Jonathan Cheng
speaker
201 appearances
3 recordings
2 series
first heard Dec 2025
last heard 1 Jun
Jonathan Cheng’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
He did try to set himself up as a figure who, if you were loyal to him, if you went even further and you put your trust, you put your faith, you gave your life for him, you could attain some measure of transcendence, some measure of immortality.
through him and you see this cosmology, this kind of theology develop over the decades because he did rule North Korea for a very long time and he creates this cosmology where all ritual, all belief, all of life revolves around him
And of course, when he died, unlike Mao, unlike Stalin, he didn't have a successor who came along and tried to repudiate some of his own legacy.
Kim Il Sung, of course, handed off power to his son, Kim Jong Il, who then handed off power to his son, Kim Jong Un.
And so in a certain sense, Kim Il Sung himself
attained a measure of immortality because after he died in 1994, the state rewrote its constitution to make him the eternal president of North Korea.
So even today, more than 30 years after he died, he is still, in essence, the leader of North Korea.
He is still eternal and he is still among his people in his own way.
I think it's certainly driven to a large extent by repression, by fear, because North Koreans don't really have a choice.
If you're to keep your head on your shoulders, you're going to engage in the rituals of Kim Il-sungism.
You are going to wake up and the first thing you're going to do is you're going to go to your living room and you're going to use a state-issued duster to carefully dust the portraits of Kim Il-sung and his son, Kim Jong-il, that you have on your wall.
When you have your graduation day, your wedding day, New Year's Day, you're going to go to the nearest statue of Kim Il-sung, and you're going to present a bouquet of flowers, and you're going to bow before that statue, because that's what every North Korean is expected to do every day.
You're going to memorize his words.
You're going to sing his praises, literally.
This is what it means to be North Korean.
And so, is there much of a choice?
I would say no, there is no choice.
But on the other hand, does it become real?
I would say that after 80 plus years of this one system, without any loosening, without any relaxation in the ideology, for many people, if you're younger than 80 years old and you're North Korean, this is all you've ever known.
This is your reality.
Showing 61–80 of 201 · page 4 of 11
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