Distorted View of North Korea

The secretary of the National Reconciliation Committee of the Bishops' Conference in his Catholic Times column introduces readers to Professor Park Han-sik a North Korean expert now teaching in the States.

When people hear the word North Korea, they usually associate images of starving citizens and a dictator bent on provocation. The fundamental reason why peaceful resolution of conflicts on the Korean Peninsula is difficult is the lack of mutual trust. Even those who acknowledge the value of dialogue and respect for peace often do not consider North Korea open to compromise. It is because they believe that they cannot and should not communicate with the ‘devil’.

Professor Park Han-sik is a fascinating scholar who has been challenging "prejudice" against North Korea for over half a century. Born in Manchuria in 1939, Professor Park grew up experiencing the violence of war from an early age. After experiencing China's civil war and the Korean War, he graduated from the Department of Political Science at Seoul National University and went to the United States to study at the American University (Master's degree) and the University of Minnesota (PhD). He has been teaching international relations at the University of Georgia for 45 years, and studying Korean Peninsula issues.

The professor's unique career lies in his 50 or so visits to North Korea. He has facilitated numerous official and informal dialogues between North and South Korea. In 1994, he brokered Jimmy Carter's visit to Pyongyang to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis. Professor Park, who also arranged Bill Clinton's visit to Pyongyang in 2009, is also called the "architect for peace between the US and North Korea."

Some say that the North Korean nuclear issue had to be resolved by force at the beginning, but military methods require serious consideration. According to classified documents that were declassified in December 2017, as a result of simulations conducted by the US Department of Defense in 1994, it was estimated that even with a “surgical precision attack,” there was a high possibility that it would develop into an all-out war.

Recently, the Catholic Northeast Asia Peace Research Institute published an English translation of Professor Park Han-sik's memoir: 「Quest for Peace」. It was previously published in Korea. The book is distributed through Amazon's online bookstore and will provide English-speaking readers around the world with an updated perspective on the North Korea and the Korean Peninsula issue.

In order to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula through peaceful means, change is necessary. North Korea must change, but our perspective on North Korea must also evolve. Only then can North Korea really change.

Evolution and Religious Faith Not Incompatable

 

 

In the Uncomfortable Talk Column of Catholic Peace Weekly, the writer gives us some of his thoughts on evolutionary theory.

Not long ago, he had a meeting with some scientists while planning a book. It was a place to discuss how to understand 'altruism' in science. All living creatures, including humans, act selfishly to preserve themselves and maintain the species. How can the altruistic act of yielding and sacrificing for others be ‘scientifically’ explained? 

Even selfish creatures behave altruistically since they benefit themselves in the long run, according to evolutionary theory. Altruistic behavior is often observed even in animals with very low intelligence. However, humans have also developed various devices that encourage altruism to preserve the species and maintain society from an evolutionary perspective. It is also explained that human evolution has internalized altruism by inventing a moral god beyond external coercion such as laws and social norms.

He was uncomfortable with reducing all phenomena of humans and living systems to the theory of evolution. However, at the end of the discussion, he felt even more uncomfortable at the words of a scientist who majored in evolutionary psychology. "I don’t understand why people believe in God while accepting the theory of evolution. How could that be?" Even human altruistic behavior that is against the self-preservation instinct can be explained by the theory of evolution, but the question was why the existence of religion or God is necessary.

However, the theory of evolution is no different in that it attributes much to chance. It is the same as explaining the synthesis process of protein, which is the starting point of all life, by chance. In scientific knowledge based on causal necessity, 'coincidence' is in fact equivalent to not knowing. Is it more than a coincidence to believe that the part we don't know is God's creative act? All life is one day, and one word of God (Logos) is all it is! I don't believe I was born with it. The creation perspective of Genesis is a magnificent narrative that tries to explain the beginning of this world through faith. There is no rational explanation for the contradiction that otherwise there was nothing and now there is something. For example, science cannot explain what happened before the Big Bang. We cannot conceive of a state in which all existence is condensed and neither time nor space exists.

Leibniz, a philosopher in the 17th century, advocated the theory of predestined harmony. This theory states that even though the movement of everything seems to follow mechanical causality, it is the work of God that directs it toward goodness.

Richard Dawkins, a representative modern atheist, criticized intelligent design theory, saying that no watchmaker makes such clockwork and that if the clock runs accurately, it is only the blind and unconscious result of natural selection. We may be at a crossroads where we must choose whether the right deed, such as altruism, is directed towards God's purposes or blindly.

