Dictators Whims

Reports said that in February 2022, Kim Jong-un, North Korea's hereditary king in all but name .....

Kimjongilia Flowers - North Korean
Penal Camp For Not Growing Them.

..... had a 50 year old palace gardener named 'Han', sentenced to a harsh labour work-camp prison for 6 months, due to the poor man not being able to force a flower to bloom in time for a special festival.

The festival marks the February 16th birthday of former North Korean state leader Kim Jong_il, and is celebrated as the 'Day of the Shining Star' with the streets decorated with the Kimjongilia flowers. The flowers are a specialised begonia hybrid, that was bred by Japanese botanist Mototeru Kamo in 1988 to celebrate Kim Jong-il's 46th birthday. Since then, it has been used for some official occasions, and is referred to as the “immortal flower.”

However in 2022, it had been decided to celebrate both the 'Day of the Shining Star' and the February 15th 'Day of the Sun,' which is the holiday celebrating state founding father Kim Il Sung’s birthday, on a “grand scale.” Hence the emphasis on the requirement for the flowers to be produced in numbers (as well as the Kimilsungia ... named after the founder).

Not content with this harsh punishment of one gardener, Kim also had another man, identified as 'Choi', punished as well. But the 40 something year old, was only sentenced to three months in the camps. His crime was of not having adequately controlled the temperature in the greenhouse. While it was also reported that other employees had also been punished. One, a flower grower surnamed Kim (said to be in her 40's), was called in everyday to the county party committee, to report on the state of the flowers and then to write self-criticism reports.

But it was reported in South Korea, that actually neither of the men, nor the woman, was really responsible for the horticultural mishap. The greenhouse concerned was only left cold (along with many others across the country), because of the extreme scarcity of the firewood that was required to heat the antiquated greenhouse. As a result, the greenhouse was left too cold and damp to force the immortal flowers to bloom.

According to the reports, the firewood shortage (like all the other shortages in that benighted land), was due to North Korea's usual dire economic situation being exacerbated by the then total state lockdown, being in place to prevent Covid rampaging through a population weakened by constant famines (with people eating grass during some of them).

None of the senior officials involved were held accountable in this case. The North Korean ruler is notorious for his absurd bans and extremely cruel punishments. For instance, to mark the 10th anniversary of his fathers passing in December 2021, North Koreans were also forced to observe 11 days of mourning, during which laughing and drinking alcohol were prohibited, and punishable by cruel sentences.

This must be, alongside a few Islamic hell-holes such as Iran and Afghanistan, one of the most terrible countries in the world to be living in ... it makes me shudder just thinking about it. The worst of it is that like all the other hell holes, there simply seems to be no way for the people to ever escape the regimes grip, such is the level of state control and the terror it evokes in its people. 

Indeed a UN commission in 2014 said of North Korea, that it is a brutal state “that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.” ... it hasn't gotten any better since.