Juche Food February 24, 2019 Jed Lea-Henry In the centre of Pyongyang, as a monument to the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, stands the Juche Tower – a 150 metre high red flame, reaching into the sky. But, as it now hangs gangrenously from its Songun host, Juche, as an ideology, is dead! And just as with the communist insignia before it, the tower will likely be removed at some future date, in the dead of night, never to be spoken of again. Now all the talk is of ‘military first’ – of leering enemies, looming conflicts, missile launches, nuclear tests, and threats of war. And it has to be. It is the last thing that justifies the lingering scarcity, the daily suffering, and the memory of the famine – it is the only thing keeping the regime alive.