““European who served for many years as a diplomat in Pyongyang, with postings there off and on from the 1970s into the 1990s, likened North Korea to a Catholic state in the Middle Ages. He estimated that around 90 percent really believed in the regime and its teachings—while the other 10 percent had no choice but to pretend that they believed. As opposed to other communist countries, where jokes about leaders such as the Soviet Union’s Brezhnev and East Germany’s Erich Honecker were a staple of conversation, there were no jokes about Kim Il-sung or Kim Jong-il, the diplomat said.””
