Pyongyang`s palace of shame

North Korea turned into a massive funeral hall for its late leader Kim Jong Il on Wednesday. Countless people and soldiers saw him off amid a snow flurry and biting wind. This is apparently the reenactment of the funeral of the North`s founder Kim Il Sung 17 years ago.

Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il ruled the country for a combined 66 years and turned it into one of the poorest counties on earth that lives on international aid. North Koreans at Wednesday`s funeral sobbed in front of cameras, but few of them are probably sad that Kim Jong Il is dead. Unlike the country`s ruling elite, top military brass and privileged residents in Pyongyang, the starving and ragged people in North Korea`s provinces likely have other emotions instead of sadness over the death of their dictator who failed to provide them with basic necessities.

Kim Jong Il was buried next to his father at Kumsusan Memorial Palace. The memorial hall was built with the sacrifice of starving North Koreans. The official residence of Kim Il Sung, which was built at a cost of 1 U.S. billion dollars in 1977, was turned into the world`s largest and most luxurious grave after his death. 200 million dollars were poured into the renovation work. The grievances by North Koreans over this were well-described by the poem "Palace" written by North Korean defector-turned-poet Jang Jin-seong, reading, "The palace/Is not for the living/ The pouring of millions of dollars is not to earn billions of dollars/To bury a person/While three million people are starving to death/Standing splendidly/Rising high/Everybody/Mournfully looks at/The grave of three million people."

On the surface, Kim Jong Un seems to have smoothly succeeded to the throne by holding the funeral 11 days after his father`s death. With Kim Jong Un`s uncle Jang Sung Taek helping him, the confusion stemming from his father`s death is likely to be overcome without creating social unrest. Kim Jong Un will declare the advent of the insubstantial "great and powerful nation" on April 15, which is Kim Il Sung`s centennial birthday, but the new leader is reminiscent of Puyi, the last emperor of China`s Qing Dynasty. The Rodong Sinmun, the official daily of the North Korean Workers` Party, said Kim Jong Il`s greatest legacy was the development of nuclear weapons. If Kim Jong Un sticks to his father`s policies, the collapse of North Korea will come much earlier than expected.

After Saddam Hussein was overthrown as Iraq`s leader, his people took to the streets, knocked his statue down, and dragged the head of the statue through the streets. In this sense, the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who ordered the violent suppression of demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in 1989, was thinking ahead when he asked that his body be cremated and his ashes scattered at sea. When freedom and democracy come to North Korea, angry North Koreans will swarm into the memorial palace.