Excerpts

The Korean people have always been one, united by a shared five-thousand-year history, a common language, and a common cultural heritage. Yet, since the end of World War II, we have been divided into two nations, arbitrarily separated against our wishes on the cutting block of rising geopolitical tensions between the West and the Soviet bloc. The legacy of this division, like a wound that has not been treated, festers and threatens the very health of the Korean people, the region, and the world to this day. In the South, the ?Miracle on the Han River? has transformed the country from a poor agricultural backwater to a manufacturing, trading, and technological powerhouse?one of the top fifteen economies in the world?in the space of just two generations. However, prosperity has come at a cost. Many of our most cherished cultural traditions and values are being eroded in the pursuit of material comforts, Western progressive ideals, and popular culture. Yet, historically, our unique Korean heritage is what enabled us to endure and transcend a long history of suffering, and to be the DNA that engendered the prosperity that the South enjoys today. Losing this Korean identity as a common people and, at one time, as a whole nation, South Koreans have increasingly, turned away from the hopes and moral imperative of unification. The North, in reality and in our imaginations, has become a black hole. We are all familiar with the satellite photos that show lights blazing throughout this region at night, especially in the major metropolitan centers of Seoul, Pusan, Tokyo, Beijing, and the great seaboard cities of China. Yet north of the 38th parallel up to the Tumen and Yalu Rivers, all we see is an area of unrelieved darkness. To most observers, the darkness that enshrouds the North without a single flickering light of hope is a fitting image for the realities of that regime. The people of North Korea are desperately impoverished and destitute. Their government is incapable of feeding them, and its citizens, denied all semblance of freedoms and human rights, have few opportunities for creativity and enterprise. Because information about and contact with the North has been so tightly controlled, North Koreans seem increasingly alien to people in the South. Although the Soviet Union has collapsed and the failures of communism have been exposed, the North continues to maintain the ideological, political, military, and economic frameworks of the Cold War era, unable to recognize its obsolescence in our current age of globalization. This reality is deepening the gulf between the two Koreas along social, political, and economic lines, making unification a harder proposition as we move forward. When we Koreans, in both North and South, look at our common history, the current 70-year division is but a drop in the ocean of centuries of shared experiences, traditions, and culture. We must look beyond our current divisions and seek a new united future rooted in a common past. I am a man who believes in big dreams. I also believe that Korea today is ripe for such a challenge. In this book I want to show that a great and historic opportunity lies within our grasp. I want to lay out a new vision for Korea that can transform the peninsula, the Northeast region, and the world. What will that dream look like? Before exploring that question I want to emphasize the power of a big dream in shaping the course of human history. Dreamers frame new possibilities that can transcend the limitations of current reality. When people are inspired to pursue those possibilities, the world is changed, often in remarkable and unforeseen ways. Let?s look at two examples of great dreams. One is from the East, and one is from the West. Excerpted from Korean Dream: A Vision for a Unified Korea by Hyun Jin Preston Moon All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.