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The one Lincoln lesson that Roh should
learn
By John Parker
On
December 19 last year, Roh Moo-hyun, the underdog
political activist and nominee of the Millennium
Democratic Party (MDP), was elected the ninth president
of South Korea. Most accounts of the election in the
international press described it as a come-from-behind
contest in which Roh rode a groundswell of anti-American
sentiment to electoral success.
But one detail
seemed strikingly at odds with this interpretation: the
candidate described Abraham Lincoln, president of the
United States during the American civil war, as his
political idol. Even a cursory examination of Roh's
interest in Lincoln shows it to be deep and sincere.
Bizarrely, however, Roh seems to misunderstand the basic
lesson of Lincoln's presidency: Lincoln used force, at
an appalling cost in human life, to reunify his divided
country. But Roh was elected by advocating a policy of
peace at almost any price.
Indeed, some of Roh's
rhetoric bore discomfiting similarities to the views of
the former Republic of Vietnam's last president, the
accommodationist Duong Van "Big" Minh, who also
advocated peace and reconciliation in his divided
country. Minh's tenure came to an end after only 48
hours in office, as communist tanks battered down the
gates of the presidential palace in Saigon. Whether
Roh's career will more closely resemble Lincoln's or
Minh's remains to be seen, but the question is critical
to 70 million Koreans and to the future of northeast
Asia.
There were many surprising aspects to
Roh's victory: he is a liberal in a country famed for
its conservatism. His party, the MDP, was widely
considered to have been discredited by corruption
scandals during the previous administration. He is a
high school graduate who did not attend college in a
society where university attendance is considered a
prerequisite for success. And he has been noted for his
anti-American views, in a nation which owes its
political existence to the US.
Ironically, it
was a traffic accident that converted the last of these
"liabilities" into an asset that carried Roh all the way
to Blue House (Korea's presidential mansion). On June 13
of last year, an armored vehicle driven by US soldiers
on a training exercise ran over two Korean school girls,
killing them instantly. Despite profuse, immediate US
apologies for the accident and generous compensation to
the girls' families, the incident eventually led to a
wave of passionate anti-US demonstrations on Korean
streets, especially after the two soldiers most directly
involved were acquitted in separate court martial
proceedings accusing them of negligent homicide.
The demonstrations turned an election campaign
that had mostly been about ruling party corruption into
a referendum on Korea's relationship with the US. In
this environment, the candidate perceived (rightly or
wrongly) by the electorate as the most anti-American had
an automatic advantage, and most Koreans clearly
believed Roh Moo-Hyun to be that man.
Much was
made of the fact that Roh had never visited the US
(unusual for Korean presidents); that he had once called
for the withdrawal of US troops; that he had, during his
democracy-activist days, associated with others who had
even more radical anti-American views. Still, the
candidate himself was careful not to make comments that
could be interpreted by older, more conservative voters
as reckless: Roh answered queries about US-related
relations by blandly promising that he would "endeavor
to enhance the relations of the two countries to a more
balanced level based on reciprocity".
Such
cautious answers showed what a sophisticated, careful
politician he had become, after an uneven political
career that included four losses in previous campaigns
(remarkably, Roh's presidential victory increased his
win-loss record in elections to only 3-4). But the mere
perception that Roh was anti-American was enough for
many voters to choose him over his most significant
opponent, Lee Hoi-Chang; Lee's conservatism and distrust
of North Korean intentions made it easy to depict him as
the Bush administration's lapdog.
With North
Korea busily ejecting International Atomic Energy Agency
inspectors, launching test missiles and hurling threats
in every direction, it is hardly surprising that Roh's
election caused a certain amount of nervousness in
Washington. This was exacerbated after the election when
a representative sent by the president-elect to meet
senior Bush officials sent shock waves through US
government circles by reportedly asserting that South
Korea would prefer a nuclear-armed North Korea to a
sudden North Korean collapse, although eyewitnesses
would later say that the representative had been
misquoted. In spite of such missteps, and the
circumstances of his election, it would be gravely
mistaken to simplistically paint Roh as anti-American.
The most compelling demonstration of this was, and
remains, Roh's astounding (and highly publicized)
admiration of Abraham Lincoln.
In an apparent
response to international interest in Roh's Lincoln
connection, the Korea Information Service produced an
English-language pamphlet after the election entitled
"Roh Moo-Hyun's Encounter With Lincoln". Cynics could be
forgiven for thinking that this was merely the
president's attempt to smooth ruffled American feathers,
but nothing could be further from the truth. Roh's
admiration for Lincoln is genuine and profound.
The pamphlet itself largely derives from
sections of Roh's own book on Lincoln. It is remarkable
enough that a busy politician like Roh could have found
the time between 2000 and 2001 to write such a book (he
was serving as minister of maritime affairs during this
period), but the book itself is even more remarkable for
the insight it gives into Roh's political philosophy,
the man himself, and where he might lead South Korea.