Fortunately, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species and the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, the Pope announced the opinion that evolution and creationism do not contradict each other. He said, "If you read the Bible, you can imagine God as a wizard with a magic wand, but that is not the case." It was a criticism of the claims of creation science and intelligent design theory that the earth is 6000 years old. Believing in evolution does not mean you have to give up your faith. Rather, it would be more reasonable to say that God granted humans freedom to explore the secrets of this world. We have used that freedom to develop our own wisdom for thousands and tens of thousands of years. Now we are only given the responsibility to develop that wisdom in a way that does not ruin our God-given lives.

What We Need to Remember and To Forget

 

In the Eyes of the Believer Column of the Catholic Times a director of a Theological Institute gives the readers some thoughts on the truth and mercy connection that  society has to deal with not infrequently.

A second-generation Korean director active in Japan, was selected as the winner of a Peace Prize this year. The  director has been making documentary videos for 40 years together with the history academia and civic groups to teach the truth about the massacre of Koreans during the Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan. The date was September 1, 1923, at the time considered the worst natural disaster ever to strike quake-prone Japan. 

 

Before and after the awards ceremony, several Catholic groups joined together to watch documentary films  made and listen to lectures related to the earthquake under the supervision of Pax Christi Korea.

It was a 7.9-magnitude earthquake similar to the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria a while ago. It left devastating damage. However, in the chaos of this disaster, rumors that  “Koreans poisoned wells” and “Koreans are setting fires and killing Japanese” spread and emergency martial law was declared, and vigilante groups organized by the military, police, and civilians started indiscriminately killing Koreans. About 6,600 Koreans were massacred during the Great Kanto Earthquake.

One documentary begins with a scene to excavate remains in a riverbed. This is the place where Koreans were slaughtered and buried during the earthquake. A Japanese civic group trying to find out the truth was allowed a limited period of three days to dig, but no remains were found. However,, a survivor  shows the scars left on his body and vividly testifies to the memories of that time, and Japanese residents also share their eyewitness accounts, recalling memories of the time, including diaries they wrote as children. The film restores the memories of the Kanto Massacre buried underground for 60 years, showing various historical materials and interviews with Japanese eyewitnesses intermittently showing the truth of the testimonies.

 

At the end of the film, a Korea witness is talking with a Japanese witness of the event, standing side by side the Japanese citizen is weeping and hopes that his grandchildren will not forget the truth of what happened. Perhaps the words we want to hear the most about the past history of the Japanese colonial era, the true reconciliation between Korea and Japan, is such a scene. 

  

On March 1st, the President read a commemorative speech to cooperate with Japan instead of mentioning the past, and a few days later, the government announced that the Korean companies should pay compensation to victims of forced labor. The government explains that we should stop demanding an apology from the Japanese government for past history, and focus on building a future-oriented Korea-Japan relationship that cooperates for security and economy. At first glance, the words to move toward the future rather than the past seem hopeful, but the writer is  concerned that the perpetrators are given an excuse to hide or distort the truth of history.

In 1973, conscientious citizens of Japan took the lead in erecting a memorial to Korean victims of the Great Kanto Earthquake. They held a memorial service for the Korean victims  on September 1 every year, and successive Tokyo governors have also sent polite eulogies to express their condolences. However, since 2017, the provincial governor has refused to send a eulogy, and provincial council members are pushing for the removal of memorial stones, and far-right citizens have disrupted the memorial service and continued anti-Korean protests, saying that the massacre of Koreans was a false accusation. 

It is not only yesterday that anti-Korean rumors similar to the Great Kanto Earthquake spread whenever disasters occur and many Japanese actually believe them. As the saying goes, history that is not remembered will repeat itself, so the path to true reconciliation will not be oblivion of the past.

To Cry With Those Who Cry

The Catholic Times on the One Mind One Body Suicide Prevention Center joint project: 'We are all one'. The director brings to the attention of readers that what we hear about suicide is just the tip of the iceberg. Under the shame of statistics are even larger numbers.

 'The tip of the iceberg' means that the invisible part is much larger than the visible part. Korea has accepted suicide as a social problem since the last IMF and has worked hard to change the situation. However, even after great effort, the suicide rate has increased year by year, and recently, more than 13,000 people have committed suicide every year. The number of people who fill the indoor gymnasium of Jamsil Sports Complex disappears every year. 

However, those who disappeared without notice and those who were killed accidentally and died without a will were excluded from the statistics. In addition, those who tried and failed were not considered.

Therefore, it is estimated that the actual number of suicides is about 2 to 3 times the statistics. Additionally, there are 'survivors of suicide'— the families of those who have died.

