Hot-headed North Korean protests over disrespectful portrayals of their leaders are hardly a new phenomenon. In a world where even an online meme could be taken as a slight against its “supreme dignity”, even Pyongyang’s only formal ally, China, has been subject to censorship demands. So, to understand why The Interview has triggered such a strong and sustained rhetorical response from the North Koreans — who called it an “act of war” — it pays to look back at a history strewn with assassination attempts.
North Koreans believe the west has long been seized with the desire to assassinate the Kims or put them in the dock for war crimes. Someone rolled a grenade at Kim Il Sung, grandfather of present leader Kim Jong Un, soon after he arrived in Pyongyang from exile in the Soviet Union in 1945; even today, state media extols a Russian who saved the young leader’s life. The Americans tried to kill the original North Korean dictator with huge bombs nicknamed “Tarzan” in 1950, having received intelligence about his whereabouts in the country’s extreme north. About a decade ago, Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung and father of the current leader, escaped a huge explosion on a train journey to the northwest of his country; and he went underground for weeks on end while the US was trying to “decapitate” the Iraqi leadership with bunker-busting munitions in 2003.
Kim Jong Un surely knows he is unlikely to be ousted by the ballot — virtually impossible for a man “elected” with more than 99 per cent of the vote — but may yet be removed by the bullet. Just a year ago, state media practically ruptured with venom at an attempted coup within the royal family. Kim Jong Un has been needled for not yet undertaking any state visits, but he barely even travels in his own country, preferring the security of Pyongyang with its deep tunnels dug during the pounding of the capital during the Korean war.