I have often thought that South Korea would be a truly advanced nation if the Korean people could have a certain degree of tolerance and generosity. Historically, all the advanced nations on earth had shared one thing in common; they had the capacity to tolerate and embrace those who are contradictorily different from them, whether they are of foreign-born or strangers.

The Roman Empire, for example, embraced her diverse colonies and offered Roman citizenships even to the colonized, that is, if they were worthy of them. Ancient China, too, had embraced ethnic minorities and foreign-borns, granting them equal opportunities in their land. For example, the national exam, which was the gateway to become a high ranking government official, was wide open to anyone. As a result, some Korean scholars passed the exam and thereby were appointed as Chinese government officials.

In the modern times, the United States has been widely known to be a country of exceptional generosity and magnanimity. But alas! After the 9/11 incident, she has changed, understandably but sadly.

Perhaps the generosity and magnanimity have something to do with the size of a nation. People living in a vast, spacious land are likely to have a higher level of generosity and tolerance than those who reside in the land of decidedly lesser proportion. If this is so, then the Koreans, who live in a small, mountainous terrain, may have a serious disadvantage. To make matters worse, the Korean Peninsula, which is already small, has been divided into two due to political ideologies. In this aspect, we may be inevitably doomed to be narrow-minded and parochial eternally, hence seriously lacking the generosity and tolerance, both of which are indispensable for building a truly advanced nation.

I have often thought that if only had we learned how to forgive and forget, Korea could have been a truly advance nation soaring into the future instead of retreating into the labyrinth of the past. If only we could forget our grudges and resentments, and generously forgive the flaws and mistakes of others! If only we could put aside our personal vendetta and factional brawls, and unite under the banner, “For a better future of Korea”! And if only we could embrace those who are different from us!

Some time ago, with a grant from the Korea Research Foundation, our radical young scholars carried out a project that examined the existing translations of English literature for the purpose of finding any errors, mistakes and erratic translations their predecessors and senior scholars had unintentionally made. But is it really necessary and worthwhile to spend a huge amount of money and people’s time and energy for fault-finding and condemning our academic pioneers’ inadvertent mistakes? Is it not true that they should have spent the grant on translating more texts into Korean instead? Many translators they condemned are not amongst the living today. It was the hard times and yet, the pioneer translators did their best. What more do we need to extract from them, much less grant them the peace they so deserved?

The same thing goes to the leftist scholars’ critique of the so-called pro-Japanese Korean intellectuals including Yi Kwang-su. In publishing the Encyclopedia of Pro-Japanese Koreans, the radical scholars disgraced the integrity of the intellectuals they had arbitrarily selected as pro-Japanese. Yet, among some of them who were involved in editing the Encyclopedia were unabashedly Christians. Had not Jesus taught us, “Let who is without sin cast the first stone.”? Had Jesus not preached, “Love thy enemies,” and “Do not be self-righteous.”? Before condemning the so-called pro-Japanese Koreans, we ought to put ourselves in their shoes and try to understand the situation in which they were so unceremoniously thrown..

We have a tendency to judge someone or something according to binary oppositions. For example, our progressives condemn conservatism as if it was something evil, and thus goes vice versa. But we should acknowledge that liberalism is not always as rosy as it may seem; there are some inevitable, undesirable side effects of liberalism and progressivism such as the drug addictions, free sex and high divorce rates. By the same token, there are merits in conservatism as well, such as family ties, education and morality. We cannot simply choose one as the right thing and dismiss the other; we should acknowledge the values of both liberalism and conservatism equally, like a coin with two sides.

Perhaps we should learn the pleasure and power of forgiving, even though it may be difficult. If we constantly criticize someone or some country and demand apologies but without the intention of accepting them willingly, there shall be no reconciliation forever. Then the conflicts and clashes will become a vicious cycle. Unfortunately, we Koreans still tend to be self-righteous, spiteful and obstinate, and “forgive and forget” does not seem to be in our vocabulary. But now is the time for us to be generous and flexible, and to forgive and forget. Only then, can we have a better, brighter future as a truly advanced nation.

By Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon is a professor of English at Seoul National University and president of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. ― Ed.