Kim Jong-un (Photo courtesy: North Korean community in Qatar)
DOHA: North Koreans in Qatar are a low-profile expatriate community. They hardly hold any community event or get-together. They may be in hundreds presently, but their number is expected to multiply over time since they are good construction hands and Qatar is gradually witnessing increasing building activity in an excited run-up to the 2022 FIFA event.
However, this time around, some in the community quietly marked a year of their country’s young leader, Kim Jong-un’s ascension to power. Jong-un took over reigns after his father, Kim Jong-il, died of a heart attack on December 17 last year.
Jong-un may be an enigma for many countries and people around the world, but community sources here swear he is very dear to his people and quite popular. “He visits homes, factories, kindergartens, universities and hospitals regularly, and mixes up with people and embraces them. People love him,” said a community source.
Community sources say they believe the western media are biased and claim that Aljazeera English Channel is watched with interest in their country.
Education, healthcare and housing are free in North Korea. “All we pay is for electricity and water,” said the source.
Asked if there is widespread poverty in their home country, community sources blame the western media again and insist: “It’s a malicious propaganda… People are neither rich nor poor. Ours is a socialist state.”
Some in the community issued a press statement on the occasion of Jong-un having completed a year in office as ‘supreme leader’ which reads: “The youngest (world) leader who has attracted the greatest world attention in the shortest span of time”.
Jong-un was put on the cover of Time magazine in one of its February 2012 issues, said the release, adding that the news item (of the young leader succeeding his father) appearing in the international English press alone totalled a whopping 67.4 million in 10 days after his ascension.
About the recent satellite launch back at home, community sources said it was indigenously-built for agricultural purposes and to know North Korea’s mineral wealth and gold deposits under its soil. “This was the third satellite launch in less than 10 years and it shows North Korea’s technological prowess. We have great scientists among us,” said the source.
The community has good things to say about South Koreans. “They are our blood brothers. We were one nation for 5,000 years,” is what one hears from them. One North Korean, who is here since 2010, said that he had so far met 15 to 20 South Koreans in the street or while shopping and had felt very excited.
“We can place fellow Koreans easily. I stop when I see one and we talk. We feel very happy and excited,” said the Korean on grounds of anonymity.
The nearest North Korean embassy is in Kuwait. Direct flights to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital city, is from Kuwait, or (from Doha) one must travel via Beijing.
The Peninsula
