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Ministry of State Security (the secret police).
    Director Im came to meet me at the door. His piercing gaze and countenance suggested that he indeed had authority over all matters related to South Korea and to the external presentation of North Korea, as the representative of Kim Jong-il. However, perhaps he was dumbfounded by the situation he found himself in, assigning such a critical task to an inexperienced young man, or perhaps he was just at a loss for words. He wiped his wide forehead, mustered all the concern he could gather into his deep wrinkles, and made it clear, in his long-winded way, that this task was not one he was assigninglightly. Then he suddenly stood to attention, saying with utmost conviction: ‘Now the General’s order will be communicated.’
    Whenever Kim’s words are disseminated in an order, letter or certificate of appreciation, the speaker must stand to attention and make sure his appearance is properly respectful, that his uniform is impeccable and that all his shirt buttons are done up properly. Loyalty to Kim Jong-il had to be demonstrated even in the smallest action as well as through one’s overall attitude. As Director Im stood to attention, I instinctively did the same, waiting for his next words.
    ‘The General has issued an order for an epic poem to be used in the conducting of psychological warfare,’ he continued. ‘This work must promote the notion that our
Songun
policy has been formulated to protect South Korea. The United Front Department assigns this operation to Comrade Kim Kyong-min,’ he said, using my assumed South Korean name.
    Director Im looked as if he were about to continue speaking, but paused when he noticed that I was biting my lip in consternation. The
Songun
or ‘Military-First’ policy was supposed to unify the entire Korean peninsula under Kim Jong-il through the superior might of our military force, and to defend our Socialism. I now had to write a poem based on the premise that such a policy
protected
the South. Without realising it, I had grimaced at the evident impossibility of such a task. Director Im assumed a severe expression, but seemed to be at a loss for further words. ‘You have two months,’ he said, and the meeting was over.
    It was mid-December 1998. From that day on, I worked round the clock on the task that had been assigned to me. The basic argument was straightforward: it was my job to praise Kim Jong-il as the master of the gun, the bringer of justice and the People’s Lord who knew only victory. But the essence of the task was to find evidence for these truths and shape them into a literary form. To help me accomplishthis, I spent an entire month reading South Korean literature, identifying themes that supported the argument I was to expound.
    I decided on a comparison of South Korea’s
Mangwoldong Memorial for the Martyrs of Democracy
with North Korea’s
Sinmiri Memorial for Revolutionary Martyrs
, with a pun linking
Gukgun
(the name of South Korea’s National Army) and
Songun
(the Military-First policy of North Korea). This allowed me to compare South and North as two sides of the same coin: while the democratic martyrs of South Korea had been killed by the bullets of their
Gukgun
, the revolutionary martyrs of North Korea would be looked after even in their afterlife by our policy of
Songun
. My poem portrayed South Korea’s military as aggressive, and that of North Korea as concerned solely with defending the Korean people. When I submitted my proposal, Director Im and the other UFD officials heaped praise on the approach I had chosen.
    On 16 May 1961, a military coup ended civilian rule in South Korea and ushered in the military dictatorship of Park Chung-hee. His long rule of eighteen years was ended by his assassination by an associate, but in the instability that followed, Cheon Doo-hwan positioned himself as the new military dictator. In this way, the divided peninsula was ruled by a military dictator not only in North