hankyoreh

the day before Liberation Day

Today marks seventy years since Korea’s liberation. We take this opportunity to look back on the powerful feelings and desires that we experienced when we passed through that deep darkness and the light finally returned. The landscape has changed vastly - over 90% of South Koreans alive today were born after that day. It is time now for us to look ahead to the first century after liberation, to say goodbye to the past seventy years and prepare ourselves for the next thirty.

We have accomplished many things over the past several decades, things that have taken a toll in effort and suffering. Symbolic of this is the transformation from a country that received aid to one that offers it. We have a robust, mid-sized economy, one almost on par with the world’s most advanced in per capita income. Most of all, we have shown potential almost without parallel in world history, a power that allowed us to make great advances in democracy in a relatively short time. South Korea’s popular culture has a wide enough reach that “Korean Wave” has become an established part of global village parlance, and the number of foreigners living in the country has grown tremendously. Taken together, all of these represent a unique “South Korean model” for others. Unlike the countries of the West or Japan, South Korea achieved these things without invading or colonizing anyone. The chief force behind it is our own peculiar vitality - and the suffering of a public that has had to endure multiple layers of contradiction.

As much as we have accomplished, much still remains to be done. Quality of life is not high, as our suicide rate and working hours (the world’s highest) and birth rate (the lowest) attest. We face deep-rooted problems with housing and education, and the rich-poor divide and concentration of wealth in the hands of a few continue to deepen. On top of that, a rapid aging trend is exacerbating imbalances in the population. There seems to be but one solution: a welfare state, where all members of society can enjoy a suitable standard of living and go about vigorously forcing their own lives. Instead of conflict and fighting, of trying to protect what is ours, we need to build a system in which individuals and society as a whole share the same goals. This also requires a deeper form of democracy, something that has tended to regress under certain administrations. It is the society created by responsible citizens that sustains the welfare state, not the reverse. The historical revisionism of some, the attempts to defend past collaboration with Japan or the errors of dictatorial governments - or even to revive them - are anathema to a healthy society.

International relations have long had a stranglehold on South Korea, but things have also changed considerably. Perhaps the biggest change has to do with the Western powers passing their prime and going into relative decline, while East Asia - where South Korea occupies an important role - enjoys its ascent. For us, this means greater room to make our own choices, as well as more to take responsibility for. Building a system where the countries of East Asia can coexist and thrive in peace is a task that absolutely must be done. That is also why it is so important to reckon with the history of the Japanese occupation, which has been an obstacle to that process.

The intensifying competition for hegemony in East Asia between the US and China, the so-called “G2” powers, is cause for concern. Even if the shifting balance between old and new powers makes some general reconfiguring of relations unavoidable, we can’t allow that to take precedence over the principles of peace and thriving together. Recently, Seoul has seemed somewhat torn between the two countries, switching allegiances from one issue to the next. The right solution here is to make our own voice heard, to take the lead, even slightly, in building an atmosphere of communication and cooperation. We should waste no time in shedding outdated Cold War-era practices and ways of thinking - the divisions into “camps,” the overreliance on foreign powers. That this means transcending narrow nationalism and strengthening our bonds with the citizens of the global village should go without saying.

The worsening state of inter-Korean relations and the lack of progress on the North Korean nuclear and missile program issues casts a deep pall on the last seventy years. Liberation will not be complete until our divided nation is reunified, and the task that faces us is a mighty one. We need to make decisions to break through the stalemate with Pyongyang, decisions that are based in realistic and flexible thinking. We have seen various frictions emerging between the two sides, things large and small, but a third inter-Korean summit is not only a possibility, it is a necessity. We also have to work to see to it that negotiations resume on the North Korean nuclear issue, with the US playing an active part. These efforts to solve that problem are the other side of the coin, so to speak, in terms of building peace on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia. It’s also a way toward making progress in real reunification, rather than “reunification” as political rhetoric. There can be no unification without peace, and reunification is the only way to guarantee permanent peace. The peaceful reunification of the peninsula would also have significance in terms of showing the way forward from the darker aspects of modern world history.

Some of South Korea’s tasks are unique to us, but others are serious issues for the global community as a whole. The worsening refugee program exists as evidence that the rich-poor divide and the history of dominance and control are not things of the past. We need to be empathizing with those who are suffering in and outside our country, and taking a role in finding solutions. Nor can we afford to neglect other issues with an impact on the very sustainability of human life, things like climate change and energy supplies. It wouldn’t be going to so far that say that we’ve spent the last seventy years focusing mostly on our own problems. As global situations with our own history of experiences, it is time for us to show our mettle.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]