The idea of sending filthy balloons itself is filthy
CHUN SU-JINThe author is the head of the Today-People News team at the JoongAng Ilbo.
The television debate on June 27 for the U.S. presidential election must have been closely watched in Pyongyang. What did North Korean leader Kim Jong-un think as he watched President Joe Biden’s weak voice and anxious eyes? Was Kim thinking about the location for his third summit with Donald Trump if he is re-elected? Remembering the time when he waited for Russian President Vladimir Putin until 2:45 a.m. at the airport in Pyongyang last month, he may have thought that the devil he knows, like Trump, was better.
Meanwhile, his younger sister Kim Yo-jong, deputy director of the Workers’ Party, was busy sending waste-filled balloons to South Korea. From May 28 to July 2, North Korea flew filthy balloons across the border six times. Kim issued a statement through the Korean Central News Agency the day after the first round: “A gift of genuine sincerity to the monsters of liberal democracy who are crying out for freedom of expression.”
After parasitic human excrement and garbage in the balloons drew attention to the hard lives of North Korean people, mostly leaflets are being sent instead. I pity her for discussing the freedom of speech, and I am not the only one. A European reporter I met at a resident foreigners’ community last week said, “North Korea’s situation looks so pathetic as it had to make such a provocation.” A Southeast Asian professor tutted and said, “It is too low.”
What’s pitiful is that the North Korean leadership failed to realize that the idea of sending balloons filled with waste is waste itself. It is also pathetic that Kim Yo-jong, a key figure, personally came out to explain what happened. I feel more frustrated that the idea and action of sending filthy balloons is a mirror reflecting the frustrating reality on the Korean Peninsula. But the property damage of about 26.78 million won ($19,272) cannot be ignored.
I remember Kim I ran into in Singapore on June 12, 2018. She was walking out of the luxurious Marina Sands Bay hotel, dressed in a white silk blouse with a relaxed look on her face. I am disappointed that what she planned six years later is “sending filthy balloons claiming it’s also a freedom of expression.”
As Kim Jong-un and Kim Yo-jong watched Biden’s close friend and the New York Times recommending a beautiful exit after the TV debate, they may have thought that democracy is uncomfortable indeed. In fact, it is the opposite. Democracy shines thanks to the freedom of speech to suggest the most powerful leader to resign. The two Kims must realize that the North is tainting its own face with filthy balloons.
Update, July 4: A previous version of this article misstated the date of the U.S. presidential debate as April 28, not June 27.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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