South Korean President Kim Dae-jung received a truly deserving Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. He has been the subject of uniform international recognition for his life-long commitment to democracy and human rights in South Korea and East Asia and noteworthy achievements in securing a reconciliation between the two Koreas.
At the same time, an ultra-conservative group led by the former president of South Korea, Kim Young-sam has placed advertisements with South Korean media expressing "a firm opposition against Kim Jong-il's visit to South Korea." In fact, the former president harshly condemned Kim Dae-jung's award as a disgrace to the Nobel Peace Prize during a confrontation with college students.
Although Kim Dae-jung has endeavored to promote a "sunshine policy" and reconciliation with North Korea since he came into office, certain conservative factions continue to resist his efforts.
Kim Dae-jung's award has won praise and cheers sufficient enough to drown out Kim Young-sam's criticisms for the time being. However, a greater challenge awaits Kim Dae-jung. How will he, as the leader of a minority government, integrate internal ideological differences and polarized positions on Korean reconciliation to establish a popular consensus?
How does the award impact on North Korea? Giving the award to just one party of a mutual reconciliation is a little baffling. Obviously Kim Jong-il's willingness to reconcile certainly helped. He must be going through some mixed feelings about being left out. Whether North Korea would boycott progress toward reconciliation or otherwise make trouble is certainly a worrisome issue.
Of course, North Korea recognized Kim Dae-jung's sincerity in promoting the "sunshine policy" during his presidency before agreeing to a reconciliation this past June. Later on, South Korea continuously made goodwill gestures and helped North Korea secure diplomatic ties with third-party nations. North Korea has been well rewarded. Under the circumstances, the country has little reason to scoff at Kim Dae-jung's award.
If Kim Jong-il did indeed decide to boycott reconciliation efforts out of jealousy, he would only be leading North Korea back into isolation and further depress their already withered economy. It is unlikely that Kim Jong-il would be so foolish.
Actually, had Kim Jong-il also received the award, there would be an international outpouring of protests, as the northern Kim has such a poor personal record. As a result, the award committee was unable to jointly award the prize to both parties as it did in the past in the Middle East and South African reconciliations. Giving the award to Kim Dae-jung alone was the only choice.
Kim's award may well give him the prestige necessary to help eliminate South Korean's "regional hatred," and promote political reconciliation.
The award's impact on South Korea's international relations may be less than significant. Improvement of the situation on the Korean Peninsula is almost everyone's hope. However, too many unpredictables exist, including wether North Korea would comply with the treaty to cease nuclear development, as well as internal power struggles. Reconciliation remains intangible.
Can a Nobel Peace Prize bring genuine peace to the Korean Peninsula? An answer to the question requires time. We congratulate Kim Dae-jung for the award and sincerely hope that Kim Jong-il continues to march down the path of reconciliation.
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