Collective mourning is a shared experience of grief that occurs within a group of people in response to a significant loss. It is a reaction that unites people through death, whether it be a community, region or entire nation, collective mourning is powerful and often brings out a kind of hysteria that is not very common within society.
There are lots of different examples of collective mourning that have occurred in the world, and not all involve the death of just one person, for example 9/11 saw a huge response of collective grief. However, for this project I am interested in looking at the reactions different communities have to the death of one important person.
The first example I am looking at is North Korea’s public reaction to the death of Kim Jong Il, the second supreme leader of North Korea, he ruled for 17 years from 1994 to 2011.
North Korea had an incredibly intense public grieving period, one that was filled with hysteria and horror on a mass level. The North Korean regime commemorated his death with elaborately choreographed ceremonies broadcast on state-run media.When I first saw the videos of the public’s reactions I was rather shocked, it was the noises that were being produced that caught me out. These were types of cries and screams that I had never heard in such large numbers before.
The death of Kim Jon Il was sudden and came as a surprise to everyone, he died on December 17 2011, age 70, from a heart attack he suffered on board a train. His death was announced in an emotional statement on national television, even the women announcing the news struggled to keep back the tears. A period of national mourning was declared from December 17 to 29. This national mourning process was compulsive, and I have found multiple sources stating if you did not attend you would have been punished. This mandatory grieving of course makes for a change in the way people react as it becomes a forced process rather than a natural one, forced out of fear. This factor alone holds responsibility for a huge part of the reasoning behind North Korea’s collective mourning, however it is not the sole root of the response. I am also not 100% certain on how this compulsion worked, if it was put in place, as there aren’t many sources talking specifically about it, this is something North Korea wouldn’t want outsider countries to necessarily know about, and so information is limited.
It is impossible to know the root of each individual emotional response, but I can confidently say that affective contagion definitely comes into play surrounding their collective mourning. (Referring back to previous blog post.)
This reaction is an amalgamation of different emotions, some of which are undoubtedly very common in response to death, however, there are many properties that group together to form this level of response.
It is not surprising that the North Koreans reacted in the way they did, as every individuals life revolves around their leader. They’re taught through their films, songs, posters, even in their school curriculum, that the Kim family are these almost spiritual figures who are there to act as protectors and saviours for their citizens. Their leader is pushed upon them as THE most important aspect of life, and so of course if you have grown up with these principles, then, although it be through manipulation and propaganda, you would feel distraught when he dies.
The lack of exposure and education to any kind of other life and world also contributes to the intensity of their response. There are no alternative narratives to the one they’re fed from birth and without the awareness of outsider information it is easy to believe what is in front of you, easy to believe that your leader is responsible for your very survival.
This responsibility also links the traumas that North Korea have lived through, such as the 1990s North Korean famine, the Korean War and intense ongoing poverty. Propaganda relentlessly frames the Kim leaders as the ‘hero’, stating he protects the country from external enemies, that he suffers for the people, essentially painting him as a symbol of survival.
I think there is also a level of fear that is feeding into the hysteria, a fear of the now unknown and next chapter that is going to infiltrate these peoples lives. Kim Jon Il reigned for 17 years, and his absence creates a new tension to arise, people are facing a future they have no control over, heightening the panic that fuels the collective hysteria. Change throughout any culture is something people struggle with, but a change that you have no influence, choice or power over makes it incredibly scary. Your life is being put into someone else’s hands entirely.
I will say however, coming from an outside perspective, especially a western one, I am aware it is incredibly hard to try understand the emotional response of North Korean society. I live a hugely different life in which I have shaped my perspectives and beliefs on the world out of my own free will. A choice North Koreans are never given. It becomes difficult to empathise as we have such different perspectives on life. And as I continue to dive into this subject matter I am aware of how this barrier can cause ethical questions, however, I am not picking apart their emotional mechanisms to judge and point out the differences, rather I am doing it to compare to other communities whom have grown up with contrasting values. Hopefully being able to show that no matter the cultural differences, people remain the same emotionally, especially in response to death.
So far I haven’t even mentioned the media’s influence on North Korea’s public response to the death. This is a crucial aspect in shaping an emotional response and one that hold a significant amount of power.
Media coverage is so highly controlled in North Korea, it functions entirely as a section of the state. There is no independent journalism or private media companies, and every newspaper, television channel, radio broadcast, and online platform is controlled by the government, all the content shown is produced to reinforce loyalty to the leading Kim family and the ideology of ‘Juche’ (North Korea’s state ideology meaning self-reliance).This makes citizens much more malleable, as our everyday media intake really influences who we are as a person, it is a tool used world-wide to manipulate and influence viewers.
Media teaches certain behaviours, and when in charge of media coverage it becomes a choreographed job to ensure you’re feeding your viewers with the correct message. In the case of the death, not only was the media used to produce a desired reaction but also to continually reinforce it in the days that followed the death. This drove the hysteric atmosphere that ruled over North Korea during the entire mourning period. The first images to be broadcast after Kim Jon Il’s death showed the crowds of people crying, screaming, and shaking in response. These scenes were reported to be continuously repeated across television and radio, functioning as a kind of ideal, appropriate emotional expression. Through watching others grieve, citizens learned and understood exactly what reaction was expected of them, and this created a kind of ritualised, collective behaviour of what it meant to mourn.
This kind of puppetry is one intense way in which media can interfere with a national reaction to death, intervening in the organic patterns of emotional contagion. It is able to create this un-natural, performative display from citizens, that through various means is able to manipulate on a mass scale. This is one example of the impact media coverage, of the mourning event itself, is able to have on people however I think media is also able to shape and pre-engineer a crowd’s reaction before the event has occurred. This kind os mass control is more common then we are really conscious of, especially now as everybody uses the internet on a daily bases, cookies are constantly being used to analyse patterns and behaviours of the brain.