Lee Hee-ho's sense of modernity
.jpg?w=728)
By Stephen Costello
Madam Lee Hee Ho, widow of former President Kim Dae-jung, has been to North Korea. Although this has been the focus of many news stories in Korea and abroad, none seem capable of putting her journey or her impact on history into full perspective. Reports in both The New York Times and on the BBC noted the North’s drive to build nuclear weapons, but failed to remember why the South-North-U.S. rapprochement of the 1990s fell apart. They failed at this simple journalistic duty even though strategic mistakes at that time haunt the current U.S.-Iran nuclear deal, just as they mark the beginning of the slide toward the cold North-South Korean antagonism of today. My colleague Tong Kim does an excellent job on this page explaining the significance of that change in U.S. administrations. I will be unable to give appropriate perspective to her trip here either, but perhaps I can add some context.
As she visited North Korea, many observers were hopeful that this action could change the diplomatic calculations of the two sides, and open the door to renewed discussions about common interests and goals. But that is unlikely. Both the weaker and the stronger actors are now invested in positions that require statesmanship, vision and skill to break through, qualities not in evidence these years.
Lee was an unusually well-traveled woman in the 1950s and 1960s. With a degree in Education from Seoul National University and an M.A. from Scarritt College in Nashville, Tenn., she became the General Secretary of the Korean YMCA. In addition to being President of the Women's Problems Research Institute and other leadership positions, Ms. Lee was an elder of the Chang Chun Methodist Church in Seoul. As her husband's political activism increasingly brought down upon them the wrath and injustices of the governments at the time, she proved to be courageous enough to push back, organize the families of prisoners, and give strength to them at a very dark time. She too was an activist, for democracy and for helping the less fortunate. They were a powerful team.
What emerges again and again from her actions is that Lee is far more modern and has higher expectations and more realistic goals than most current social and political leaders. She knows what must come first – the necessary sequence of actions – that is so baffling and problematic to today's presidents and prime ministers. And she knows which goals to set, and which values to hold dear. A key understanding among Korea's democracy movement – dating from well before I met some of its members in 1990 – was the indisputable linkage between South Korean democratic development and its ability to disarm and reconcile with its Northern neighbor.
This is one point that Lee makes in her biography, and it is clearly stated in the Declaration for Democracy and National Salvation of March 1, 1976, signed by her husband and over a dozen of other movement leaders. They wrote, “The most effective way to achieve victory over communism and to attain national unification is to promote our national capability for democracy.” Apparently, that lesson will have to be learned again. Today the Financial Times has noted that the Park administration is considering re-taking control of history textbooks in the lead-up to the 70th anniversary of the end of Japanese occupation. Lee has seen all this before.
In her biography, “My Love, My Country,” Lee emerges as one who forced herself to be tougher and more resilient than most of us ever have to consider. Her understanding of democracy's small benefits and systemic necessities are the kind that comes from hard-won experience. She sounds like her husband when she denounces the unfairness and the pervasive insecurity that authoritarian and oppressive governments breed among their minions, from top to bottom, president to policeman.
When she was taken to KCIA headquarters in Mt. Nam in 1976 as her husband and friends were once again arrested, many paying unbearably for their work, Lee found the courage to say this: “So many people who worked tirelessly for democracy in this country, and so many young people, had gone through this place. I feel that it is a great honor for me to join their ranks.”
We should hope that Kim Jung-un made sure to meet with Lee. She knows what he must do better than most people he will ever meet. And we should hope that her example and her principles gain wider appreciation in South Korea as well. It may be possible to prohibit “political figures” from accompanying her to the North, but the social and political force of her example will impress many who will play a role on the Peninsula in coming years.
Stephen Costello is producer of AsiaEast, a Web
and broadcast-based policy roundtable focused
on security, development and politics in Northeast
Asia. He previously directed the Korea program
at the Atlantic Council of the U.S. He
writes from Washington, D.C. He can be contacted
at cosetllos@asiaeast.org.