By Jang Sung-min
Barack Obama, a 47-year-old African-American, was elected the 44th president of the United States. ``Barack'' is an African name and his ancestors are black people from Kenya.
For the first time in the 232 years of U.S. history, a black man became president. That is why Africa is even more excited than the U.S. This is clearly the greatest electoral feat and political revolution since the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776 and proves the glory of the power of democracy.
Abraham Lincoln, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, was shot dead. The same fate befell Martin Luther King Jr., who led the African-American human rights movement crying, "I have a dream" amongst a crowd of 300,000 in Washington. Obama's election as president is the result of the two men's sacrifice and the victory of African-American human rights movement, covered with blood and grief.
Obama's election brought down the racial wall, more solid than the Berlin Wall, which, for 50 years, represented the Cold War and division of East and West Germany.
If Obama turns to the Korean Peninsula, will the wall of division collapse between North and South Korea, the last vestige of the Cold War? Will the Korean "Iron Curtain" be withdrawn, letting in the wind of new change and peace? Who holds the key to the curtain? Obama clearly does. Unfortunately, Kim Jong-il holds the manual.
While it's difficult to compare the democratic U.S. with the autocratic North directly, Obama and Kim are facing similar challenges.
Both the U.S. and North Korea are internationally isolated, their national trust is fragile, their economies are on the verge of collapse, both their regimes ― capitalism and suryeong (supreme leader) system ― are at a crisis, and they are both considered threats to world peace; U.S. allies think the Bush administration is a danger to world peace and Western democracies think the same of North Korea.
Both countries want to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue through dialogue and stabilize the economy and maintain their regimes by holding a U.S.-North Korea summit and normalizing relations.
The problem is what Kim, who has led North Korea after 20 years of successor training, thinks of the young Obama. Perhaps Kim will test Obama as did leaders around the world in several ways with JFK, who became the first president only in his forties. If so, will another opportunity be missed?
There are other concerns. Perhaps Kim's illness will prevent a U.S.-North Korea summit, despite a "bold determination" to resolve the nuclear issue through direct negotiations.
However, the gravest concern is that direct talks between the U.S. and North Korea might take place before South Korea sets up dialogue with the North and resolve the nuclear issue and normalize U.S.-North Korea relations faster than expected, rendering Lee Myung-bak administration's diplomacy with North Korea useless.
While the Lee administration was busy talking about building a U.S. channel, Ri Gun, North Korea's director for North American affairs, went to New York and met Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state.
If North Korea shuts down the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and launches "U.S.-centered diplomacy," (a North Korean diplomatic policy that once all diplomacy is concentrated on the U.S., diplomacy with South Korea, China, and Japan will follow the U.S. path) South Korea will be marginalized again.
If Obama and Kim Jong-il meet while inter-Korean dialogue remains clogged as it is now, peace will still come to the Korean Peninsula, but it will be incomplete and tentative, instead of complete and permanent.
Such will be the beginning of South Korean diplomatic ordeals. The moment the Syngman Rhee administration made the diplomatic mistake of letting South Korea be excluded as a Korean War truce signing party was the starting point of South Korea's loss of control of division diplomacy for the past 50 years since the end of the Korean War.
Even today, South Korea is not a major party to the truce agreement, led by the U.S. and North Korea. The absurd loss of diplomatic control should not be repeated.
If President Lee fails to present a proactive "Korean Peninsula Peace Initiative," he might follow Syngman Rhee's path of losing diplomatic control over the peninsula to the U.S. and North Korea. That is why a meeting between Obama and Kim Jong-il would be worth taking note of.
The writer is president of the World and Northeast Asia Peace Forum, former member of the National Assembly's Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee and chief aid to former President Kim Dae-jung. He is the author of "Korea's Dilemma and Choice in an Age of Transition: North Korean Nuclear Issue, Korea-U.S. Relations and Political Reform" and "Bush Administration's Foreign Policy and Korea After 9.11."