Change and Freedom
By Kim Ji-soo
Staff Reporter
Going through the stacks of old and new newspapers, an interesting article caught my attention. Popular Korean author Hwang Seok-yong accompanied President Lee Myung-bak on the president's trip to the Central Asian countries of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan earlier this month.
Hwang, 66, is a veteran writer known for best-selling books such as ``Jang gil-san'' and ``Baridegi.'' His life is almost as famous as his works. In 1989, he visited North Korea at the invitation of a North Korean cultural group without government permission. He then spent years in exile, living in Berlin and New York before returning to Seoul in 1998 and serving a five-year sentence for his 1989 North Korea visit.
He is largely known as a writer with progressive, leftist leanings, thus the pairing of him and President Lee had the makings of an odd couple. While on the trip, Hwang met with Korean reporters on May 13 in the Kazak capital, and put forth a new way of inter-Korean cooperation that included Mongolia. The idea is that South and North Korea would join together to develop Mongolia, an idea that would reinvigorate inter-Korean relations ― an area in which he was advising the President.
At that meeting, he also explained why he was joining hands with the Lee administration, saying that he viewed ideas the administration largely had identified as conservative and rightist as center-of-the-road. Hwang also touched on other issues, saying that European countries had in their history events similar to the Gwangju Democratic Movement, a citizens' protest that was violently quelled in 1980 by Chun Doo-hwan military junta.
Not surprisingly, Hwang's remark has spurred heated controversy here. Jin Jung-kwon, professor at ChungAng University immediately blasted Hwang for switching sides. Professor Sohn Ho-cheol of Sogang University pounced on the author for identifying the Lee administration as pragmatic and center-of-the-road. Other critics joined in. Only the renowned Korean poet Kim Ji-ha spoke in his defense, saying that a writer should have the freedom to go from left to right or right from left. His was a theoretical defense, because he too had words of advice to Hwang. The poet's defense however has brought on whole new round with Jin, the ChungAng University professor, and new interviews given by Hwang.
This debate is intriguing because it shows that there are still areas in our society where absolute standards --well, as absolute as people can get -- or rather a higher level of performance are demanded. It shows that some things cannot just be swept under the rug for expediency. Undeniably, the ideological factor has been too dominant in Korean society and this debate may seem like the latest face of it. But somehow, the openness or the flexibilities first demonstrated by Hwang are a good cause to anticipate what's next for Korean society.
As for Hwang's plans on the ``Mongolia plus Two Koreas," he recently expanded in an interview with the Hankyoreh newspaper that he would withdraw from any participation or joining hands with the current administration if the inter-Korean relationship doesn't show improvement by the first half of next year.