Forgiveness, the forgotten virtue

By John Alderman Linton

In my first year as a premed, my life was changed by the uprising in Gwangju in May 1980 and the massacre that followed.

Tragically, some still believe the farcical claim that the Gwangju uprising was instigated by North Korean agents.

I've been to North Korea 29 times so far, so I know something about that society and the mood there. If North Korean troops had been part of the Gwangju Uprising, I'd have never made it out of the Gwangju Provincial Office alive with the armed civilians.

I reached Gwangju on Sunday, May 25, 1980. I managed to pass through seven checkpoints by passing myself off as an employee with the U.S. embassy.

The outskirts of the city were patrolled by soldiers armed with M16 rifles; tension and danger were palpable. Torched vehicles lined the streets, along with the charred remains of a number of buildings.

But what really broke my heart was a bus abandoned on the side of the road. Painted on the side in large letters was the message, “South Jeolla Province, we must unite! There's nobody else but us.”

Traffic was at a standstill, but the city remained orderly. Some people say the Provincial Office was being run by rioting hooligans, but that wasn't the case at all. It did remind me of a massive funeral, however.

At some point, foreign correspondents figured out I was fluent in Korean and asked me to interpret for them at a press conference. For three hours, I helped convey a highly detailed account of the situation in Gwangju to some of the biggest names in the international press.

The leader of the armed civilians made an ardent appeal. “Why are we being shot at by the soldiers who ought to be protecting us from North Korea? Why are they calling us Communists when we begin each day by chanting anti-Communist slogans and singing the national anthem before the Korean flag?”

I was greatly impressed by the citizens of Gwangju, as well as horrified by a poster I spotted that explained that the Gwangju events had been orchestrated by Chun Doo-hwan, leader of the military junta. That's when my hatred for Chun began.

My father and I told officials at the U.S. embassy about the tragic events that had unfolded in Gwangju. Two weeks later, the embassy asked me to come back in.

“We've received a letter from the Fifth Republic,” an embassy official told me. “The government says they'll refrain from arresting you because of the many things your forebears did for Korea, but they want you out of the country because they think you orchestrated demonstrations in Gwangju.”

As a red-blooded young man, I was outraged by the situation, but my father counseled prudence.

“Regardless of the facts, you're assumed to be guilty as a person of interest. If you stay here and another uprising occurs, you'll be arrested for sure. But if you do community service down in Suncheon and report your daily activities to the police, you might be able to ride this one out,” he said.

I was still outraged, but I wasn't about to leave Korea.

During the academic hiatus, I headed down to Suncheon to teach English at a small middle school, while keeping the intelligence unit at the Suncheon police apprised about my daily schedule.

Late that fall, I returned to my medical studies, but I couldn't endure the pressure. In the end, I volunteered for student military training ― a type of boot camp ― the first non-Korean to ever do so. I endured ten days of grueling training to prove I wasn't a Communist and to clear my name of the charge that I'd been behind the demonstrations in Gwangju.

Later, I went to the U.S. for my medical residency in 1987 and returned to Korea in 1991, where I began work as head of the International Health Care Center at Severance Hospital.

I'd really wanted to meet Kim Dae-jung (“DJ”), whom I'd always revered while living down in South Jeolla Province, so my older brother arranged for me to have a private meeting with him in the spring of 1994.

During the course of our conversation, I brought up something I'd really wanted to know. “Chun Doo-hwan is still alive. Why have you left him alone instead of getting your revenge?”

Kim smiled broadly and said, “Why would I want to get revenge? It doesn't serve any purpose.”

DJ's words, in his rich Jeolla Province accent, melted my heart.

For more than half an hour, he told me about Nelson Mandela, who became president of South Africa after nearly three decades in prison. He explained how Mandela had worked for harmony between blacks and whites without taking revenge on anybody.

A few years later, Kim Dae-jung was elected president, and I received an invitation for a VIP seat at his inauguration in January 1998. I regarded that as a great honor for the Linton family.

But sitting there on the stage, as guests of honor, were none other than former presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo. At that moment, I seethed with rage, but I gradually came to understand Kim's intent. “There's hope for this country yet,” I found myself thinking.

DJ chose that inauguration as the time to forgive Chun and Roh for sentencing him to death (a sentence that was later commuted). His forgiveness was not empty words, but sincere action, as demonstrated by Kim inviting the two men to attend such a distinguished occasion.

Kim Dae-jung certainly deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. While controversy remains about the policies he adopted as president, including his Sunshine Policy toward North Korea, the forgiveness and reconciliation he demonstrated are the main reasons I admire him as a man.

Today, however, nobody seems to be modeling that admirable spirit of tolerance that DJ exemplified.

John Alderman Linton, an American-Korean whose Korean name is Ihn Yo-han, is a director at Yonsei University Severance Hospital International Health Care Center.