(EDITORIAL from the JoongAng Daily on Aug. 20)

An abbreviated state funeral will

The 15th president of the Republic of Korea, Kim Dae-jung, passed away on
Tuesday. Kim Dae-jung was president for five years, from 1998 to 2003, but he was
a politician for around 50 years. He was elected assemblyman five times and was a
presidential candidate four times.

Unlike others previously in office, he did not leave politics after ending his
term as president. He went back and forth through different political areas, from
the problem of social conflict between South and North Korea to the recent
???president Lee Myung-bak dictatorship administration??? debate.
People felt as if he never left. But now, he is gone forever.
Putting his merits and demerits aside, Kim Dae-jung was a great man, towering
over the recent history of North Asia. His life revolved around a carousel of
protests, persecutions, failures, victories, reconciliations and conflicts. This
is why the problems of Korean society, and the solutions to them, are found in
his footsteps. It is now up to Korean society to calmly evaluate his merits and
demerits and use his death to spur historical development.
Kim Dae-jung was a fighter, and he was persecuted for that. As soon as he was
elected as a Lower House representative in 1961, he lost his position due to the
coup d???etat instigated by Park Chung Hee. Kim Dae-jung immediately stood
against Park???s developmental dictatorship and the strong military policy
against North Korea. He opposed the Gyeongbu Expressway, connecting Seoul to
Busan, and proclaimed that the local defense force should be abolished.
He became a presidential candidate representing the opposition in 1971 and rose
as a leader of the democratization force. He was kidnapped by Korean intelligence
in Japan and even spent time in prison. In 1980, he was sentenced to prison by
the new military regime, providing some of the motivation behind the Gwangju
Democratic Movement that year.
It cannot be said that the fight for democracy is superior to developmental
dictatorship or industrialization in Korea???s modern history. The general
evaluation is that the developmental dictatorship was a more realistic choice for
economic development. However, Kim Dae-jung largely planted the meaning of
???democratization??? in Korean people through the force of his beliefs.
Kim Dae-jung sometimes lost and sometimes won. In 1987, at the start of Korea???s
democracy, Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam ended up allowing the new military
regime of the fifth republic to succeed because they failed to unify as one
candidate. They blew the chance for democracy. Kim Dae-jung had to live with half
the responsibility.
In 1990, he fought against the three joint parties of Roh Tae-woo, Kim Young-sam
and Kim Jong-pil. He led the Jeolla provinces and progressive forces that had
been forced into one corner of the land. He set up a local self-governing body
system after a 13-day hunger strike and, in 1998, finally became president.
As soon as Kim Dae-jung came to power, he focused on reconciliation with North
Korea, something he considered his vocation. He was the first South Korean
president to meet with a North Korean leader, and the first Korean to win a Nobel
Prize.
However, his methodology was not as mature as his sincerity. The hundreds of
millions of dollars spent behind the curtains for the summit meeting, the
???low-level federal system unification??? agreement that was quite unclear, and
the North Korean appeasement policy that followed are still sources of debate
today.
"There will be no more wars on the Korean Peninsula,??? he said, but North Korea
is currently threatening South Korea with nuclear weapons. There are even
suspicions that the hundreds of millions of dollars given to North Korea for a
summit meeting were used for nuclear armament.
Kim Dae-jung achieved a historic task: the change of power between government and
opposition parties and between the Southeast and Southwest regions of the
country. He also worked hard to save the nation from the foreign exchange crisis
in the late 1990s.
While the public was angered over the corruption convictions of his sons, he
succeeded in reinventing the progressive administration. All in all, it was a
smooth process. Therefore, he had a good opportunity to embrace the country. He
had the qualifications and opportunities to recognize the historical significance
of industrialization forces, to accept the Lee Myung-bak administration that
adopted those ideas, and to make efforts for national unity as a former
president.
However, in the last stages of his life, he went back to the combative style that
helped him grow. He defined the current administration as a dictatorship and
provoked the public into action. He must have had his own logic. Perhaps he was
shaken by the fact that reconciliation between South and North Korea was in
crisis and that the late President Roh Moo-hyun, who was a progressive, died in
such shocking circumstances following a probe into his personal affairs.
However, he would have been missed much more if he had walked the road of a
national elder, putting aside regions and political parties.
The Jeolla people, who were saddened by his hardships and wildly enthusiastic
about his speeches, the progressives who considered Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun
their two leaders, the general public who spent a long time with Kim Dae-jung,
and those who opposed and were even angered by his way of thinking, his words and
his actions are all watching him leave.
There are no perfect leaders in Korean modern history. Different leaders have
different weights of achievements and they have all made mistakes.
A lot more time might be needed to fully assess Kim Dae-jung. Just as a great
tree does not shake in the wind, we hope the great man???s soul will always be
with the Korean people.
(END)