The Olympics of the absurd

Photo AFP
Kim Yo-jong

Nathalie Elgrably-Lévy

Friday, 16 February 2018 05:00

UPDATE
Friday, 16 February 2018 05:00

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The olympic Games 2018 will make history. While the athletes attempted to give life to their hopes, the looks were turned to Kim Yo-jong, the sister of the dictator of north korea, Kim Jong-un, on a visit to Pyeongchang.

Operation charm has been a phenomenal success. A few appearances ago, Ms. Kim has captivated the world’s press, which has presented North Korea in its best light and put the emphasis on the smile and the beauty of its representative.

Smile

Find the speed at which some in the media are losing the critical spirit in front of a smile, even a cold, is baffling.

However, the circumstances called for extreme caution.

In addition, Ms. Kim is the director of the Propaganda department, and in charge of the personality cult of the north Korean leader. His government has organized a military parade on the eve of the olympics to show off its artillery, and remind the planet of its ambitions ballistic and nuclear. There are only a few weeks, Kim Jong‐un was threatening openly in the United States and South Korea of a nuclear attack. Not to mention that North Korea is an authoritarian regime that tyrannizes and starve its population.

In this context, any trivialization, or even the “standardisation” of the north Korean regime is repulsive. As charming as it may be, Ms. Kim, to overlook the megalomania of his brother and the threat that it represents, it is endorsing a government that cultivates the art of defiance, and it is to abandon to their sad fate of the victims of one of the worst dictatorships in modern history.

Mastery

The competitions are not ended, but Ms. Kim is already the big winner of the Games to Pyeongchang. With consummate skill, she won the gold medal of the propaganda. In front of such a feat, she and her brother are certainly hilarious. A pity that all these commentators blissfully in front of Mrs. Kim not know that they are the turkeys of the farce.