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KIM JONG IL IN RIGID REBELLION

by Brian Habit

January 1, 2003

In December 2002, North Korea announced that it would reactivate its Yongbyon nuclear power plant, which is capable of producing plutonium to make nuclear bombs. Then the country expelled International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. The U.S. administration soon after chose an isolationist policy towards the North Korean regime, hoping that the international community would stand firm against its nuclear activity. To get some sense of the regime’s current state, let’s look at the natal chart of its leader, Kim Jong Il, and Uranian transits to it. 

Stubborn Independence and Vision

North Korean President Kim Jong Il was born on February 16, 1942 in Khabarovsk, Siberia, USSR, (48 N 32, 135 E 08, time unknown). With the Sun in independent Aquarius and the Moon in imaginative Pisces, Kim has a restless, visionary nature that more conventional people may find out of step or consider hard to follow. An assortment of famous people in acting and other fields share this Sun-Moon combination, as do Huey Newton, who co-founded the militant Blank Panther Party in the United States, and U.S. labor union leader John L. Lewis. Newton was born one day after Kim.

In Kim’s natal chart, most of the planets are in fixed signs. (The only planets that are not in fixed signs are Moon in Pisces, Jupiter in Gemini, and Neptune in Virgo.) With such a preponderance of fixed signs, we could expect a strong-willed, determined, but perhaps very inflexible style of leadership.

Stability Versus Radical Change

Reinforcing the strong will suggested by Kim’s very fixed chart is a tense square aspect between planets in Aquarius and planets in Taurus. This square connects his Aquarian Sun, Mercury and Venus in independent Aquarius with his Mars, Saturn and Uranus in stability-loving Taurus. Kim would need to manage his conflicting interests in stability (Taurus) and radical change (Aquarius) throughout his life.

By way of comparison, U.S. singer-songwriter Carole King, Swiss-American master chef Kurt Wigger, and Black Panther leader Huey Newton all share several chart features with Kim, including Sun in Aquarius squaring Uranus in Taurus and Sun square Saturn. For King, Saturn squaring the Sun seems to have manifest as extreme stage fright, which led her to limit her live performances over the past few decades. In Newton’s case, he expressed the need to struggle against authoritarian structures, first acting in angry, cruel ways as an adolescent, and then continuing to rebel against social order later in life, living fast and dying young. In Wigger’s case, he channeled his creativity (Uranus) into the culinary arts (Taurus), and he channeled some of the restless drive into his bicycling hobby, racing in both the U.S. and Europe.

A Time to Make Adjustments

Revolutionary Uranus is currently triggering the square between Kim’s natal Sun and Uranus. Uranus passed over Kim’s Sun three times, peaking in March, September and December 2002. His individuality has developed to the point that it now clashes with his way of defining who he is. It’s no longer enough form Kim to seek security and stability, to feed his Sun in Taurus. He now needs to redefine himself as a more experimental, innovative, free-spirited person. If Kim responds to this challenge effectively, then he carves out a niche in which he can express his vitality and unique creativity within society. If he blows this transit, then he runs rampant, acting in provocative, rigidly contrary ways. 

Uranus is also squaring off with his natal position in Kim’s chart. First exact in March and August 2002, this aspect will be exact once more in January 2003. We all experience this transit around the age of 63. If we reached a peak in the process of developing our individuality earlier, when Uranus opposed his natal position and we were roughly 42 years old, then this signals a time to adapt to meet our changing needs as we look toward the future. If we made a new start around that age, then this marks a time to either prevail during a period of testing or to correct our course, if we have been off track in this process.

In either case, our expression of individuality clashes with society. We somehow face the issue of what value our uniqueness has among other people. It’s time to adjust how we approach our individuality, so that we continue to act independently of what might win us social approval. If we make a strong respond, then we find new, creative ways to express your particular gifts, ways that will resonate with the beat of our inner drum.

During Kim’s Uranian opposition in October 1980, he was named to the inner circle of the Political Bureau and the ruling Korean Workers Party’s military affairs committee. This made his status official as then-leader Kim Il Sung’s right-hand man, and it helped pave the way for him to succeed Kim Il Sung (his father) as national leader upon the elder Kim’s death in 1994. The younger Kim seems to have reached a peak during his Uranian opposition, so in 2002 and early 2003, he would do well to make major adjustments in his leadership style to accommodate his need for greater personal freedom. However, given his natural fixity of purpose, Kim may not make such an adjustment willingly or easily.

© Brian Habit - The Proud Phoenix, 2004
(All Rights Reserved)

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