Seoul Needs to Lighten Up : Today’s South Korea should be more tolerant of nonviolent dissent

The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a treaty of peace, and for more than 40 years a state of belligerence has continued, with South Korea and its officials having repeatedly to contend with violent attacks and attempted infiltration and subversion from the North.

In this dangerous climate the Seoul government has insisted on maintaining tight restrictions on any unauthorized contacts by its citizens with Pyongyang, or on any open expression of sympathy or support for the North Korean regime. Honest concerns underlie this policy. But surely the time has come for South Korea to re-examine whether such a rigid approach is in fact any longer necessary.

Such a re-examination is called for not just because of the death earlier this month of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founding leader who planned the attack on South Korea in 1950. It is called for more urgently because South Korea has reached a stage of mature development where its government and people should certainly have the self-confidence to become more tolerant of nonviolent dissent.

South Korea is one of Asia’s great economic and now--no less heartening--political success stories. Decades of rigged elections, military dictatorships and tight curbs on individual rights have given way to a viable multiparty democracy, with a freely elected president and the broadest protection of basic rights the country has ever known. South Korea, like the United States, of course has good reasons to worry about what North Korea may do in the future. But that worry shouldn’t stand in the way of a more relaxed policy by the South Korean government toward domestic dissent.

This week Seoul revoked the publishing license of one of its non-resident citizens, on grounds that he violated the National Security Law by attending Kim Il Sung’s funeral in Pyongyang. Earlier it moved to punish a handful of students who also expressed condolences over Kim’s death. Such actions by the government suggest an unwarranted timidity and a lack of trust in the good sense of the Korean people to act responsibly. It’s time for Seoul to recognize that nonviolent dissident behavior, by adolescents or adults, is not sedition.