Kim Dae-jung Main Actor in E. Asian Drama
By Lee Chang-sup
Executive Managing Editor
Korea mourns the loss of Nobel Peace Prize Winner Kim Daejung. The former President was the epitome of the turbulent history not only on the Korean peninsula but also in East Asia for the past eight decades.
Many foreign leaders, including former U.S. presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, will equally mourned the loss of their Korean friend, who was intelligent, insightful and internationally oriented.
He was born in 1925 when Korea was a Japanese colony, on a tiny remote islet off southwestern Jeollanam-do. He lived through the Korean War, ideological clashes, national division, democratization, and pell-mell economic growth.
Arnold J. Toynbee’s famous book “Challenge and Response” had impressed him deeply. Indeed, his life was a series of challenges and responses. During his 50-year political career, he lost three presidential elections before winning in 1997.
It was the first peaceful transfer of power from the ruling party to the opposition. He survived five death threats, was behind bars for six years and was under house arrest and in exile for a decade. He was always on the side of the minority to challenge the Establishment. His hometown of Jeolla Province had long been alienated from the nation’s industrialization. He struggled to mitigate lingering regional animosity.
He had been a constant victim of red baiting and was long portrayed as a pro-North Korean sympathizer by conservatives.
But he struggled with history. His trademark philosophy was summed up in the Sunshine Policy, mass-participatory economy. Under productive welfarism, he rejected the simple notion of passively protecting the poor and the disadvantaged by merely giving them money.
Kim also practiced politics of non-retaliation, granting pardons to his iailed predecessors Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo.
It was Kim who promoted equality between men and women. Under his leadership, Korea established the Ministry of Gender Equality. Kim had long championed the parallel development of democracy and economy.
As is shown in his exclusive contribution article to the Nov. 5 issue of The Korea Times in 1998, he championed universal globalism, the broader concept of embracing all religions, races and ideologies.
His three-stage unification formula features the three principles: unification, self-reliance, peace and democracy.
Under the first stage, the two Koreas would create a confederation. The second stage would be a federation composed of the South and North Korean regional autonomous governments. The third-stage would follow with either a centralized government or several regional autonomous governments.
His mass-participatory economy policy is to make Korea the eighth largest economy in the world, compared with 13th now.
In his prison writings two decades ago, he listed the shortcomings and strengths of Korea. He said Korea’s political culture is narrow-minded and lacks in magnanimity, and that Koreans are lacking in progressive tendencies. He lamented Koreans’ formalist tendency ? so concerned with formal appearances that they often disregard the benefits of practicality. He also said that Koreans lack seriousness.
On their strengths, he said, “Koreans tend to treat any signs of dependency on foreign powers as shameful. Ancestors are admired for their intense desire for learning. Korea has also proven itself to be quite capable of assimilating others.”
As many polls indicate, Kim ranks behind only late President Park Chunghee on the list of Koreans who have most influenced the nation’s modern history. Before becoming president in 1998, he campaigned for the prodemocracy movement and the revival of a system of local autonomy.
After becoming president, he set a new tone in inter-Korean relations through his historic summit with Kim Jong-il in 2000. Decades later, Kim will be remembered as the father of unification for all Koreans on both sides of the DMZ. He was the Chief Executive who helped the Korean economy out of an unprecedented economic crisis. For his roles in inter-Korean peace and the pro-democracy struggle, he became the first Korean to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.
Few question his diligence, studiousness and eloquent speech. Kim’s life is the story of one man’s struggle for democracy and human rights. His call for moderation and non-violence has not protected him from violence or immoderation. But his faith transcends oppression.
His last-minute frustrations might have been caused by the recent inter-Korean tension and the erosion of the democracy for which he had vigorously campaigned during his lifetime.
The writer covered Cheong Wa Dae from 1997 until 2000 under the administrations of Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung.