Poet fights to correct past wrongs

Kim Chi-ha during an interview on Oct. 14 in Wonju, Gangwon Province / Korea Times

By Kang Hyun-kyung

WONJU, Gangwon Province — Poet Kim Chi-ha, 74, was painted by the spy agency in the 1970s as a communist who allegedly worked with like-minded North Korea followers to overthrow the South Korean government.

Ironically, Kim is now facing criticism from within. Progressive intellectuals have portrayed him as a traitor who is trying to curry favor with the conservative Park Geun-hye government.

Kim's alleged zigzagging raises questions about which side he belongs to. Critics argue that he has converted from a progressive to a conservative.

Kim said that such questions miss the point.

"Defining one's political orientation is not as simple as saying you lean to the left or the right," he told The Korea Times during an in interview on Oct. 14 in the city of Wonju, northeast of Seoul. "There is a lot in the political spectrum between the two extremes."

Kim, also a painter, said his father, the late Kim Maeng-mo, is an exemplary figure whose political orientation was wrongfully depicted. The younger Kim claimed his father was a member of the homegrown party, Gongsaeng or Common Prosperity, and was not a communist. According to him, the now-defunct party, which goes back to the Goryeo Dynasty, sought mutually beneficial social and economic progress between the haves and the have-nots.

Although the minor political group had some similarities with the Workers' Party of South Korea, which had existed for three years in the 1940s after the country was freed from Japan after the end of World War II, he noted that the two were different groups.

Kim Chi-ha's "Five Bandits" poem and cartoon depict corporate leaders, politicians, military generals, Cabinet ministers and deputy ministers as five enemy groups of the Korean public.

According to him, the workers' party was directed by the Communist International in the former Soviet Union and thus it was a foreign-born idea.

Hundreds of thousands Gongsaeng members were killed in the late 1940s during the government's crackdown on communist forces, Kim said.

"Self-serving communists, who once considered Gongsaeng members their collaborators, used them and abandoned them. The communists secretly handed over the list of Gongsaeng members to the right-wing camp, and that's how the government was able to find and purge them during the turbulent times," he claimed.

Kim said the massacre came to be forgotten as the people who were familiar with it have kept their mouths closed for fear of the consequences.

He said correcting past wrongs should be the priority of politicians, particularly the opposition, to help the nation move forward by ending the all-consuming ideological clashes between conservatives and liberals.

Kim denied the allegation that he has sided with the ruling camp, stressing that he simply follows what he believes is right and acts based on his belief.

His wife Kim Young-joo said her husband is neither a leftist nor a communist. She said rather, her husband is a "Kim-ist," someone whose decisions are not influenced by others. She was referring to Kim's surprising endorsement in 2012 of then ruling Saenuri Party presidential candidate Park Geun-hye.

The announcement came as a surprise because the female politician is the daughter of the late President Park Chung-hee, who persecuted democracy fighters, including Kim. During the elder Park's military rule, the poet was put in prison several times for his involvement in pro-democracy activities.

Kim's support for Park Geun-hye in 2012 invited a slew of criticism from the left-wing camp. Progressive figures alleged that the once democracy fighter had become "a PR man" for Park. Kim hit back, described some of the opposition politicians as "idiots" or North Korea followers who didn't deserve the public's support.

His feud with the progressive camp brewed in 1991. In a column published in the conservative daily Choseon Ilbo on May 5, he urged student activists to stop their self-immolations, saying the sacrifice of human lives cannot be justified under any circumstances.

His op-ed was published shortly after student activist Kang Gyeong-dae self-immolated. Before Kang, several other activists and labor union members had committed suicide in public to show their defiance against the authoritarian government and to prompt it to answer their demands.

Kim made his literary debut in 1969 with the poem "The Yellow Earth." Kim became an icon of defiance since his publishing of the poem "With Burning Thirst," which called for the return of democracy to South Korea. The poem is well-known for inspiring many college students and like-minded people to stand up against the authoritarian government in the 1980s.

He first served a four-month jail term in 1967 following his participation in the protest against the Park Chung-hee government's normalization of diplomatic relations with Japan. He, along with over 180 activists, was put in jail again in 1974, only months after he married his wife, for allegedly participating in a plot to overthrow the South Korean government. The court cleared him of the charge in 2009, decades after the military rule ended.

He was tortured and abused in jail, which caused him to suffer from delusional disorder. After he was released from prison in 1980, he was put in rehabilitation facilities 12 times in 20 years. His family suffered the consequences.

He completely overcame the disease two years ago, according to his wife.

Cho Jin-man, a professor of political science at Duksung Women's University in Seoul, said Kim was one of the towering figures who paved the way for democracy in South Korea. He said that the poet played a significant role in the rise of student activism in the 1970s and 1980s.

Nobel nominations

Meanwhile, Kim's horrific experiences in jail turned him into an internationally renowned activist. International human rights activists and scholars worked together to launch a campaign to get Kim out of detention. While he was in jail, European media interviewed his wife and ran stories about his family. Kim's wife received letters and cards from Norwegian children who wished her and her husband the best and hoped that the couple would survive the repression.

In 1975, when he was still in jail, the 34-year-old activist was nominated for both the Nobel Peace Prize and Nobel Prize in Literature. Scholars and intellectuals from Europe, Japan and the United States recommended him to the selection committee to honor him.

The nominations came after his poem, "Five Bandits," was translated into French. The poem depicts corporate leaders, politicians, military generals, Cabinet ministers and deputy ministers as five enemy groups of the Korean public. His "Five Bandits" cartoon also became popular.

The military government felt uncomfortable about the international recognition that Kim was getting and feared that it could shed light on then the Park government's persecution of democracy fighters.

In his book "Four Seasons of Journalists," Choi Kyu-jang, a journalist-turned-government official in charge of public relations affairs at the Korean Embassy to Sweden, disclosed details on the Korean government's secret lobby to stop the Nobel committee from considering the South Korean activist for the prize.

"Around that time, I had a clandestine mission to fulfill. I was ordered to lobby those who were in a position to influence the selections of Nobel prize winners to eliminate him," Choi said.

"I thought it was a ridiculous mission. Having its first Nobel laureate would be great for the country and should not be something that the government feels pressure for. I thought rather, the government should have lobbied for him to win it."

Former President Kim Dae-jung later won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, becoming the first and only Korean who has won the high-profile award.

Ironically, Choi said, it was President Park Chung-hee, not Kim himself, who made Kim a celebrity poet abroad.

The late Choi's allegations of organized diplomatic efforts by the Korean government to frustrate Kim's nominations have not been officially confirmed.