North Korea orders citizens to read 10,000 pages of propaganda this year

North Korea is ordering citizens to read 10,000 pages of propaganda this year to build loyalty among the population and combat South Korea’s “reactionary” popular culture, but sources told Radio Free Asia that people know that the government wants to brainwash them.

The 10,000-page read-out campaign is a repeat of a 1960s policy enacted by leader Kim Jong Un’s father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, who at the time was a senior government official when his father, Kim Il Sung, ruled the country.

The sources said the 2023 reading campaign is also meant to counter South Korean movies, TV shows and music being smuggled into the country on memory cards and other devices.

The authorities have imposed punishmentsincluding the public executionsfor distributing or viewing South Korean media, which is ridiculed by the ruling Korean Workers’ Party as examples of “reactionary thought and culture.”

Workers at the factory in South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, were told to focus on texts such as Kim Jong Un’s speeches and transcripts of party plenary meetings, a source in the province said. to Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“They have to write down what they read every day and present it to the party organization at the end of the year,” he said, adding that the 10,000-page reading campaign is the government’s strategy to rearm the people with the socialist ideology.

“All the workers say that the books in North Korea are nothing more than propaganda that our great leader is the best, so we are not interested in reading them,” the source said. “If books were as fun to read as South Korean movies, wouldn’t we be reading them all night?”

In North Pyongan province, members of the Socialist Women’s Union were told to read published works by current or former leaders, or novels with a socialist message, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity for speak freely.

“The purpose of the 10,000-page reading campaign is not simply to achieve the exact number of pages, but to build mental food to prepare politically and ideologically,” he explained.

People were told to read at least 30 pages every day and to keep personal reading journals, summarizing key feelings and thoughts from what they read. The diaries must be reviewed by the party organization at the end of the year.

The campaign is aimed at “eradicating the reactionary thought and culture left in the minds of residents and youth, and rearming residents with the party ideology,” he said. “But who wants to read ten thousand pages of a North Korean book that is all about praising the leader?”

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.