Who will dare be Korea’s Mandela?

2013-12-13 16:13

Who will dare be Korea’s Mandela?

By Jason Lim
In some ways, Nelson Mandela was a large part of my life. I don’t mean that I ever met him or even considered him my personal hero growing up. But I remember that a large part of the socially conscious background noise of my generation had to do with boycotting companies doing business with the apartheid South Africa and signing Amnesty International petitions calling for Mandela’s release from prison.Looking back, I wish that I were more socially aware so that I could have experienced, if not participated in, his moral presence much more closely as the lessons were being delivered live. But living in America shields (and blinds) you from many of the more atrocious, officially-sanctioned evils of the world. Not that the Bronx (where I grew up) was a piece of heaven by any stretch of the imagination, but at least the U.S. had largely grown out of her Jim Crow spasms by that time.
The first time that Mandela broke through even my dull-witted sense of citizenship and social justice was when he actually became the head of the African National Congress and the presumed first-ever black president of South Africa. When he came to power, I fully expected some form of revenge on the white Afrikaners who had subjugated his people and unfairly imprisoned him for 27 years. If not revenge, then at least some retribution. And I would be lying if I didn’t admit to some sort of vicarious satisfaction in looking forward to the pending comeuppance. After all, we all cheer when the bad guys get what’s coming to them.
But nothing came. There was no moment akin to the Berlin Wall coming down. There was no Zeus with his bolt of lightning. There wasn’t even some tough-sounding lip service speech handing down God’s wrath. I mean, if anyone deserved their Sodom and Gomorrah moment, it was the Afrikaners, wasn’t it?
I felt let down by Mandela. He refused to satisfy my blood lust, vicarious as it might be. He actually wanted to get along with his former oppressors. How can that be? I thought he was courageous, but he turned out to be a cowardly politician. He was a huge disappointment.
If I felt this way about him, just imagine the pressure he must have been feeling from his own people who had suffered, bled and died for the anti-apartheid cause. Imagine their anger and disappointment when Mandela refused to satisfy their longing for him to be their biblical prophet. Imagine how much easier it would have been for him to take the road to blood and revenge.
Thank God he took the hard road. As he said when visiting his former oppressors for forgiveness and reconciliation, “Courageous people do not fear forgiving for the sake of peace.”
Mandela taught me that true courage is doing what’s right for the sake of peace and equality at the risk of disappointing others, even those who bled for you. Forgiveness as courage, what a concept.
And as we say goodbye to this moral giant of our time, Koreans have to ask, “Who is the Mandela for Korea?” More specifically, “Who will dare be this big for Korea’s reunification?”
In fact, shouldn’t it be every Korean’s civic duty to demand an answer to this question from their leadership across all spectrums? Shouldn’t Mandela’s passing resonate some yearning deep inside that naturally lead to this question? Shouldn’t his example of incredible forgiveness ring some sort of a bell in Korea?
The silence was deafening. Almost eerily so. I had expected a flood of self-reflection from the Korean intelligentsia about how Korea should take Mandela’s lesson to heart and reenergize the drive toward reunification based on hard choices and forgiveness. But, nothing.
Perhaps it was the bloody antics of the boy-king that stifled such a debate. Perhaps it was domestic polarization of Korean politics that paralyzed the conversation. But these things are not new. If any meaningful dialogue on reunification had to wait until North Korea transformed into a democracy and South Korean partisan politics came to its senses, then Korean reunification will be waiting for the Second Coming before it materializes.
Each era faces challenges that ask for heroes to step up. For the Miracle on the Han River, Park Chung-hee, Lee Byung-chul, Chung Ju-yung and others came to the fore. On behalf of democracy and human rights, thousands of students answered the call of their generation, and giants such as the late Cardinal Kim Sou-whan told the military dictators that they would have to go through him to get to his people who had taken refuge in his church.
The challenge of this era is to complete Korea’s healing by making itself whole again. This is the what ― reunification. We know the when ― it’s now. Mandela already showed us the how through his courage to forgive. All that’s left is the who. Who will be big enough to take up this challenge?
Will it be you?
Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. He can be reached at jasonlim@msn.com, facebook.com/jasonlimkoreatimes and @jasonlim2012