The suicide victim died alone in isolation, but numerous relationships were connected to the death of one person. The bereaved family refers to all those who have been close to each other even if they are not related by blood. An average of 10 bereaved family members are connected to each person who has died by suicide.  

Bereaved families do not show it on the outside, but inside they have an unresolved pain for the departed.

Questions that can never be answered, regret and self-reproach for not being able to figure it out, trauma that was directly or indirectly witnessed, resentment towards the deceased, the reality of not being able to accept death, a life where I feel guilty whether I laugh or cry, etc. Things repeat over and over again without blurring, continuing the pain that seems to never end.

On the other hand, the risk of suicide among bereaved families is 7 to 8 times higher than that of the general public. The reason is that the choice of those who left the painful reality first seems to be an attractive solution. Therefore, sincere care for the bereaved family is a large part of suicide prevention activities.

Humans cry and suffer when they are in pain. And the director feels relieved just by revealing it. Even if the problem isn't resolved. Survivors of suicide are hidden and unrevealed. It is because they try to hide it within the community and even within their own families. They do not want to reveal the sadness and tears that usually come unexpectedly, and their joy is suppressed by guilt, so their place among people decreases. Thus, they become isolated and find it very difficult to be consoled.

Jesus "did not come to judge the world, but to save the world" (John 12:47). Jesus himself came to be with those who are suffering. People who are really struggling are hidden, and what is needed for those who died in pain and their families is not stigma, but to cry with them.

Love of Others Begins with the Love of Self

 

In the We see as much as we Know column of the Catholic Times the priest writer tells the readers we need to love ourselves if we are to respect the dignity of others.

As the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs was known as a person who contributed greatly to the convenience of mankind by developing innovative products. But behind the scenes, there was also criticism that he was a proud and opinionated figure. He used unnecessary demeaning and abusive language, especially towards his staff, which made interpersonal relationships unsatisfactory. He even mentioned that his job put him under unnecessary pressure and stress to the point of needing drugs himself. He dies at age 56 of pancreatic cancer. 

 

Michael Jackson was a musician who tried to make the world a better place, as seen in the song 'Heal The World'. But did he love himself first? He said on a broadcast that he had plastic surgery because he "hated seeing himself becoming more and more like his father." Maybe he was rejecting the dark skin and appearance he inherited from his father. He died at the age of 50 of a heart attack caused by sudden respiratory failure. The cause of death was taking many medications for years of abnormal sleep patterns and health problems including stress-induced heart problems and insomnia.

There are many cases in the world where people do good things but fail to love themselves. Jesus repeats the words of Leviticus, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). In other words, to love your neighbor, you must first love yourself. How can I love myself? It is to be grateful for all that you have inherited from your parents and God and to take care of it, protect it, and make it grow. In particular, "life and physical health are precious assets entrusted to us by God" Taking care of one's life is having concern for our neighbor.

Many are those who don't drink or smoke and whose hobby is exercise, who are concerned with health so they can do what is necessary for a fruitful life and work for a better world. They are persons who also pass this on to others.

The Catechism teaches that even the bodies of the dead "are to be treated with respect and love." When one's own life is precious, the lives of others are also precious. In particular, those who can influence someone must show a good example by valuing themselves. For we are "directly or indirectly responsible for the evil we promote." 

For this reason, while explaining the commandment not to kill, the Catechism does not forget to emphasize the virtue of temperance. Excessive drinking, gluttony, excessive drug use, or stress “teach us to be guilty of the grave sin of endangering the safety of others and of oneself. The Bible warns that those who drink too much will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal 5:21) Maintaining oneself in good health through appropriate rest and moderation is the beginning of neighborly love. 

What Makes Life Worth Living?

"Today, the word ‘study’ is commonly used to mean preparing for an exam or acquiring a skill, but that word also meant cleaning one’s body, settling one’s mind, or finding a way to live like a human being. We are living in a time when studying like that is regrettably not the case. Compared to the work of eating, what to wear, and spending money, the work of meditating, reflecting, and having a healthy vision is neglected too much…. Indeed, the serious problem today is not the death of God, but the death of man." (Abraham Joshua Heschel Who Is Man?)

 

In the Catholic Times' Light of the World column, the priest columnist gives us the above words of Rabbi Heschel to begin his topic on the positive regard and love of others. And introduces the readers to a phrase that comes to mind at this time: 春來不似春(spring has come but it's not like spring).

 

This is also how he feels about the world and society right now. Worldwide, many people are still suffering from famine and refugee problems, in addition to the Ukrainian-Russian war that has lasted for over a year, and the Turkiye earthquake with its many casualties. 

