What would North Koreans make of Park Geun-hye's inauguration?

Today was Park Geun-hye’s inauguration day, as she was sworn in as the first female president and 18th president of South Korea. The ceremony and speech were broadcast live throughout the world; what would North Koreans make of it if they had watched it? We talked to North Koreans in exile to find out.

What’s an Inauguration?

Hwang Soon-bok*, 58 years old, left North Korea in 2009. She told us, “The fact that there was an inauguration ceremony at all was shocking. That word, inauguration, it doesn’t exist in North Korean. When senior Party officials take office, they just get appointed from above and there is no such thing as an inauguration. If there was, the responsible parties would be fired for worshiping someone other than the ruling Kim. Nevertheless, we have something called an ‘installation’ (chudae) in North Korea. When Kim Jong-il was promoted to become the Chair of the National Defence Commission, ‘installation’ ceremonies took place throughout the nation. It was announced that his installation was the desire of all  Korean people, as well as being his father Kim Il-sung’s final wish. The same thing happened when Kim Jong-un took on the hereditary succession from his father Kim Jong-il.”

An Oath of Loyalty

Kim Young-chul*, 43 years old, left North Korea in 2002. He watched both the 16th and 17th South Korean presidential inaugurations on television. He told us, “The most amazing thing about the presidential inaugurations was that the president held a hand up and swore an oath in front of the people. In North Korea, only the people swear an oath in that way. I never thought an oath could be anything other than swearing an oath of loyalty to the ruler, and I didn’t think it was possible that the ruler could swear an oath of loyalty in front of the people. As I watched the South Korean presidents being sworn into office, I felt how the ‘ruler’ in South Korea was merely an individual in society who had been invested with a special responsibility, rather than someone inherently above the people. That moved me very much.”

Foreign Dignitaries Here and There

Kim Sun-mi*, 36 years old, told us of the inauguration, “What I noticed especially here in South Korea was how many foreign dignitaries came to attend the inauguration ceremony. In North Korea, there will maybe be one or two such foreigners attending a state event. Even so, the state media talk as if the whole world has sent foreign dignitaries to attend our state events. In North Korea, we were taught that Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il were world leaders, at the vanguard of a revolution of international proportions. When I saw how many foreign dignitaries came to attend the South Korean presidential inauguration, it really hit me that South Korea’s head of state was more international. Actually, more than how the South Korean presidential inauguration was attended by many foreign dignitaries, it was striking how this fact was not so big a deal for South Koreans.”

A Captive Audience

Choi Hyong-man, 54 yers old, said he has attended a state event where Kim Jong-il was present, while living in North Korea. He told us what it felt like to be invited to the inauguration ceremony of former South Korean president Lee Myung-bak. “In North Korea, for any state event where Kim Jong-il would attend, preparations started more than six months in advance. If the event started at 10 AM, the hundreds of thousands of audience members had to arrive to the location the night before and spend the night on-site. However many people there may be in the audience, the Ministry of State Security must check the identity of each attendee. Once the checks are done, no one may leave the site. When I attended the presidential inauguration of Lee Myung-bak, even the security checks at the entrance seemed very lax. Once you were in, you could go to the toilet, take pictures or even talk and laugh. This felt really disrespectful. Even during the inauguration ceremony itself, people would look at their watches, complain that it was cold or blow their noses. If they’d done any of those things in North Korea, they would have been arrested immediately.”

Attendance is Key

Another North Korean in exile told us how strange it was that some South Koreans didn’t watch the inauguration at all. Even stranger was how some were watching other kinds of television programming. In North Korea, when a state event attended by the ruling Kim is broadcast on television, everyone must watch the event at work. Even those who are not actually attending the event and are watching the proceedings on television must dress smartly and put on a respectful attitude. Those who are absent or chat during the course of the event will face punishment.