Kim Jong Il and Snow

When people think about the career of Chairman Kim Jong Il of the DPRK National Defence Commission (Feb. 16 1942-Dec.17 2011) the first thing they remember is snow.

He was born in Mt. Paektu, the highest mountain of Korea, in February when snow falls and parted away from his people in the snowy weather of December.

It is the philosophy of snow which runs through his career. Snow not only purifies the people’s mind but also supplies the earth with water by melting itself. Snow can be said to represent the noblest life philosophy whose essence is to devote one’s whole for the prosperity of the country and the happiness of the people with pure mind.

Kim Jong Il lived a pure life.

President Kim Il Sung, the founding father of socialist Korea, passed away unexpectedly in 1994. It was a world convention that when a head of state passed away his post is immediately occupied by another. But in Korea the post of president was remained vacant for more than three years. It was due to Kim Jong Il’s lofty and pure moral obligation to uphold Kim Il Sung as the eternal President of the country. He ensured that the constitution of the country stipulated that Kim Il Sung would be upheld as the eternal President of the DPRK and he was kept in his lifetime appearance.

He had nothing for himself. He was always on field guidance tour wearing casual suit and taking catnap for rest. Thanks to his restless guidance modern factories and houses, cultural resorts were built across the country for the improvement of people’s livelihoods. He ensured that many monuments and statues were built for the revolutionary forerunners and merited people but he never allowed his statue to be built. He did not use gifts presented to him by Koreans, heads of state and party leaders and personages of other countries but sent them to the National Gifts Exhibition House and International Friendship Exhibition House to be displayed there.

He embraced all the people in his benevolent bosom.

All the people in north Korea lived in a harmonious whole holding him as their father. Among them were not only workers, farmers and intellectuals but also those who had committed wrongdoings against the country and nation in the past. Jong Ju Yong, former Honorary Chairman of Hyundai Group of south Korea, moved by his love for the nation and all-embracing politics, dedicated his remaining years to the common prosperity and the reunification of the country.

He warmly embraced many people from various countries who fight for independence, peace and justice.

He used to say that political leaders of socialist countries should be possessed of leading capabilities but, first of all, high virtues of loving their people boundlessly. On his field guidance tour he often called on people’s houses, taking meticulous care of their lives and blessing their children’s future. He even named a baby to be born. And he arranged birthday spread for those who greeted 100^th birthday.

Over sixty unconverted long-term prisoners who had suffered a lot behind bars for dozens of years in south Korea were repatriated to the north, where they could enjoy the most dignified and happiest life in his embrace. Under his care an ordinary woman who had her face burnt while saving treasures of the country from a forest fire was sent to a famous hospital in a foreign country and regained her beauty.

Kim Jong Il dedicated his all for his people and other progressive peoples of the world.

Once he said that sometimes he also felt tired and wanted to have a rest with his family on holidays, he also loves to enjoy the life more than anybody else, but as people is more precious to him than anything else he keeps on his field guidance tour for them without rest, sacrificing his all.

People’s happiness was his greatest pleasure. For the happiness of the people he was always on field guidance tour in the face of sweltering sun and bitter cold. He never hesitated to go down the water-dripping pits of coal mines and walk along rough paddy ridges. He thought of his people even when he was on a visit to foreign countries. It was not fortuitous that Russian presidential chief delegate who accompanied him during his visit to Russia wrote in a book that Chairman Kim Jong Il is the leader who devotes all his thinking and zeal only for the happiness of his people.

In the last years of his life his doctors, concerned about his serious illness, pleaded with him in tears not to carry on field guidance. He said to them: I’m sorry I cannot do what you ask me to; please, do as I ask you to do. Then he left on a field guidance tour.

Thanks to his devoted service socialism has been safeguarded in Korea and a new turning point has been created in the building of a thriving country. And the days have gone once and for all when imperialists threatened Korea with nuclear weapons, and the Korean peninsula and the rest of Northeast Asia have been freed from the danger of nuclear war crisis.

Kim Jong Il’s ennobling life will be remembered forever by the Korean people and other progressive people of the world.