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Korea Herald Song: a unification advocate Dissident scholar Song Du-yul, who arrived in Seoul yesterday for his first visit since his exile in 1967, has established himself as one of the most influential figures in Korean academia through his extensive studies on North Korea and the issue of unification. The 59-year-old Song, professor of philosophy and sociology at Germany's Muenster University, is best known as the first scholar to propose an "immanent approach" in the study of North Korea. In his 1982 work "The Soviet Union and China," Song stressed that North Korea should be examined and evaluated by the criteria of a socialist state, instead of externally reviewed from a capitalistic perspective. Denounced as extremism at the time, his methodology was later adapted by leading North Korea experts of the day, including Lee Jong-seok from the National Security Council and Kang Jeong-koo from Dongguk University, and is now an important part of the mainstream interpretation. "It's undeniable that the 50 years of division separated the existential space of the two Koreas. However, an important conceptual transition was made after the North-South summit of 2000, as the people of the two Koreas began to regard their counterparts as 'the other within us,'" says Song in his 2002 book "Thoughts of a Border Rider." "To understand the ideals and desires of North Korea in the perspective of their words and thoughts should be the first step in bettering relations and finding potential for coexistence." Unlike Lee's studies, which adapted the immanent approach to strengthen his notion that the two Koreas are destined for separate future paths, Song dedicated most of his career to the exploration of the possibilities of reunification. "It is our duty to discuss and search for an ideal political situation on the Korean Peninsula for the next generation," said Song in his 2000 book "A Nation Doesn't Disappear." "We need to overcome the black and white logic of the Cold War and search for new potentials for reconciliation and peace." In "Dialogue with the 21st Century," which was published in 1998, Song criticized the South Korean government for playing a "zero-sum" game with the North, which he saw as the main obstacle in keeping the inter-Korean relations from moving up to the next level. "In the case of the Korean Peninsula, the gain of one party doesn't automatically mean a loss by the other," he wrote. Song's stance toward North Korea has cost him dearly in the past. Staying true to his scholastic notions, Song visited Pyongyang numerous times since 1991 in an effort to gain first-hand knowledge of the regime, a risky decision for a man who has been banned from South Korea since 1971 due to alleged connections with the North. Such actions have led to the accusation that he was a secret Politburo member of North Korea's Worker's Party, a charge that was dismissed in 2001 by a South Korean court. Weathering such difficult times, Song stuck consistently to his belief that the first step for reunification is respecting the regime of North Korea as it is, not by canceling it out. "Unification should not be a one-sided absorbance but must be reached in a 'third space' where both systems can be ideally blended," said Song in a recent press interview. "Our job is to gradually expand that alternative space."
By Kim Tong-hyung
(thkim@heraldm.com)
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