''Put your sword down and think hard!'
[A reader's view]
Korea Herald
September 6, 2000
by Tom CoynerMany have much to say about what is happening in the recent North-South rapprochement on the Korean Peninsula. So why turn to someone who died a decade ago? Ham Sok-hon, if he were alive today, would have much to say, not only to his compatriots, but also to the international community. Ham was a close ally of President Kim Dae-jung and was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Much to his embarrassment, he was often referred to as "Korea's Gandhi" because of his quest for a truly democratic Korea via non-violent change. Also, as a North Korean refugee and even a member of the early North Korean government prior to his imprisonment by the Russian occupation forces, he would have been asked for his opinion.
So, how might Teacher Ham possibly speak from the grave? One has little choice but to look at his numerous writings. The best known is "Ddeusero Bon Hanguk Yeoksa," an abridged version of which was later translated into English and published as "Queen of Suffering."
Just as national liberation came as a surprise in 1945, we have similarly been taken aback by the rapidity of movement toward reunification in the past few months. Consider how Ham opens his chapter on the country's liberation:
"Let us be frank. No one foresaw liberation. If any believed that liberation was coming, it was the ignorant public, who believed it just because they were ignorant... Perhaps this was deliberately wrought by providence as an education to see how happy we would be, to see the goodness of our hearts again well up of itself."
Having reviewed Korean history from political, spiritual and almost psychological perspectives, Ham concludes with the following advice that is surely relevant for today:
"Moral principles are even more urgent for the leader. By moral principles one can experience the whole within oneself. A modern version of this is the constitution. The virtues of a good king of the past have now been written into a constitution. There is no surviving the crisis facing us today unless the ruler has enough virtue to act according to the constitution, an expression of the wishes and wisdom of the whole people."
In his essay, "The Path to Reunification," in the periodical Voice of Ssi-Al, Ham reminds the leadership of both North and South that only the people can accomplish the reunification of the two Koreas. At the same time, he advises reconciliation rather than confrontation:
"I submit that the North and South question cannot be solved by either one conquering the other. I therefore objected to the use of terms like "Northern puppets" or "Southern puppets"? We had no good reason to fight. The only cause of the tragic war was that we were treated like the garbage can of civilization that could be divided into two parts. Had we known it, we would have embraced each other and surely not fought one another."
In his 1972 letter to the North Koreans, which was published only in the South, Ham declared:
"We must become one because we are one (people). We can live only by becoming one. We cannot live in this divided situation, and even though we are alive, we are not living.
The South must trust the North and the North must trust the South. And on the faith let us stand up together. The earlier we stand up, the better. Reunification is revolution. It is a new revolution, not just a people's revolution nor just a social one it is a larger and deeper and newer revolution."
In a separate piece, Ham reminds us that reunification is ultimately up to Koreans and they may be mistaken in relying too much on the foreign powers that have caused or benefited from the division of the peninsula.
"It takes the whole people to be moved by a common and strong inspiration," he writes.
And what may that common inspiration be? "Awakening to one's mission is the strongest motive force for regeneration. If a falsified world mission can stir the masses for a time to an astounding level of activity, what great things can be wrought with a mission of universal historical significance, based on truth and underwritten by the justice of God? Let Koreans awake to their world mission if they want to clear themselves of the ignominy of a defeated nation."
What may be the first step necessary for Koreans on both sides of the 38th Parallel to develop such an inspiration? It comes in an exhortation found at the closing of his chapter on the meaning of Korea's history in the "Queen of Suffering":
"Put your sword down and think hard!"
The reunification process, though long in preparation, is suddenly zooming ahead, catching almost everyone off balance. While foreign powers are largely responsible for the division of the country, Koreans are also responsible for their internal divisions.
Though foreign nations have a role to play in the reunification of the peninsula, the issue is ultimately up to the Korean people.
For the average Korean to take back control of their country for the common good, it will require a spiritual centering within each Korean citizen to see past the history of the last half century and to take full account of his or her role in a new Korean future. This will require governance based on morality and encoded in law in order to ensure freedom in the truest sense of the word.
However, Ham warns that all of this will take the faith and courage of the common Korean man and woman to stand united, without acrimony and consider a less materialistic foundation for a stronger Korea. In any case, the first move is to step back from militarism and start rethinking the basics. Ham Sok-hon, Korea's voice for a democratic and wise nation, would have expected nothing less.
The writer is a sales manager who lives in Tokyo. - Ed.
For an expanded version of this essay, please click here.
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