According to the book, Roh first discovered
Lincoln in elementary school and regarded him simply as
"honest and great". However, on April 13, 2000, while
awaiting the results of vote-counting for the 2000
General Assembly election, an election which he
ultimately lost, Roh happened to read one of Lincoln's
greatest speeches, his second inaugural address of March
4, 1865. This is the speech which contains the famous
passage:
"With malice toward none, with charity
for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to
see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we
are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him
who shall have borne the battle and his widow and his
orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just
and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
Roh described this "exciting reunion" with
Lincoln as "thrilling" and "inspiring", and even went so
far as to compare it with Mahatma Gandhi's famous
encounter with a segregationist at a South African train
station (Pietermaritzburg), and the apostle Paul's
meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus. The
experience so moved him that only three days later, in a
concession editorial published in the Shisa Journal, Roh
not only echoed Lincoln's themes of forgiveness and
reconciliation, but urged his readers to study Lincoln
and learn from his example. And this was not all: Roh
followed up his Shisa Journal article with a
"self-imposed assignment" to write a book on Lincoln.
Whatever Roh's lack of academic credentials, as a
student of Lincoln he certainly proved to be industrious
and determined: Roh Moo-Hyun Meets Lincoln was
published by Hak-go-jae the following year.
Though not all of the book, to my knowledge, has
been published in English, the excerpts that have been
are fascinating. Clearly, a major reason for Roh's
admiration of Lincoln is the similarity between the two
men's lives: both were men from humble backgrounds who
rose to lead their countries at times of national
division. Both had little formal education, but became
lawyers, then politicians in spite of this shortcoming.
Both were reformers who suffered numerous political
setbacks before attaining high office. Both were
famously plain-spoken.
But Roh seems to be most
fascinated by those characteristics which he sees as
lacking in Korean politics, or in his own personality.
For example, Roh lauds Lincoln's "reconciliation and
love", because he sees it as the antithesis of the
winner-take-all, zero-sum character of Korean politics.
Although foreigners typically perceive Korea as
homogeneous, in reality, Korean society has often been
characterized by major interregional and intergroup
divisions: not only between North and South, but between
different regions of South Korea; labor and management
groups; political parties (which often correspond to
geographical regions); and most recently, between a
conservative older generation and a more radicalized
younger generation. Referring to Lincoln's 1865 speech,
Roh says: "the oration of anguished Lincoln makes me
feel ashamed of our political reality", and he
excoriates the practice of "fueling anger and hatred
among different groups".
Roh also approves of
Lincoln's pragmatism, describing him as "a strategical
realist who always confronted reality, not falling prey
to illusions". Some of the president's recent policy
decisions, such as sending Korean troops to Iraq, might
have surprised his supporters who expected a greater
degree of dissociation from US policies. But no one who
had read Roh's book on Lincoln could have been
surprised: Roh admires, and is now seeking to emulate,
Lincoln's "[seeking for] the best within a realistic
boundary". Roh also admires Lincoln's realism because he
believes this quality has been lacking in Korean
politicians, including the famous patriot Kim Gu, whom
Roh always cites as his other political hero. Regarding
Kim Gu, Roh wonders "why are venerable men in [Korea's]
modern history all losers? Although [he] was certainly a
righteous man, he was a loser in real politics." To Roh,
Lincoln's "cautiously calculated steps" were inspiring
because they showed "promising evidence that 'justice
will prevail'."
Roh praises many of Lincoln's
personal qualities, including "honesty", "sincerity",
and "wisdom", in addition to his political success. But
surprisingly, the quality he stresses most is Lincoln's
"graciousness, something not easily found in other
successful men". Roh uses this quality to argue against
"some people in Korea" who "feel nostalgic for the era
of Park Chung-Hee, a strongman", saying pointedly that
"a strong leadership is not synonymous with a repressive
leadership ... only [a harmonious, horizontal, liberal
and autonomous] leadership can heal the divided Korean
peninsula and cure the chronic disease of our society,
that is, regional and inter-class confrontation."
Lastly, Roh coins the phrase "humble power" to
describe Lincoln's political approach, calling him "the
model of an unassuming man creating a strong country
with humble power". As the president plaintively
observes: "[Korean] history has created a misleading
concept that it is inevitable to take an unjust path to
success and that honesty hampers success. It is high
time that we create a society in which honest and
hard-working people and fair competition succeed." To
Roh, simply stated, Lincoln's "righteous path" is an
example worthy of emulation.
Towards the end of
his book, Roh states that "Our times, in which the
entire Korean people, divided in the south and north,
and the east and west, remain at constant strife, seem
to be analogous to the times of Lincoln." This is an
obvious connection to make, and clearly does a great
deal to explain Roh's interest in the late American
president.
