My Mentor: Distinguished and Respected Professor Glenn Paige | 평화 세상
이재봉 2022. 8. 24. 11:05http://blog.daum.net/pbpm21/623
Professor Glenn D. Paige: From a Veteran of the Korean War
to the Founder of Nonviolent Political Science and Peace Movement Activist
I am Lee Jae-Bong, professor emeritus of political science and peace studies at Wonkwang University, Korea. As a beloved student of distinguished and respected professor Glenn Paige, I am very honored to have this opportunity to talk about my mentor. I was really lucky to participate in his last class of ‘nonviolent political alternatives’ at the University of Hawaii in Spring 1992. Immediately after that semester, he retired and turned to professor emeritus. He continued to teach me as one of my dissertation committee members, and had guided me thoughtfully to a scholarly journey of nonviolence and peace through meetings and email until he passed away in 2017.
Glenn Paige entered Princeton University in 1947 and took ROTC program, and served in the U.S. Army as recruit to first lieutenant in 1948-1952. During the latter half of his service years, from 1950 to 1952, he participated in the Korean War to deter and block the Communist’s invasion and expansion. He served as an anti-aircraft artillery communications officer attached to the First Korean Infantry Division, which was led by General Paek Sun-yup, who became the Army Chief of Staff at his age of 32.
Returning to Princeton University in 1952, he wrote “The United States Decision to Intervene in Korea” for a graduation essay in 1955. He wrote “Korea and the Comintern, 1919-1935” for Master’s thesis at Harvard University in 1957. And “The Korean Decision: June 24-30, 1950” for Ph.D. dissertation at Northwestern University in 1959.
He served as a research advisor of public administration at Seoul National University in 1959-1961. There he observed the April Revolution in 1960, which led to the end of President Syngman Rhee’s 12 year dictatorship, and the May 16 military coup in 1961 by General Park Chung-hee, which arrested democratic development. Disappointed at the coup detat and the immediate U.S. support for it, he contributed an article to The New York Times, June 25, 1961, to protest against the U.S. government that its support was betrayal to the spirit of numerous American soldiers who were sacrificed in the fight for freedom in Korea. Due to this article, he was about to be expelled from Korea by the Korean CIA.
Teaching as professor of politics with tenure at Princeton University in 1961-1967, he supplemented his doctoral dissertation and published a book in 1968, titled The Korean Decision: June 24-30, 1950, which had become ‘the’ must-read for students and researchers studying the Korean War. Besides, comparing political and economic situations of the two Koreas, he thought that political leadership such as leaders’ values, aim, creativity, behavior, role, and influence was crucial to national development. He requested the university to open a course of political leadership, but was denied.
Thus, in 1967, Glenn Paige moved to the University of Hawaii, which unconditionally accepted his proposals to open a course of political leadership and to establish the Center for Korean Studies. Teaching and researching there, he published The Scientific Study of Political Leadership in 1977. While preparing this book around 1973-1974, he awakened to a nonviolent perspective or ‘No More Killing’ from political situations in Korea as below.
Military dictator Park Chung-hee narrowly won against prominent opposition candidate Kim Dae-jung in the 1971 presidential elections, through various and numerous vote riggings. He declared a state of emergency in 1971, and martial law in 1972, suspending the constitution and dissolving the legislature. Kim Dae-jung was kidnapped in Tokyo and almost buried at sea by the Korean CIA in 1973. Famous resistant poet Kim Chi-ha was sentenced to death, and Catholic Bishop Daniel Chi Hak-soon was persecuted in 1974.
Thus Paige was aware that the repressive nature of South Korean political regime had become globally notorious. Around that time, he invited North Korean scholars, whom he had met in Paris in 1973, on behalf of the University of Hawaii. They were eager to come. But he was shocked to discover that the U.S. government had blocked his peacemaking efforts: U.S. officials both in Washington and in Seoul had adamantly opposed such a visit and would refuse to issue visas.
For Glenn Paige, all these events represented “an intolerable situation of cognitive dissonance.” He experienced a sudden transformational awakening: ‘No more killing!’ This three-word-slogan had been posted under the flags of North and South Korea on his office wall, at least during my study at the University of Hawaii in the early 1990s.
With his sudden awakening to a nonviolent perspective, he recollected the Korean War. Why, for what, did he fight in Korea? Definitely for freedom, democracy, and peace. For freedom? It was severly restricted in Korea. For democracy? It was never realized, except for one year from the April revolution of 1960 to the May 16 military coup of 1961. Korea was under Syngman Rhee’s 12 year dictatorship from 1948 to 1960 and Park Chung-hee’s military rule from 1961 to 1974. For peace? In 1950, there were about 286,000 soldiers in Korea, 151,000 in the South and 135,000 in the North. By 1975 this had risen to approximately 1,092,000 soldiers, 625,000 South and 467,000 North. This increase was combined with vastly more destructive weapons including nuclear bombs deployed in the South since 1958.
North Koreans began the war in 1950 for national liberation of their fatherland. American interference in the internal affairs of Koreans prevented their reunification. It brought about Chinese engagement, and led to the loss of several millions of lives.
Glenn Paige believed that American intervention in the Korean War had greatly increased the number of war dead; had contributed to unprecedented militarization of both parts of Korea; had not contributed to freedom, democracy, and peace.
Thus he re-examined his book The Korean Decision from a nonviolent position. He asked: “What difference would it have made, if I had studied the Korean decision from a nonviolent perspective?”
In 1968, he wrote: “Less than twenty years after the war, South Korea seems to be far more open and developed than its northern counterpart..... Without the Korean decision, this would not have been possible.” Thus he concluded: American violence had contributed to freedom and democracy in Korea. Therefore the decision to fight was good.
But after his awakening in 1973-1974, he had changed his personal value position toward violence from acceptance to rejection. And he had thought: It is more important to decide how to avoid violence rather than how to handle violence better. If violence does occur, then the best crisis advice is to limit, diminish, weaken, cool, find alternatives, and seek rewards to end it; not to increase, fuel, supply, justify, and praise it. Only nonviolence can really eliminate violence.
His awakening, recollection of the Korean War, and re-examining of The Korean Decision led him to criticize his acclaimed book, 9 years after its publication. It was published as “On Values and Science: The Korean Decision Reconsidered,” in the American Political Science Review in 1977. Such a self-review was unprecedented in the history of that Journal since 1906.
His continued scientific study of nonviolence since led him to publish To Nonviolent Political Science in 1993, to establish the Center for Global Nonviolence in 1994, which was transformed to the Center for Global Nonkilling in 2008, and to publish Nonkilling Global Political Science in 2002. He had thus devoted his life to nonviolence, nonkilling, and peace until his death in 2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment