel pins feature only “the eternal president,” Kim Il-sung.
New North Korean calendars for 2011 do not mark Kim Jong-un’s birthday in red, as they do for his father and grandfather. And his name is not printed in boldface when it appears in North Korean dailies.
“Bold script — that’s important,” Mr. Lankov said.
God help us all if North Korea moves to Comic Sans.