But this is also why, to a reader
familiar with the American Civil War period, there seems
to be a peculiar gap in Roh's understanding of Lincoln.
As noted, Roh admires Lincoln for his reconciliation,
love, honesty, pragmatism, graciousness, and "humble
power". But Lincoln isn't considered a great president
by Americans because of these qualities. He is
considered great because he preserved the Union - ie, he
prevented the US from fracturing into two nations. And
this achievement was not effected by Lincoln's personal
qualities per se: it was effected by a massive
application of military force, accompanied by levels of
bloodshed so appalling that they make the September 11
attacks look like the proverbial Sunday picnic.
Casualty figures from the American Civil War are
shocking, especially to those who may be predisposed,
based only on very recent history, to regard the US as
the instigator of wars which invariably result in many
foreign deaths and few American ones. A few examples
will suffice: at the battle of Antietam, over 22,000 men
were killed or wounded in a single day. The more than
40,000 casualties at Gettysburg included at least 5,000
dead; in places, the battlefield literally ran red with
blood. The estimate for the total military death toll,
including Union and Confederate dead, is 623,000
(although most were killed by disease, not in battle).
Civilians were not spared: Richmond, Savannah
and Atlanta were burned to the ground. Thousands died in
the New York City draft riots. And epidemics swept
through civilian and military alike during and after the
war. It is worth pointing out, too, that these deaths
occurred in a far more sparsely populated US than exists
today: the US population in 1860 was a mere 31 million
(less than one-ninth of the contemporary figure). Thus,
these military death tolls constituted a startling 2
percent of the entire US population at that time, making
them even more significant than they appear at first
sight.
The most astounding thing about Roh's
book on Lincoln - at least those parts of it which have
been translated - is that he never mentions Lincoln's
use of force, and the loss of life which resulted. For
all his arduous research, Roh seems to have missed the
main point: it is as though he had written a biography
of Tiger Woods, praising his personal qualities at great
length, without ever once mentioning that Woods plays
golf.
Roh never seems to make the connection
between Lincoln's decision to use force to reunify the
divided US, and the fact that he, as the new president
of South Korea, might conceivably be called on to use
force to effect the reunification of Korea. If Roh is
known for any single policy position, it is his repeated
statement that "the North Korean nuclear weapons issue
must be resolved peacefully and through dialogue."
But his hero Lincoln didn't resolve the
secession issue peacefully and through dialogue: he
resolved it militarily, by crushing the Confederacy with
superior numbers and industrial output. To be sure, Roh
is not wrong to think that Lincoln was a great advocate
of reconciliation. But the time for this reconciliation
came only after the military turning point of the
conflict; Lincoln's "with malice towards none" remark
was made in 1864, after it was clear to most observers
that the Union would eventually win the war.
Unfortunately for Roh, the ultimate resolution
of the Korean civil war is not yet so clear, at least
not to the North Koreans. However compelling the
humanitarian motives for North-South reconciliation, is
it realistic to call for reconciliation when North Korea
is still digging tunnels into South Korea (an action
which has no conceivable defensive purpose), and
steadily building up its conventional forces just north
of the demilitarized zone? Actions such as these, even
more clearly than North Korea's budding nuclear program,
demonstrate the North's intentions: it doesn't want
coexistence, it wants to win. And South Korean leaders
forget this at their grave peril.
Many specific
actions taken by Roh since his election - such as highly
publicized visits to American bases and his recent
sending of noncombat forces to Iraq - show that he has
no intention of allowing the US/South Korea alliance to
wither. It appears that Roh will not let down South
Korea's military guard. But if he ever did, a ghost
stalking the corridors of history would surely remind
him of the risks of alienating his American ally, and
that ghost isn't Lincoln. He is Duong Van "Big" Minh,
the last president of the late Republic of Vietnam (aka
South Vietnam).
Overly facile comparisons should
not be made between Roh and Minh; after all, a false
equation of Vietnam with Korea by some American leaders
was a major factor in the Vietnam fiasco. Nonetheless,
disturbing parallels do exist, however unfashionable it
might be to point them out. Minh, like Roh, was a
charismatic, well-liked politician who sought a moderate
"third way" between communism and hardline
anti-communism.
Minh, too, sought accommodation
and reconciliation between the halves of his painfully
divided nation: as he famously announced in 1975, "The
Republic of Vietnam policy is the policy of peace and
reconciliation, aimed at saving the blood of our
people." The similarity to Roh's stated policy towards
North Korea is apparent. Unfortunately for Minh, less
than an hour after he spoke those words over Vietnamese
radio, North Vietnamese tanks broke down the gates of
the presidential palace in Saigon and completed the
conquest of South Vietnam. Minh had been in office only
two days.
