The Chosun Journal has often been accused of being too one-sided and polemical. As the editor, I am mostly to blame for this unfortunate indictment. It is unfortunate because The Chosun Journal’s staff itself is made up of liberals and conservatives, Christians and agnostics, diverse people with opposing points of view. What binds us together is our common desire for the North Korean people to live free. However our differing strategies on how best this can happen often does not come across very clearly through this site.

So here is a brief unfiltered glance into the minds and hearts of CJ staff members that echo the range of views held by our readers. As you will see, no one has a monopoly on the truth.

On Giving Aid

What troubles me about the Eugene Bell Foundation, the National Council of Churches, and others that donate goods in cooperation with the North Korean regime is their loss of perspective. To analogize, while it is true that during the Holocaust, even Auschwitz had a medical clinic for sick people, and I’m sure that the doctors and nurses did much good in those clinics, for God’s sakes, they were still operating in a death camp. To be content and pleased with donating goods without making any effort to dismantle the prison camp that is North Korea is self-serving and cruel.

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Unconditional love and giving is what effectively transforms even the most hardened hearts. Consider the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity. The example of the early Christians and martyrs at first glance seemed idiotic and insane. But it worked. Also, even if most of the foreign aid that is donated is redirected to the North’s military and social elite, are they any less human or deserving of help than others?

On South Korea’s Apathy

No nation on earth can rival the degree of narcism as South Korea. It explains why South Korea recently abstained from the landmark United Nations vote condemning Kim Jong Il’s regime for “widespread and grave” abuses of human rights. It also explains why the majority of South Koreans, watching a unified Germany’s hard economic transition, prefer a gradual 10 year reunification period over an immediate one. South Koreans publicly say this all the while knowing that 2 million North Koreans have been starved to death over the last 10 years. Not even published satellite photographs of North Korean concentration camps, where tens of thousands of families suffer terribly for generations, can make a dent in that mindset. In other words, what guides the lives of most South Koreans today is the principle: “Better them than us.” Better for millions of N. Koreans to continue dying of starvation and torture than us who may be killed during a possible war of reunification or who will certainly be impoverished in the event of a peaceful one. It is better to abstain from votes that may provoke Pyongyang. It is better to pay Kim Jong Il millions to preserve his regime than allow it to collapse too quickly.

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Ascribing South Korea’s apathy to narcism is petty and ignores recent Korean history when the US supported military dictators in South Korea who carried out communist witchhunts. I have friends my age who remember that in elementary school, if they wrote about North Korea in their notebooks, their teachers would make them erase it for fear of being investigated. In the 80s, little kids used to report teachers, even parents to the police for statements that weren’t 100% pro-America, anti-Communist. People would be interrogated or arrested for reading slightly left-wing poetry; dissident poets received death sentences. Kids my age can remember when the Korean CIA tortured college students to death under the suspicion that they were pro-North activists. In this context, young South Koreans have every reason to be skeptical of an anti-North Korea stance. Also, the shallow materialistic people you’re talking about represent a small minority of Koreans, but since they’re rich, all their views get published in the papers. My neighborhood, Kangnam, is full of obnoxious, oblivious kids, but most working class people are pretty sympathetic to the N. Korean human rights cause. It’s easy to talk about war when you’re in the States, but I’m in Seoul dammit and I bristle when an American casually mentions the possibility of war. Seoul is the first target, and we’d be dust 10 minutes into a war.

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The South Korean government and the media work together to downplay NK refugees’ accounts on everything. How insulting is that? Imagine you live in a destitute place like NK, and by some crazy luck you manage to escape. You are passionate and tell your story about your life. And you come to realize that many people don’t even believe you. They would rather think that you are exaggerating at best; they don’t care. Most of your own people don’t care. I know that it is everyone’s responsibility to do something about it once they are aware of it (no matter what country you may be from), but it’s a much harder slap in the face to know that groups of your own blood across the DMZ care too much about themselves (and too little about you) to help, it really is. Their rejection of actual refugees’ stories is the ultimate form of narcism.

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One group’s president responded to our list by saying that he would in turn be discouraging all of his members from ever visiting The Chosun Journal. Offending South Koreans/Korean-American churches does not help at all in changing their ways. I think it can even serve to hinder their mobilization. While direct confrontation may be needed to provoke their conscience, I’m concerned that too much of truth (i.e., truth lacking grace) will only drive them away further, making them shut off their conscience and ignore their feelings of guilt and shame.

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No amount of informing or pleading will mobilize inactive groups into gathering petitions, holding fundraisers for orphans, or protesting at Chinese embassies. They’re too self-absorbed to care for others. Thus such people should be publicly shamed, not because this will lead to their repentance, but because they deserve to be condemned. The blood of the North Koreans is on their hands; and their blood cries out for justice, not only from their persecutors, but also from those who have chosen to look the other way.

On Churches

Martin Luther King Jr. lamented the apathy of the majority of white churches during the Civil Rights movement. Dietrich Bonhoeffer lamented that only a minority of churches opposed Hitler. Let us lament over the same middle class spirit that reigns during the North Korean holocaust, when Korean-American churches are more preoccupied with organizing picnics and sports fellowships than sacrificially rescuing orphans and widows. Let us be astounded by the power of sin that continues to cripple the witness of the church. But let us take heart in God’s sovereignty who promises never to leave nor forsake her (Heb. 13:5).

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Churches should not get involved in politics. They would only end up being exploited by various political parties, losing their mandate and credibility to share the gospel in all the earth. Our commission is to preach the word of Christ and to baptize in His name, not to change governments or dictate policies. Moreover, prayer is the most important and powerful activity of the Church. To discount that fact reveals a tremendous lack of faith. Only the Holy Spirit through our prayers can revive the apathetic and selfish.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 5th, 2004 and is filed under Edward Kim's Column. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.