By Michael Breen
Every country, it seems, likes to give the impression that it is going somewhere. All publish economic statistics and aim for growth. But the fact remains that some are more purposeful, more driven, than others. Korea is one.
It is hard to identity this quality because it is more felt than inferred from facts. Rather than lying in policymaking that people can understand and debate, it is to be found, more nebulously, in the collective energy that fuels national interest. Policy-setting is its implementation.
Take America, for example. What made it what it is today? Early immigrants to the "New World" felt compelled to expand across North America. The land they crossed and staked out was not God's country, to be respected. Nor was it native American country to be negotiated. It was, they thought, theirs for the taking. This idea lead to rapid expansion and was characterized in the 19th century as manifest destiny. The same notion, along with the "city on a hill" idea that Americans were good, drove them to spread their influence and export their values around the world.
When Americans came here, in the mid-20th century, they found the Koreans to be one of the most impoverished peoples in the world. Yet they, too, had a dream of earnest nationalism that sought to benefit mankind.
"The enterprise of our people which I desire is certainly not that of conquering the world by force or by economic power," the politician Kim Gu wrote in the 1940s. "What I am proposing is that we do that which will lead to a world in which we ourselves live abundantly and in which humanity as a whole lives in abundance, peace, and happiness. This world will come true only by establishing a culture of love and peace.
"Do not say that this is a pipe dream because no people in history have ever done something like this in the past. My point is that we should do this precisely because nobody has ever done this in the past. Only when we realize that this great enterprise has been left undone by Heaven for us to fulfill can our people recognize their true path and their true tasks."
Such lofty thinking in a politician reflected a certain kind of widely-felt defiance. For the Koreans who dreamed did so in defiance of a history which had delivered them, in the modern world of telephones and aircraft, to the bottom. They refused to accept the place the world thought they occupied. They refused to be who the world thought they were.
This defiant energy was set alight by the horror of civil war, and by the horror at the cruelty that came out of themselves as much as it did out of the North Koreans, and from their furious outrage at the arrogance of the aggressor, who claimed to be more "pure."
The first president, Syngman Rhee, expressed defiance in empty threats of "marching north" that annoyed his American mentors so much they considered replacing him. However, it was President Park Chung-hee, who took over in 1961, who harnessed defiance, put a hard hat on it, and set it to work to build a nation that would never be wrecked again
It is ironic that the North Koreans are now seen as defiant–waving around nuclear weapons, celebrating their racial purity, congratulating themselves for their independence from foreign influence, and flouting international rules and diplomatic courtesies, while all the time looking for handouts from their enemies."We are the best country in the world thanks to our genius leader," they say. "So lend us a couple of bucks, will you?"
It is the South Koreans who gave their defiance direction. They have achieved miracles and are indeed fulfilling Kim Gu's dream and making the world a better place.
Michael Breen writes for The Korea Times.
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It is hard to identity this quality because it is more felt than inferred from facts. Rather than lying in policymaking that people can understand and debate, it is to be found, more nebulously, in the collective energy that fuels national interest. Policy-setting is its implementation.
Take America, for example. What made it what it is today? Early immigrants to the "New World" felt compelled to expand across North America. The land they crossed and staked out was not God's country, to be respected. Nor was it native American country to be negotiated. It was, they thought, theirs for the taking. This idea lead to rapid expansion and was characterized in the 19th century as manifest destiny. The same notion, along with the "city on a hill" idea that Americans were good, drove them to spread their influence and export their values around the world.
When Americans came here, in the mid-20th century, they found the Koreans to be one of the most impoverished peoples in the world. Yet they, too, had a dream of earnest nationalism that sought to benefit mankind.
"The enterprise of our people which I desire is certainly not that of conquering the world by force or by economic power," the politician Kim Gu wrote in the 1940s. "What I am proposing is that we do that which will lead to a world in which we ourselves live abundantly and in which humanity as a whole lives in abundance, peace, and happiness. This world will come true only by establishing a culture of love and peace.
"Do not say that this is a pipe dream because no people in history have ever done something like this in the past. My point is that we should do this precisely because nobody has ever done this in the past. Only when we realize that this great enterprise has been left undone by Heaven for us to fulfill can our people recognize their true path and their true tasks."
Such lofty thinking in a politician reflected a certain kind of widely-felt defiance. For the Koreans who dreamed did so in defiance of a history which had delivered them, in the modern world of telephones and aircraft, to the bottom. They refused to accept the place the world thought they occupied. They refused to be who the world thought they were.
This defiant energy was set alight by the horror of civil war, and by the horror at the cruelty that came out of themselves as much as it did out of the North Koreans, and from their furious outrage at the arrogance of the aggressor, who claimed to be more "pure."
The first president, Syngman Rhee, expressed defiance in empty threats of "marching north" that annoyed his American mentors so much they considered replacing him. However, it was President Park Chung-hee, who took over in 1961, who harnessed defiance, put a hard hat on it, and set it to work to build a nation that would never be wrecked again
It is ironic that the North Koreans are now seen as defiant–waving around nuclear weapons, celebrating their racial purity, congratulating themselves for their independence from foreign influence, and flouting international rules and diplomatic courtesies, while all the time looking for handouts from their enemies."We are the best country in the world thanks to our genius leader," they say. "So lend us a couple of bucks, will you?"
It is the South Koreans who gave their defiance direction. They have achieved miracles and are indeed fulfilling Kim Gu's dream and making the world a better place.
Michael Breen writes for The Korea Times.
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