South Korea's Presidential Election Impacts Korea's Tensions
It was one of the closest elections in Korean history. On March 9th, a new South Korean president was elected into office winning the election by a slim 0.8% margin. As a represent of the conservative party, President-elect Yoon Seok-Yeol is now leading South Korea away from President Moon’s progressive pro-dialogue stance towards North Korea and returning the country to a confrontational, hardline approach.
President-elect Yoon Seok-Yeol Celebrates His Victory
Peace activists who have been working for years towards a long-term resolution on the Korean Peninsula are disappointed by the vote. Youngmi Cho, the Executive Director of Korean Women’s Movement for Peace, responded to South Korea’s election by confessing, “Yoon’s election will…have a chilling effect on the women’s peace movement.”
After working for many years towards a diplomatic solution, peace networks are disheartened to see a potential rise in tensions as well as militarization on the Korean Peninsula. The Korea Peace Now! campaign urged the South Korean president-elect Yoon Seok-Yeoul to “take a peace-first approach with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (‘North Korea’) by, together with the United States, officially ending the Korean War with a peace agreement. This action must come at the beginning, not the end, of negotiations.” You-Kyoung Ko, the South Korea-based consultant for WIPF (Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom), added that, “The way to build peace and achieve goals such as denuclearization is by addressing the root cause of tensions, which is the unresolved Korean War.”
One positive aspect is that President-elect Yoon Seok-Yeol has vowed to work more closely with the United States. President Biden has already planned a summit to meet the new Korean president at the end of May. If the United States and South Korea work closely together, perhaps the two countries can approach the DPRK with a united policy.
At the end of the day, though, politics and policies will continue to be ever changing. As a humanitarian organization with over a decade of experience working on the ground in the DPRK, Ignis Community is committed to remain serving the most vulnerable in North Korea, including individuals with disabilities, women and children, regardless of who is in office.
Throughout our 14 plus years of serving the common people of North Korea, there has never been a politically good time to work in the nation. But this has not deterred us from building trusting relationships with the people and working towards real, sustainable solutions to the myriad of obstacles North Korean people face every day.
Although politics have never been in our favor throughout our years of both living and working there, we have been spurred on by the concept of “radical hospitality”. Radical hospitality means extending grace to those who have hurt us, betrayed us, that is even to those we may consider to be our enemies.
This kind of hospitality welcomes the lowest members of society, those who are outcast and discarded. It is for this reason that Ignis Community has intentionally embraced the children of North Korea. We actively provide medical treatment and special education to children with developmental disabilities, including those with cerebral palsy and autism, and provide nutritional and educational support to childcare facilities throughout rural regions of the country.
Treating Children with Cerebral Palsy in the Pyongyang Medical School Hospital
As Mirosloav Volf describes, this kind of hospitality is about extending the hand of friendship. Especially in times of conflict, we need to pull out of the enclosure of our own culture so that we might become salt to a world ridden by strife (pg. 54). Instead of becoming accomplices in war, we need to be agents of peace. And the only way to do this is by reaching out, offering a loving touch, and extending a hand of friendship.
Despite political ups and downs, it is this offer of hospitality that will transform the Korean Peninsula and the world around us. We hope that others will also be inspired to live out radical hospitality. If put into action, this kind of hospitality has the power to bring peace to the most unlikely of places.