North Korea has enacted new legislation governing its national anthem and quickly organized mandatory training sessions for officials on the law. Authorities distributed lecture materials explaining the purpose and background of the law, and official study sessions began on Oct. 26.
According to a source in South Pyongan province, the Anju Party Committee held a lecture for its officials’ study group on the morning of Oct. 26.
According to the source, the lecturer said that the passage of the new law “redefined the national image and embodied the political significance of instilling a concept of state and public patriotism.”
The lecturer also explained that the symbolic notions of “unification” and “ethnic nation” had been excluded from national law and stressed that “relations between the north and the south are defined as two different states.”
In particular, the lecturer said, “We want to strengthen our status as a nuclear state and (build) awareness of our independent existence in the international community,” urging officials never to use the term “North-South” again.
In addition, the lecturer said the latest law is aimed at “rallying the people more firmly around Comrade Kim Jong Un with one mind and one goal, unified in the determination to put our state first.” He said that “the era in which putting the ethnic nation first has turned into putting the state first has already come a long way, and we must strengthen the identity of putting the state above the ethnic nation.”
He continued: “We must never allow our class resolve against our enemies to be blurred by prioritizing our independent existence over a meaningless unification and pass on our perpetual state — not North and South — to our descendants. Our nation and South Korea are clearly two different states and we must achieve unity and solidarity with the Workers’ Party and the leader, not unification between North and South.”
The lecturer called on officials to “work to intensify public ideological indoctrination so that all people erase from their minds the understanding of North and South as one people and support and perpetuate the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and come to understand South Korea as a foreign nation and enemy state.”
Earlier on Oct. 25, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported that the 33rd Plenary Session of the Standing Committee of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly had met the previous day at the Mansudae Hall in Pyongyang and passed a “national anthem law.”
The report did not disclose the specifics of the law, but the legislation likely includes regulations that entirely erase the concepts of unification and ethnic nationhood in line with Kim Jong Un’s “two hostile states” theory.
North Korea had already erased the phrase “3,000 ri” – a reference to the entire Korean Peninsula – from its national anthem. Accordingly, the line “My beautiful homeland of 3,000 ri” was changed to “This world, my beautiful homeland.”
Daily NK works with a network of sources in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. For security reasons, their identities remain anonymous.
Please send any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
November 04, 2024 at 07:00AM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)