Day of the Shining Star

Dermot Hudson opening the KFA meeting on Saturday

 by New Worker  correspondent

Friends of the Korean revolution celebrated the 75^th anniversary of the birth of dear leader Kim Jong Il at meetings across London last week, including a joint Korean Friendship Association (KFA)/Juche Study Group meeting on Saturday 11^th February followed by a reception at the London embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) that same evening, and a Friends of Korea meeting at the John Buckle Centre on Monday 13^th February.

            Comrades joined the Korean people in celebrating  Kim Jong Il’s birthday, which has long been known as the Day of the Shining Star in the DPRK, and tributes to the Korean leader’s life and times were made at all three events.

New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks joined diplomats and many others actively involved in solidarity with Democratic Korea across the country for the reception to mark the Day of the Shining Star at the DPRK embassy in London. The new DPRK ambassador, Choe Il, paid tribute to Kim Jong Il’s the outstanding contribution to the Korean revolution and the world communist movement, and Dermot Hudson from the KFA spoke about the dear leader’s contribution to the Juche Idea.

Dermot Hudson and Choe Il at the reception

  Prof Dr Harish Gupta, the director general of the International Institute of the Juche Idea and head of the Asian Regional Institute for the Study of the Juche Idea, spoke at the KFA event and Michael Chant, the general secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (ML) and John McLeod of the Socialist Labour Party both spoke highly of Kim Jong Il’s revolutionary role on Monday.

Choe Il and Michael Chant

Kim Jong Il steered the DPRK through the difficult times that followed the death of great leader Kim Il Sung in 1994. He devoted his entire life to serving the Korean people in the cause of building a human-centred society, a cause that is espoused by the democratic and anti-imperialist forces the world over. He followed the footsteps of great leader Kim Il Sung in leading the country into the 21^st century and died at his post on 17^th December 2011.
       Now the torch has passed to Kim Jong Un, and under his leadership the DPRK has made giant strides in science and technology over the past few weeks with the test of a thermo-nuclear bomb and the successful launch of a satellite into space.