Who is Kim Jong Il?
He may be the most reclusive, enigmatic, unpredictable dictator in the world today. But, just how much does the world really know about Kim Jong Il? The most common images of North Korea’s “Great General” show him looking down on Pyongyang’s main square, saluting, as columns of soldiers and artillery parade through the capital of perhaps the world’s most sealed-off society — a society dominated by Kim’s bizarre personality cult. But there is more to the North Korean leader than this traditional Cold War snapshot. It is difficult to separate fact from fiction when it comes to deconstructing Kim Jong Il — he presides over an impoverished, hermetic country where brainwashing, brutal repression and a fanatical military are very much a part of everyday life. Kim and his government have little contact with the outside world, and few Westerners have visited Pyongyang. Much of the West knows Kim simply as the odd-looking dictator in the Mao suit who seems once again determined to turn his coun
