Peace preachers should pay the price

Mohssen Arishie in Seoul

A peace message revealed in Korean peninsula by South Korean President Moon Jae-in reminds Egyptians of their late President Anwar Sadat. The Egyptian leader on November 27, 1977, deserved global applause when he visited Jerusalem and delivered a historic speech before Israel’s Knesset (parliament). Sadat’s historic peace call was met by a stormy opposition at home and in the Arab world. Worse, he was condemned for being a traitor. Arab countries cut their diplomatic ties with Egypt; and the Cairo-based headquarters of the Arab Organisation was moved to Tunisia.

Despite so many landmines, which exploded in his face and death threats he received from Muslim fundamentalists, Sadat refused to give in. Two years after his historic visit to Jerusalem, Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., United States on 26 March 1979, following the 1978 Camp David Accords.

Together with his Israeli peace partner late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, the Egyptian president was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize for 1978. Sadat paid the ultimate price for making history. He was assassinated by fundamentalists during a military parade on October 6, 1981.  About 38 years after, anti-peace voices in the Arab world have been silenced. Sadat’s peace initiative is echoing powerfully across the Arab region; and major Arab countries have become fully aware of the benefits of having lasting peace in the region.

Like the Egyptian leader, South Korean President Moon is fighting hard in the Korean peninsula to preserve his peace initiative, which, nonetheless, appears to have divided the South Korean society. Opponents of Moon’s call for peace and reunification, gloomily said that North Korea would not cooperate positively to remove the chief obstacle—denuclearisation—in the way of the long-sought peace in the region.

President Moon’s speculations in this respect are said to have been overstreched. His opponents, who include experts from reputable think-tanks in South Korea, strongly reject the belief that  hand-shaking and exchange of smiles between President Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on April 27 last year would undermine the wall of mistrust built over the past 70 years between the South and the North.

On the other hand, it seems that Moon’s dream of reunification is agitating the community of young people in South Korea. Still haunted by the tragic memories of the three-year Korean War in 1950 and the sufferings inflicted upon their parents and grandparents, South Korean young people reject the issue of reunification outright.  They have fears that the fulfillment of reunification in the peninsula will come at the expense of their future. According to their concerns, their country’s prosperous economy will foot the absolutely expensive bill for reuniting the two parts of the Korean peninsula.

Concerns overwhelming youth community in South Korea are appreciated by Dr. Park Jong-Chul of the Korean Institute for National Uniufication. KINU is widely regarded in Asia as a unique institute dealiong with unification issues.

Dr. Park admitted that a survey conducted by a team of researchers belonging to KINU discovered that President Moon’s voice of reunification was hardly audible in the community of young people in the South.  He said that South Korean young people could not come to terms with such a historic move.

According to Dr. Park, KINU reviewed ups and downs, and positive and negative aspects in the Korean peninsula over the past 100 years to create the future vision of how a lasting peace and unification could be achieved in Korean peninsula, which strategically connects Asia with the Pacific Ocean.

Explaining the need for peace and unification in this region, Dr. Park said: “Peace will help prevent the outbreak of war.” According to his point, it is a lasting peace, which can eliminate the causes of wars, such as tensions, misunderstandings, mistrust. “Peace alone strengthens confidence-building,” KINU’s senior researcher told a team of foreign journalists and television crew from Egypt, Kuwait, Poland and Hungary.

Dr. Park confessed that it woul take long time to dismantle the atmosphere of mistrust in the peninsula. He remarked that old generations in South Korea feel hatred. “Despite the feeling of hatred, the old generation, who witnessed the artocities of the Korean war, are entraining mixed reaction,” he said. “They are also entertaining brotherly feelings towards North Koreans,” he remarked.

Dr. Park said that the research his team had concluded also explored the impact of peace issues on North and South Koreas’ economies. “There is a need for creating new formula of peace and economic prosperity in the North in particular,” he said in his elaboration on the developments of President Moon’s historic move in the Korean peninsula.

KINU’s chief researcher is viewing rising signs of optimism over a permanent cessation of hostilities and an end of war in the Korean peninsula, nonetheless. He said: “Regardless of the difficulties ahead of talks over peace and denuclarisation, for the first time the two Koreas have agreed to demilitarised.”

Regardless of such a gloomy atmosphere in South Korea, President Moon Jae-in appears to be determined to continue fighting for peace in the peninsula. He must be walking optimistically and steadfastly in the footsteps of peace preachers across the world, such as late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.