NORTH KOREA will go back in time on August 15th, turning back its clocks by half an hour to establish its own time zone. It seems appropriate for a country that venerates its past: the hermit kingdom already has its own calendar, with years counted from 1912, the birth year of its founder and “eternal president”, Kim Il Sung. Its time-travelling is the latest example of a long tradition of expressing political power by adjusting clocks and calendars. Doing so alters a fundamental aspect of daily life, literally at a stroke. And what better illustration could there be of a ruler’s might than control over time itself?
Not all such changes stand the test of time: think of France’s failed attempt to introduce a ten-hour clock and an entirely new calendar after the revolution of 1789, to emphasise the break with its monarchist past, or the Soviet Union’s experiments with five- and six-day weeks during the 1930s. But those changes that do...
from The Economist: Leaders http://ift.tt/1JeTfUh
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