Pro-North Korean speakers in South Korea oppose capitalism and the US alliance
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The greatest speeches of the world’s foremost political orators have often been collected in books, and many are also featured online, in some cases in original recordings. The most memorable – delivered in a colonial Virginia church by Patrick Henry, in a field outside of Gettysburg by Abraham Lincoln, in the House of Commons by Winston Churchill, or in a divided Berlin by Ronald Reagan – have taken the form of calls to action, solemn tributes, declarations of defiance, or appeals to conscience.
Such orations are studied, memorized and admired for having marked historical turning points, and became historic in themselves, by their lasting ability to inspire free peoples.
There are other speeches, however, typically forgotten as soon as they are delivered, which have no positive impact, and are viewed as “negative examples,” in that they express reprehensible views often expressed by vile individuals. Although certainly not great or worthy of any admiration, such speeches, in some cases, should be seen as warnings that there are always forces in our world, represented by individuals, whose views we should both fear and do everything possible to struggle against.
Two such speeches were recently delivered in Seoul. They should be made known to Koreans and to Americans, not because they were important or inspiring, but because they reveal a dark vision and sinister worldview which free peoples, and specifically supporters of the U.S.-ROK alliance, must beware of and oppose.
The first of these was given by the extreme-left revisionist historian Professor Kim Dong-choon, who served as the standing commissioner of the ROK government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission from December 2005 to December 2010, and is a professor emeritus at Sungkonghoe University and director of the Good World Research Institute. Kim is known for his outlandish far-left views, heavily influenced by anachronistic Marxist analyses, which in several cases mimic the policy positions and propaganda statements of the North Korean regime. Nevertheless, his September 30 speech entitled, “100 Years of Thought Control – Confronting Hatred and Violence,” organized by several pro-North Korean, anti-American, and other far-left radical groups, was shockingly extreme even by his own radical standards.
According to a pro-North Korean website which reported his speech, Kim began by asserting that anti-communism, opposition to communism, is fundamentally racist in nature and leads inexorably to the devaluation of human life. To exemplify these points, he ridiculed the belief among some that the Soviet Union was an evil regime and that the North Korean army during the Korean War was an evil force, views which he describes as “McCarthyism.” This is a completely false historical claim, since it is incontestable that some of the strongest foes of Senator McCarthy sincerely believed that the Soviet Union and the North Korean army were indeed evil forces.
Kim next declared that the root cause of hatred was the combination of racism (directly linked to anti-communism) and Christianity. He said that this mixture of Christianity and anti-communism, with their inherent and his view outdated concepts of good and evil, also served to breed dehumanization of enemies and the consequent justification of murder. As an example, he claimed that people who fled the North prior to the Korean War were Christians and privileged landowners who were opposed to societal reforms and were motivated by class interests. As for such supposed class interests of Christians leading to murder of enemies, however, he did not see fit to mention the fate which Marxist-Leninist doctrine, and the actual policies of communist regimes, have reserved for class enemies.
Particularly annoying to Kim was what he claimed was the influential position of Christianity in the ROK from the time of its foundation, which he said led to the domination of Korean politics and society by Christians. He again linked this supposed situation to anti-communism (in his view the greatest vice), stating that it was American missionaries who somehow implanted opposition to communism among Koreans, as well as what he terms an obsession with religious faith. This obsession, he said, was caused by the anxiety of elites who were fearful of losing their property, which he criticizes as a lamentable feature of capitalist society. The fact that the American missionaries in Korea in the late 1800s and early 1900s were focused on gaining converts, and not on promoting anti-communism among Koreans, apparently escaped Kim’s notice.
In light of current political trends among young Koreans, he focused on the much-reported conservative shift of young men, which he said was actually a worldwide phenomenon of increasing hatred based on misogyny and economic insecurity due to capitalist competition. He additionally tied this phenomenon to anti-North Korea views, which he said lead directly to anti-China views, and which he declared were also rampant in the U.S.
His discussion of these factors, which he clearly deplored, was for the purpose of arguing for the repeal of the ROK’s National Security Law, which he said was based on and sprung from the hatreds promoted by the interconnected and mutually supporting elements of Christianity, racism, and opposition to communism. Kim seems to believe that the ROK is fundamentally the product of a supposed evil trinity of anti-communism, Christianity, and capitalism, which in his view combined with racism to promote hatred and murder.
The fact that Kim’s views are particularly anathema to North Korea human rights activists (among many others opposed to the regime in Pyongyang and to communist totalitarianism in general) is illustrated by his shocking remarks in an interview with a left-wing Korean website in 2000, which one might have thought would have disqualified him from being appointed to any ROK government entity related to human rights, truth, or justice. In that interview, in which he expressed his view that the ROK had been colonized by the U.S., he asserted that while he had heard that there might be some human rights violations in North Korea, the facts had not really been fully verified, and it was therefore premature to make any firm judgments on the issue. A longtime foreign correspondent in Seoul who spoke with Kim has confirmed that Kim’s approach to the North’s crimes against humanity was basically one of dismissive disinterest.
Kim went even further, claiming that the ROK should not engage in what he termed interference with the North on the issue of human rights, and he condemned what he called anti-North Korean forces which he said were seeking to exploit the issue. Although the ROK’s left-wing President Roh Moo-hyun apparently later thought that Kim’s views were a perfect fit for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, most people reading the interview would certainly not view Kim as a clear-sighted analyst, given Kim’s laughable assertion that Kim Jong-il was actually an open-minded fellow who intended to reform and open up the North.
