A different kind of rush

By Kim Ji-soo

As if to calm the year-end and holiday rush, soft white snow covered much of Seoul Wednesday, two days after the news of the death of the North Korean leader shocked the world.

I remember a different kind of rush some 17 years ago. When the news of the death of North Korea’s founding father Kim Il-sung was announced on television in the summer of 1994, I remember immediately rushing home. I rushed home, as if pursued and pushed by a strong wave of uncertainty and fear that some contingency might arise and our family would have to huddle for safety.

Being a child of a generation that saw the North Korean bombing of South Korea’s presidential delegation in then-Burma in 1983 and when sirens often went off nationwide warning of “real situations” of possible provocation from North Korea, the demise of the communist regime’s leader was the most alarming thing.

When the news of the death of his son, the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, was announced in the winter of 2011, I gasped out loud on the treadmill and hurried back to the office to get to work.

Here was a chance to deal with the biggest news of the year for Korea, and naturally, journalists being journalists, there was a palpable sense of excitement. Although the uncertainty factor looming over the North Korean political landscape is perhaps even larger than in the past, I didn’t feel the need to rush home and pack emergency items just in case.

The media reported that Koreans were worried but no one ran out to stores to stockpile food and other basic items. One of the reasons was that the North Korean leader’s death, while sudden, had largely been expected since his stroke in 2008. Another is that for South Koreans, a volatile North Korea has been a constant factor; part of life that has become more manageable as South Korea grew richer and stronger. The concern seemed tilted toward a possible breakdown of the border and the southbound rush of North Koreans ― more economic than political fears, at least from my point of view.

Reaffirming this, the KOSPI stock index nosedived and the Korean won lost value but both immediately rebounded.

And one good outcome of the death was that the usually boisterous partisan National Assembly scurried and agreed to pass next week the budget for the fiscal year 2012.

As the North plunges into its 11-day-long mourning period and with the new year just around the corner, it would be unfeasible to expect a flurry of changes in the North. According to few reports eking out from the heavily-controlled Stalinist country, North Koreans were all weeping in due fashion but there was no sense of tumult or wavering.

But come next year when things start to pick up, all eyes will be on the North and its late 20-something leader Kim Jong-un. And the naïve complacency that I might have harbored as an average South Korean citizen regarding the future of the North and consequently the South may be forced to be rethought.

Various pundits and North Korea watchers are already putting forth mixed predictions and prescriptions on how to deal with the reclusive state under the young leader. Cautiously emerging is the consensus to engage in skillful diplomacy with the young leader and the regime-in-transition. Skillful diplomacy is always a challenge and even harder when there are multiple players ― two Koreas, China, the United States and Japan just to name a few ― as is the situation regarding North Korea. Historic changes may come rushing on, but the rush is always foretold with trickles, trickles of wise, thoughtful planning and engagement.