 

Is this all? How complex is the domestic situation? The people's livelihood is being devastated, the political world is reminiscent of war, social conflicts over the reform of the national pension and public utility, low birth rate and high aging population, rising unemployment and recession, and so on. The COVID-19 crisis is over, but bigger storms await. Now that we have met the many dust storms of life, where can we find hope? 

 

A letter addressed to all good people On April 11, 1963, during the Cold War, Pope St. John XXIII promulgated the encyclical 「Peace on Earth」. This encyclical describes what is necessary for peace, mentioning the rights that everyone should enjoy and the duties necessary for them. What is unusual is that this Encyclical is the first document to call not only Catholics, but all people of goodwill to form new ways of relating in society based on truth, justice, love, and freedom. 

 

Through those who love and want to practice good faith, they predicted that conflict and conflict will end and peace will be possible. This rule emphasizes that failure to fulfill one's obligations can be a danger to the world and to others, including the practice of active love and responsible brotherhood, and that we should work together to solve it, not just sympathize with someone's suffering.

What is really important? Today is an era in which human rights and equality have been greatly expanded. However, he wonders whether we have interpreted the duties entrusted to us passively and have forgotten them. The life of a Christian is to love neighbors and even enemies, but often we don't put it into practice. Is it really worth living if I live only for myself and do well materially? After living, the thought that life is fleeting and finite is the regret that comes from doing only worthless and meaningless things. However, those who pursue meaningful and valuable work will not have those thoughts. The season of Lent, which calls for conversion, is God's invitation to practice important and worthy work and charity. Let's try to live a life without regrets and a life of more love.

"The inner transformation of the human person, in his being progressively conformed to Christ, is the necessary prerequisite for a real transformation of his relationships with others. It is necessary, then, to appeal to the spiritual and moral capacities of the human person and to the permanent need for his inner conversion, so as to obtain social changes that will really serve him. The acknowledged priority of the conversion of the heart in no way eliminates but on the contrary imposes the obligation of bringing the appropriate remedies to institutions and living conditions when they are an inducement to sin so that they conform to the norms of justice and advance the good rather than hinder it" (Compendium of the Social Gospel of the Church #42).

 

Preparation for Retirement

A religious sister working with the elderly gives the readers her thoughts in the Catholic Peace Weekly on living a rewarding retirement life.
 
When it comes to middle-aged people, the most central topic is 'life after retirement'. Many people think they will be working even when they reach old age if they do not have a pension or living expenses guaranteed after their retirement. If you are not ready for your retirement life, your worries about the second job will inevitably increase.
 
When we ask the elderly about a second job: males cite real estate agents as the field early retirees prepare for. The most promising job for those in their 60s is security, but the job is few.  In the case of women, a lot of people apply for caring jobs such as nursing care workers, but they say that the intensity of the work is so high that there are physical limitations in carrying out the work.

In a society that is becoming increasingly complex due to technological advancement, more important than ever is the pursuit of leisure, and cultural and personal life.  Consequently, it's important to utilize professional personnel in preparation for retirement. As we get older, our physical movements decrease and we start to pile things up, and when this happens over and over again, there are situations where we feel lost. In this case, you can get help from specialists, and it will also be very helpful to use a housing social worker who provides counseling on housing problems and housing environment improvement.
 
An aging society demands the expansion of services for the elderly. An old age planner is a job that designs various aspects of life so that people can spend their old age happily. You can find out about your economic situation, emotions, and retirement plans, from counseling so that you can lead a suitable retirement life. The government has selected senior planners as a new job and is conducting expert training. In addition, as the population ages, the number of specialized institutions related to the elderly is increasing, and the fields in which senior planners can work are expected to increase.
 
The sister mentions Paul who didn't look in the mirror for several years after his retirement. He didn't even notice that his face was getting hardened, but while working as a taxi driver a while ago, he looked in the mirror again. When young, it mattered what kind of work he did for the sake of face or attention. However, today, Paul says, "As I get older, I feel happy just being able to do anything," and "I am indescribably grateful for the sense of security that a sense of belonging gives."
 
Pope Francis said: "Introspection is required to get out of the familiar life and look at the truth of this world that exists today from a different perspective. Love for others creates a deep bond in everyone's heart and expands their existence. When we who belong to the Church's life become young in spirit, the Church becomes younger. Let us put our hope in Christ, who is our hope and always young. He is alive. Everything He touches becomes rejuvenated, renewed, and filled with life."
 
The elderly are not those who have lost their youth, but those who live with their youth. They are not the kind of old person overcome with boredom, and killing time, but one who communicates with the people around them with faith and hope and shares their experiences. He advances on the path of inner perfection and exudes light to those around him.