Kim Dong-choon’s visit to Los Angeles in 2014, though little noticed in the ROK, was noteworthy in that contrary to his supposed commitment to the ideals of truth and justice, he made a point of deliberately meeting with the top leaders of the most hardcore pro-North Korean, America-hating, anti-human rights, and openly racist groups in the U.S., including groups and individual fanatics that have called for the overthrow of the ROK’s free democratic system and the murder of their fellow Americans.
The second speech was given by extreme-left Presbyterian Pastor Jung Dae-il, who established a Christian-Juche Dialogue Research Institute, is standing representative of the Christian Social Mission Conference, and director of the pro-North Korean Tongil Times Research Institute.
Pastor Jung’s gospel seems to be Juche ideology, his Bible seems to be Kim Il-sung’s fictional work With the Century, and his Ten Commandments seem to be cult worship rules of the North Korean regime’s “Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System.”
In a September 17 speech at the chapel of Hanshin University’s Graduate School of Theology Chapel entitled “Establishing a Multipolar World Order and the Path to Peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Jung set forth his pro-North Korean views in an unmistakable manner.
Jung began by explaining and explicitly justifying Kim Jong-un’s new policy supposedly de-emphasizing unification and introducing the concept of two hostile states. In precisely the same manner in which pro-North Korean activists in the ROK and the U.S. have been explaining and justifying the North’s new stance for almost two years, Jung blamed the policy shift on what he claimed was the unceasing hostility and warmongering of the U.S. and the ROK.
Describing what he maintained was the historical necessity of this new policy, he focused on what he said was the lamentable weakening of anti-imperialist forces after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and what he termed the resulting hegemonic triumph of U.S. imperialism. He also made the absurdly false claims that the U.S. had accused North Korea of being behind the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and that the supposed collapse of American power in recent years was somehow illustrated by the war between Hamas and Israel.
Lauding Russia, China, and North Korea, pursuant to their new tripartite alliance, for supposedly respecting the sovereignty of other nations, he went on to explicitly defend Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which he apparently did not view as an indication of any disrespect for Ukraine’s sovereignty, since he made the laughably absurd claim that the war was caused by Ukraine’s genocide against Russia.
He further stated that Iran’s anti-imperialist resistance has frustrated U.S. plans for conquest in the Middle East, so that the U.S. instead focused on using the ROK to provoke China and Russia. The way for the ROK to avoid this fate of being dragged into war, he said, is for the ROK to break free from the U.S.-ROK-Japan alliance.
In addition, he called for a new declaration of the end of the Korean War between the ROK and the North, the signing of a peace agreement between the U.S. and the North, and for the ROK to end all military exercises and halt the sending of leaflets to the North, as well as cease what he terms anti-North education in schools, and protests against the North Korean regime. Finally, he also demanded the repeal of the ROK’s National Security Law, and the revision of the ROK’s Constitutional provision which defines the North as part of the ROK.
As shocking as this speech was, however, it is far outdone by other even more extreme statements by Jung, promoted on pro-North Korean social media accounts, in which he explains his pet project of widely promoting the North’s Juche ideology in the ROK. He stresses what he claims are Juche’s supposed commonalities with Christianity, and he seeks to accomplish a merging of Juche and Christianity by means of a syncretic approach under which Juche is combined with and promoted as fully compatible with Christian doctrine. Put bluntly, Jung seeks to incorporate North Korean ideology, including its inherent cult worship of the hereditary dynasty, into Christianity in general, and into the Korean church in particular.
Indeed, Jung insists that it is both the mission and a privilege of the Korean church to foster a spiritual reconciliation between Juche and the Christian faith. Korean Christians must acknowledge the “true claims” of Juche and its “contribution to humanity.”
He maintains that the Korean church has collaborated with warmongers and says that Korean Christians can dialogue with Juche and answer its accusation that the Korean church is a reactionary group serving the ruling class, participating in oppression, and failing to liberate the masses. This bizarre vision surely amounts to paganism and modern idol worship in the deceptive guise of social justice phraseology.
These two individuals, those who share their views, and the destructive and extremist opinions they articulate, should serve as a negative example to Koreans and Americans who value the U.S.-ROK alliance, free democracy, and basic human dignity.
If the history of the previous century teaches us anything, it is that poisonous ideologies and anachronistic theories, and sympathy for the world’s most brutal dictatorships, whether in the halls of academia, in government agencies, or in places of worship, must be exposed and opposed for the damage they do to societies. The extremist fringes of any society, if not challenged effectively, have a sinister way of spreading, often with tragic results for the cause of liberty.
Lawrence Peck is a correspondent for NK Insider based in Seoul and Los Angeles. Having intensively researched and closely monitored the activities of pro-North Korea and other extremist groups and activists in the U.S. for over 25 years, he has been recognized in the U.S. and Korea as one of the leading American authorities on such topics, and has lectured, written extensively and been interviewed on such topics in the U.S. and Korea. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Juris Doctor degree from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles. He previously worked in Korea for several of the largest Korean business groups in the fields of intellectual property licensing and international business development. He also serves as an advisor to the North Korea Freedom Coalition of the U.S. Lawrence may be reached at the email address: lawrence.nkinsider@gmail.com
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