The life of Kim Dae Jung contains enough excitement and suspense to fill a dozen novels. And few novelists would dare to test their readers’ credulity with the chapter written last week, when the South Korean president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Anyone who thinks the age of great statesmen is past should consider the achievements of Kim. His fearless activism over decades helped give birth to democracy in his country in 1987–making South Korea one of the leaders in the spread of democracy around the world in the following years. His tireless efforts to bring the opposition to power in Seoul finally bore fruit with his election to the presidency in 1997. And his insistence on pursuing true peace with North Korea has greatly reduced the potential for conflict in a place long known as the biggest tinderbox on the planet.
A longtime advocate of democracy and peace, Kim peacefully battled a South Korean dictatorship that regarded any talk of reconciliation with North Korea as intolerable. He was harassed, imprisoned and more than once came close to being killed for his fearless human rights advocacy. He was sentenced to death for sedition in 1980, but pressure from Washington induced the government to commute the sentence and eventually let Kim go into exile in the United States.
He eventually was allowed to return and run for president in South Korea’s first democratic election. But years of toil lay ahead before he finally was elected. His reward was a financial crisis that decimated the Korean economy–which has made an impressive recovery due to his willingness to embrace painful reforms.
When he was inaugurated, he reached out to the paranoid communist regime in North Korea, appealing for a thaw in relations–and to the surprise of most people, the other side responded. In June, he became the first South Korean leader ever to visit Pyongyang, where he met with ruler Kim Jong Il, and the North Korean is supposed to journey southward next spring.
Family reunification visits have been allowed. Agreement has been reached to restore a rail link across the border. South Korea and the U.S have provided aid to the North to deal with its acute food shortages.
Even more important, the threat of a catastrophic war on the Korean peninsula has subsided considerably. “There may now be hope that the Cold War will . . . come to an end in Korea,” said the Nobel Committee in announcing the award.
Kim’s story is one of one person’s heroic devotion to a noble cause. Better yet, it’s the story of a nation’s emergence from war and tyranny into freedom and peace.
