Does today’s Korea capture the essence of the current situation and problems that the world confronts? If so, could we say that Korea is an emblem of our times? Perceiving the similarities between Korea’s predicament and that of other countries, Indian writer Amitav Ghosh answered: “yes.”
In his acceptance speech for the 2025 Park Kyongni Prize, Ghosh said, “The Korean Peninsula stands as a powerful symbol of our contemporary moment. In many ways, the great themes of your history — of resilience, adaptability and of the search for peace in a fractured world — are the very themes that our planet itself is now urging us to confront.” He chose these words to express his profound admiration for the Korean people’s endurance, energy and elasticity that have enabled them to overcome so many historical ordeals and hardships.
Our contemporary world may need these qualities to survive the tensions of another cold war, the clash of political ideologies and the crisis of the global environment. Korea has already undergone and overcome similar turbulence and turmoil in its recent history. Thus, Korea may be able to provide ways in which other countries can cope with current global crises.
Presently, Korean society is sharply divided by the left and the right, progressives and conservatives and socialists and capitalists. In addition, Korea is also torn between the younger generations and older generations, between the rich and the poor and even between men and women. Unfortunately, there seems to be no middle ground that can buffer these rigid binary oppositions.
In addition to internal ideological warfare, Korea confronts sometimes subtle, other times blatant, external pressures from stronger countries that demand loyalty. Korea is also threatened by a nuclear-armed, trigger-happy neighboring country. Furthermore, Korea faces serious environmental issues, such as dramatic weather changes, ecocide and microdust or ultrafine microdust that can create serious health problems.
Korea is not alone in these: Those issues have become global phenomena these days.
In his speech, Ghosh continued, “We live today on a planet that is speaking to us — through rising seas, through fevered temperatures, through the great unraveling of the web of life. For too long, the dominant narratives of our time have been those of endless growth, of the individual severed from community and from the earth. Literature, I believe, has a critical role to play in challenging these narratives.”
As Ghosh pointed out, we are now living in difficult times, when an environmental crisis endangers human lives, wars destroy our ecological system and the clash of political or religious ideologies are radically destabilizing human civilization. Despite its economic prosperity, Korea, too, is affected by these global phenomena. Korea is firmly in the vortex of the above crises due to its geopolitical situation.
In that sense, Korea could be a symbol of our time.
If the Korean people manage to endure and survive the crisis that has shaken our contemporary world, Korea could set a good example for other countries. As people who have successfully overcome numerous crises in the past already, we can show the world how to fight and win these battles. If we can do that, we will become an exemplary country that the whole world wants to emulate.
For that purpose, we should avoid extremity, stay in “the middle against both ends” and seek the capacity to embrace extremes. We should shun the far left and far right and seek moderation and reconciliation instead. Then, we will surely find a way to cope with the problems we are now facing.
Likewise, if we deal with current international conflicts skillfully with sophisticated diplomacy, we can certainly avoid or overcome the geopolitical turmoil we are now facing. Then, the whole world will admire us. If we fall short, we will lose respect from other countries and be a failure in the eyes of the global village.
Today’s Korea is no obscure, unknown country. Instead, Korea now enjoys worldwide popularity and admiration.
In the famous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York last week, people watched characters from "KPop Demon Hunters," including Korean tigers and magpies with great enthusiasm. K-pop concerts, too, are standing-room-only events overseas, and Korean cinema and drama series are widely watched all over the world.
The other day, I was impressed by a young American woman who pronounced my name correctly, in the Korean way, “Song Gon,” when she saw my name written in English as Seong-Kon on a document. Half a century ago, my American friends pronounced my name, “Siong Khan.” Now, young people are becoming familiar with Korean names, largely thanks to K-pop singers.
As a symbol of our contemporary world, Korea should show the world how to confront the global challenges we now face.
Kim Seong-kon
Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. The views expressed here are the writer's own. — Ed.
khnews@heraldcorp.com
