Abstract
The invisible hand of fate has worked to divide and separate the Korean people into two separate camps: the pro-communist North and the pro-capitalist South, beginning with the turmoil transition period of 1945–1948 as the nation gained its independence after the Japanese occupation of 36 years. National independence movement leaders had once fought hand in hand against the Japanese occupation, but when the country gained independence, the two groups began to dissent as they competed for their own respective political power. An internecine struggle pitting brother against brother over different political ideologies and power games threatened to devour all groups. Hostility continued to flair up and no real reconciliation was to be found between the two fratricidal enemies. Indeed, just as is it impossible to mix fire and water, it has been impossible to reconcile the followers of capitalistic democracy with those of egalitarian communism in the evolving course of Korean history.
You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
Matt. 24:6, 7, 8.
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Notes
- 1.
Cumings (1990, p. 237).
- 2.
Hwang E.-G. (1993) The Korean Economies: A Comparison of North and South. Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 23.
- 3.
However, the origins of the war have until recently been a matter of dispute. Officially, North Korea has insisted that the US imperialists started the war, but hearsay backed by various documents from the Soviet archives showed that in 1949 and early 1950 Kim implored Stalin repeatedly to authorize an invasion of the South. Kim’s words of regret are also based on hearsay circulated among North defectors and North Korean observers in the South.
- 4.
The most sensational defection of a high-level insider from the North to the South was the 1997 case of Hwang Jang-Yop who was speaker of the Supreme People’s Assembly from 1972 to 1984. He had educated Kim Jong-Il at Kim Il -Sung University in Pyongyang in which he was appointed president of the university in 1965, the year after the Dear Leader graduated. Hwang was the principal authority on Juche Idea, which became the official credo of the DPRK in the 1972 constitution. But Hwang’s world began to erode when an article in Rodong Shinmun (official newspaper) attacked “careerists and conspirators (who) outwardly pretend to uphold the leader and be faithful to the revolutionary cause while seeking another dream inwardly and making conspiracies behind the scenes.” Certain that the article was aimed at him, Hwang chose to defect in Beijing on his way back after delivering the main address at a Cho Chong-ryun (pro-North resident’s association) symposium in Japan in early February 1997.
- 5.
In 1947, Kim Il-Sung borrowed Lenin’s biblical principle that “he that does not work, neither shall he eat.” But the socialist principle, “that from each according to their ability, to each according to their work,” had not been practically challenged for application in the North.
- 6.
Hwang (1993), ibid., p. 29.
- 7.
See Eui-Gak Hwang (1993), ibid., Tables 3.11(a) and 3.11(b), in pages 121–122, for the per-capita GNP estimates for both North Korea, 1946–1990 and South Korea, 1953–1990.
- 8.
See Eui-Gak Hwang (1993), ibid., pp. 60–62 on the functions of money in North Korea and also refer to Hwang (1984), in Korean.
- 9.
This is a famous quote by Deng Xiaoping in 1979. Deng said that if China opened its door to the outside world, “many capital and new technology (‘fresh air’)” would flow into China but with “many negative cultures and political elements” (‘flies’). He suggested “flies” could be caught after “fresh air” was introduced. Another famous Deng’s analects is “If a cat catches mice, what does it matter if it’s black or white, which is, “Don’t ask whether a policy is socialist, ask whether it works.”
- 10.
The first story on the defection of Mr. Ahn, who made the second defection case of high ranking North Korean officer following Hwang Jang-yup in 1998, was first reported in a Japanese monthly magazine “Gaen-dai (Contemporary)”, June, 2003. A Korean internet newspaper, The Independence had an exclusive interview recently with this defector and reported the details on the bunker constructs as well as North Korea’s military organization, on May 21, 2008.
- 11.
I wrote a newspaper article (Dong-A Ilbo, September 12, 1994) suggesting that Kim Jong-Il could be the successful leader of North Korean like the Chinese Deng Xiaoping, if he bravely differentiated himself from his father.
- 12.
Kim Jong-Il made it clear that the North will not accept reform and open policy when the former South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun visited him in Pyongyang in October 2007.
- 13.
On April 18, 2008, US and South Korean negotiators reached agreement on the sanitary rules that Korea would apply to all beef, imports irrespective of age, from the United States. The rules were expected to take effect in mid-May when South Korea published implementing regulations. However, continued strong Korean public opposition ignited through a TV coverage of the issue and internet-spread rumors regarding the US beef infected with mad cow disease or BSE has resulted in escalating protests. Behind the protests is the suspected influence from the North Korean leader or his followers in the South to undermine the standing of President Lee and his conservative political party, which holds a slim majority in Korea’s parliament.
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Hwang, EG. (2010). Are Koreans Ideological Victims?. In: The Search for a Unified Korea. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1562-7_1
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