The fate of Duong Van Minh after
reunification ought to interest Roh as he ponders the
implications of North Korean military deployments.
During the war, the North Vietnamese carefully avoided
criticizing Minh; partly because his brother Duong Van
Nhut was a high-ranking general in the North Vietnamese
army, but it was also because Hanoi wanted to encourage
neutralist forces in the South in order to make their
final victory less difficult. Consequently, Minh, unlike
most other senior South Vietnamese officials, was not
arrested after reunification; he simply disappeared into
his Saigon villa, raising orchids and birds, for eight
years.
There was speculation that the communists
intended to provide him with a political role in the
post-reunification government. This proved incorrect;
like communist parties everywhere else in the world, the
Vietnamese version was too paranoid to allow the
political participation of any person who was, in their
estimation, less than completely trustworthy. In 1983
Minh finally went into exile; first to France, then
finally to the US.
On August 7, 2001, after a
fall at his California home, he died at a Pasadena
hospital at the age of 86. He had wanted to spend his
last days in Vietnam, but poor health made that
impossible. Respectful, if not complimentary, notices
appeared in the party-controlled newspapers in Vietnam;
this was permitted by the government on the grounds that
Minh had hastened the end of the war. But few mourned
him in the US.
Vietnamese-Americans, probably
the most anti-communist of any American ethnic group,
still mostly regarded him as a traitor to the cause of
the late Republic. In Vietnamese museums today, Minh
barely exists: small, grainy, unflattering photographs
of him, Nguyen Van Thieu, General Khanh, Ngo Dinh Diem
and other South Vietnamese leaders are helpfully labeled
"leaders of the Saigon puppet regime", for the
edification of young Vietnamese students and foreign
visitors.
These museums should be required
viewing for South Korean politicians as they contemplate
the future of the US/ROK alliance. Again, Vietnam is not
Korea for a thousand reasons. But Vietnam, too, had
anti-American street protests by young people calling
for the withdrawal of US troops. Many South Vietnamese
also decried deaths of their countrymen at American
hands, while ignoring the vast death toll attributable
to the Northern communists, in manmade famines, purges
and other atrocities.
The Vietnamese
demonstrators achieved their goal: the US tired of the
conflict and left. But the result was not the peaceful
reconciliation they longed for - it was military
conquest of the South by the North. Within three years
of the withdrawal of American forces, the Republic of
Vietnam no longer existed; it had been forcibly annexed
by the single-party dictatorship of North Vietnam.
Virtually the entire professional class of South Vietnam
- professors, doctors, managers and bureaucrats - either
languished for years in communist "re-education" camps
or fled outright.
Vietnamese starved as the
South's market economy plunged into a communist time
warp for the next 14 years. Only since the introduction
in 1989 of the famous doi moi economic reform
policy - a policy which, in practical terms, appears
strikingly similar to the state-directed capitalism
adopted by Park Chung-Hee in South Korea - did things
begin to improve in Vietnam. And even after 14 years of
reform, Vietnam remains far behind its non-communist
neighbors. Although the reunification of the country has
certainly brought many benefits, is this really an
example that South Koreans should emulate?
Ironically, one important consequence of South
Vietnam's collapse, long since forgotten by most, was a
strengthening of the Washington-Seoul alliance. With the
memories of the Republic of Vietnam's startling
implosion so fresh, then-president Park Chung-Hee took
great care to maintain good relations with the US.
Twenty-eight years on, has the prudent example he set
been forgotten? South Korea's destiny now lies in Roh
Moo-Hyun's hands. His pragmatism since taking office
shows that he is aware of the slippery slope that led to
South Vietnam's downfall and has no intention of sliding
down it. But truly living up to the legacy of his hero,
Abraham Lincoln, would require much more than simply
preserving the status quo: it would require putting the
military option for reunification back on the table. And
of this Roh has given no sign.
Of course, there
are extremely good reasons for taking force off the
table, eg, Seoul's proximity to North Korean artillery,
and the frightful possibility of nuclear weapons use on
the crowded Korean peninsula. The possibility of
following the German model instead, which always seems
to dangle just out of reach as Pyongyang lurches from
one crisis to the next, is another excellent reason to
reject the "Lincoln model" for reunification at this
time. Unfortunately, North Korea is not defeated, and
still wants the Vietnamese model. Officially at least,
Roh excludes all three of these historical models in
favor of some kind of gradual reconciliation leading
over many years to reunification. But what will he do if
North Korean intransigence, or American unwillingness to
tolerate North Korean nuclear weapons, forces him to
choose between the path of Lincoln and the path of "Big"
Minh?
John Parker is a freelance
writer. He has lived in Korea, China, and
Vietnam.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online
Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
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