Memories of December
ENTERING December, the mass media of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea release many articles and programmes on reminding the Korean people of Chairman Kim Jong Il (1942-2011).
Whenever December comes round every year, the Korean people miss him with growing yearning, because he passed away in this month after dedicating all his life to their happiness.
He was more like a father than a state leader to the Korean people. He usually mixed with them to acquaint himself with their living conditions and mental agony and made sure that state policies were formulated to reflect their demands and aspirations.
The following story vividly describes how the Korean people held him in high esteem as their father.
Once he toured a farm in the northern part of the country. During his visit he dropped in at a newly-wed couple of farmers. The wife, as if she would do to her own father, asked him in whispers to name her baby which was due to be born.
He named it not blaming her on her impolite request. This story showing the kindred relations between the leader and his people is still widely told among the Korean people.
When he visited a shop, he expressed satisfaction over the fact that the shelves were filled with goods, saying that the people would like it. When officials made a slight mistake, he criticized them, asking them what the people would say about it. When he was on a train journey for field guidance in the middle of night, he asked accompanying officials not to blow a whistle lest it should disturb the sleep of the locals nearby.
During his long-standing leadership over the Workers’ Party of Korea he built it into a motherly party which serves the people.
Towards the close of the last century the socialist system of the world was thrown into a political turmoil. In its wake the hostile forces made undisguised attempts to isolate and suffocate the DPRK, which resulted in worsening its economic situation. In spite of all these challenges Kim Jong Il made sure that the WPK pursued people-oriented policies as ever and that all Party officials worked devotedly for the people, regarding it as their duty. He never overlooked any slight violation of the people’s interests.
The Korean people show admiration for him also because he developed the country into a military power.
In the years when the schemes of the hostile forces to stifle the country reached extremes, he built his country into a military power with strong war deterrent by dint of his matchless courage. Stability and environment for peaceful development have been maintained and provided in the Korean peninsula and the DPRK has entered the front rank of the world military powers. The Korean people believe that strong foundations for all this were laid thanks to his painstaking efforts. 
