It was a wonderful piece of serendipity that greeted me yesterday as I arrived home to find my daughter watching the 1992 film “Toys”, which stars Michael Gambon (above) as a crazy general who attempts to take over the world with an army of toys, when I had been driving home to the radio news of the passing of “The Dear Leader”, Kim Jong-il, who had ruled North Korea since 1994. I couldn't think of a more apt epitaph for a dictator who had played with his people as if they were nothing but puppets and threw them away when he lost interest in them.
What was interesting was the biographical information given about the man and the way the story was embellished to bring in the miraculous and make him into an almost Messianic figure. There were stories of a swallow announcing his birth and a star over the mouintain of his birth in Korea, although in reality it was somewhere in Siberia. Then there were accounts of him walking and talking at just a few weeks, having occult powers to cause a typhoon in Japan, inventing a whole host of modern gadgets, directing films, writing over a thousand books and half a dozen operas. Such exaggerations are not uncommon in the world of leadership – think of the Egyptians and Romans deifying their emperors – but it is applied with almost fanatical devotion in communist nations. The personality cult in such nations is almost totally consuming, with leaders demanding not just unquestioning obedience, but love and even worship, and with severe penalties for those who dissent. It is interesting that, having denied the realities of religion, they invest their leaders with the same qualities as spiritual leaders to give them a greater moral authority. It is also ironic that Karl Marx, whom these leaders profess to follow, said that religion was the opiate of the people. He would be turning in his grave if he knew that these men had taken all the trappings of religious figures in order to dupe their people into following them.
What is doubly tragic is that the consequences for the people they rule are usually dire, and Kim Jong-il has been no exception. It is reckoned that hundreds of thousands have already perished in famines (while he travelled around in a train that was replenished with fresh lobster flown in by helicopter), and countless millions now languish in abject poverty, among whom are Christians who are sent to labour camps or simply executed for expressing faith. It is yet another example of self-serving leadership that Ezekiel described when he spoke of shepherds who feed themselves by eating the best of the flock.
Among those who suffer at the hands of such monstrous cruelty there is hardly likely to be much regret at the Dear Leader's passing, and I wonder whether the hysterical tears of those who were pictured weeping profusely on television were genuine. Some of them at least would have been motivated to put on an act for the cameras for fear of the consequences of not doing so. Most will be asking what his son, Kim Jong-Un, will be like in power, and whether the continuation of the dynasty will mean more of the same.
For our part, we should be praying for the downfall of tyrants (or a change of heart on the part of those who succeed them) and the establishing of justice in nations, as well as working in whatever ways we can to bring about that change. It is not irrelavant to Christian mission to be concerned about the well-being of other nations, and more particularly, to express support for Christian brothers and sisters who are persecuted and denied justice. And at Christmas it is important for us to pray that God would bring down false Messiahs, who destroy their people, bring people to know and love the Saviour that he has sent and establish his reign of true peace in the furthest parts of the globe.
What was interesting was the biographical information given about the man and the way the story was embellished to bring in the miraculous and make him into an almost Messianic figure. There were stories of a swallow announcing his birth and a star over the mouintain of his birth in Korea, although in reality it was somewhere in Siberia. Then there were accounts of him walking and talking at just a few weeks, having occult powers to cause a typhoon in Japan, inventing a whole host of modern gadgets, directing films, writing over a thousand books and half a dozen operas. Such exaggerations are not uncommon in the world of leadership – think of the Egyptians and Romans deifying their emperors – but it is applied with almost fanatical devotion in communist nations. The personality cult in such nations is almost totally consuming, with leaders demanding not just unquestioning obedience, but love and even worship, and with severe penalties for those who dissent. It is interesting that, having denied the realities of religion, they invest their leaders with the same qualities as spiritual leaders to give them a greater moral authority. It is also ironic that Karl Marx, whom these leaders profess to follow, said that religion was the opiate of the people. He would be turning in his grave if he knew that these men had taken all the trappings of religious figures in order to dupe their people into following them.
What is doubly tragic is that the consequences for the people they rule are usually dire, and Kim Jong-il has been no exception. It is reckoned that hundreds of thousands have already perished in famines (while he travelled around in a train that was replenished with fresh lobster flown in by helicopter), and countless millions now languish in abject poverty, among whom are Christians who are sent to labour camps or simply executed for expressing faith. It is yet another example of self-serving leadership that Ezekiel described when he spoke of shepherds who feed themselves by eating the best of the flock.
Among those who suffer at the hands of such monstrous cruelty there is hardly likely to be much regret at the Dear Leader's passing, and I wonder whether the hysterical tears of those who were pictured weeping profusely on television were genuine. Some of them at least would have been motivated to put on an act for the cameras for fear of the consequences of not doing so. Most will be asking what his son, Kim Jong-Un, will be like in power, and whether the continuation of the dynasty will mean more of the same.
For our part, we should be praying for the downfall of tyrants (or a change of heart on the part of those who succeed them) and the establishing of justice in nations, as well as working in whatever ways we can to bring about that change. It is not irrelavant to Christian mission to be concerned about the well-being of other nations, and more particularly, to express support for Christian brothers and sisters who are persecuted and denied justice. And at Christmas it is important for us to pray that God would bring down false Messiahs, who destroy their people, bring people to know and love the Saviour that he has sent and establish his reign of true peace in the furthest parts of the globe.
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