Gregory Rodriguez: One Man's One-Korea Dreams
[Gregory Rodriguez is a columnist for the LA Times.]
Kang Cheol-Hwan, North Korean defector and activist, thinks Kim Jong Il's brutal North Korean regime will collapse within three years, five years at the most. But the prospect doesn't make him giddy. On the contrary, the imminent fall of the one of the world's most repressive states just means more work. However much he wants North and South Korea to be reunified, he knows that how it happens is as important as reunification itself.
"If it's done wrong, it will fail," Kang told me last week when he was in town to attend a conference on the fate of the North Korean regime. As founding director of the North Korea Strategy Center, a nonprofit in Seoul, Kang works to prepare North Korean defectors for leadership roles after reunification. But in many ways, he works just as hard to prepare South Koreans -- and even Korean Americans -- for the inevitability of a unified Korea. And its discontents.
We've seen it again and again: Once the dancing in the street is done, even a devoutly to-be-wished-for political revolution is as much pain as progress. Humans don't make the leap from one political system to another with ease. We aren't as good at any of it -- democracy, freedom, change -- as our politicians, myths and theories would lead you to believe....
Read entire article at LA Times
Kang Cheol-Hwan, North Korean defector and activist, thinks Kim Jong Il's brutal North Korean regime will collapse within three years, five years at the most. But the prospect doesn't make him giddy. On the contrary, the imminent fall of the one of the world's most repressive states just means more work. However much he wants North and South Korea to be reunified, he knows that how it happens is as important as reunification itself.
"If it's done wrong, it will fail," Kang told me last week when he was in town to attend a conference on the fate of the North Korean regime. As founding director of the North Korea Strategy Center, a nonprofit in Seoul, Kang works to prepare North Korean defectors for leadership roles after reunification. But in many ways, he works just as hard to prepare South Koreans -- and even Korean Americans -- for the inevitability of a unified Korea. And its discontents.
We've seen it again and again: Once the dancing in the street is done, even a devoutly to-be-wished-for political revolution is as much pain as progress. Humans don't make the leap from one political system to another with ease. We aren't as good at any of it -- democracy, freedom, change -- as our politicians, myths and theories would lead you to believe....