Kim Jong-Il (1941[?]-2011), Václav Havel (1936-2011)

by Ken

It's grotesque to put Kim Jong-Il and Václav Havel in the same title box, I know. All the more so since one is one of the great men to have touched my existence, while the other was . . . well, something else.

I'm going to write about Havel, probably tomorrow. I've brushed off my copy of Disturbing the Peace, the book conceived and executed as a conversation with Havel's friend the expatriate Czech journalist Karel Hvizdala (then living in West Germany) in 1985-86, when what became the Velvet Revolution was still a glimmer in the eyes of the Charter 77 activists who had organized slowly in the aftermath of the brutal Soviet repression of the Prague Spring of 1968, and was published in samizdat form in Czechoslovakia in 1986, but didn't appear in English until 1990, when the revolution had been accomplished and Havel the playwright and activist was president of the country.

It's a measure of the hold the book had over me that even after 10-plus years, including two moves, despite my dread at having to go search for it, when I went to look this morning, I found it in about 30 seconds. On the subway this morning I started looking at it again, and it didn't take long to reexperience what I had experienced 20 years ago. I want to share some of that, probably tomorrow.

As for Kim Jong-Il, well, "something else" is about the best description I can think of. What is there to say about a man who thought that the accident of his birth entitled him to wage war on his country's suffering people? Luckily, Andy Borowitz has once again come to the rescue.

Trump To Run For President Of North Korea

Promises Continuity of Leadership

PYONGYANG (The Borowitz Report) – Within hours of the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il, real estate mogul Donald Trump roiled the political situation in that Stalinist country by announcing that he would run for its presidency.

“Kim Jong-Il ruled North Korea as the egomaniacal leader of a personality cult,” Mr. Trump told reporters en route to Pyongyang. “I can offer continuity of leadership.”

But Mr. Trump’s bid may be complicated by reports that, despite his death, the mercurial Kim plans to remain in power until 2024.

“He intended to rule North Korea until 2028,” said one North Korean government source. “His death moves up that timetable a bit.”

In Pyongyang, North Koreans officially marked the death of Kim by having their first meal in thirty years.

Officials said that in accordance with the dictator’s wishes, Kim will be strapped to a nuclear weapon and buried in South Korea.

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