'The Turning Point'
In 1962, after an invitation from the American and British Quakers, Ham went to Pendle Hill, the American Quaker Study Centre near Philadelphia, for ten months and the following spring to Woodbrooke, the British Quaker Study Centre near Birmingham, for a further three months. Through the reflection of Quakerism Ham desperately wanted to purify himself from his committed sin. During this period of study Ham was deeply attracted by the Quakers religious principle of 'do-it-yourself', which appealed to his fondness for the free-thinking spirit of humankind.
Nonetheless, at this stage, Ham had no particular desire to become a formal member of the Religious Society of Friends. He recalled his feelings of the period: "In the beginning, I did not consider becoming a member of the Quakers. I did not see any difference between the attender and the member." Considering he was not attracted to any particular religious organisation, the Quakers were no exception for him. He described himself as a solitary wanderer in the wilderness: "Always I was as a monk who sleeps a night under the cool shade of the mulberry tree and then continues his wandering."
In 1967, however, when Ham attended the Friends World Conference in North Carolina at the invitation of the American Quakers, he decided to become a member of the Society of Friends. He explained why he made such a decision:
"Rather than being the result of a special act on my part, it was a decision arising from a sense of responsibility to the Friends who had befriended me. The Friends stemmed from mysticism, yet they are not self-centred extremists, unlike other religious mystics. The Friends are not authoritarian, unlike other established religions. I do not say Quakerism is a perfect religion, also I do not think Quakerism is the greatest religion. Only at this moment, I am in agreement with a great deal of Quaker thought. I do not yet know what will be my next stage."
Perhaps Ham was an eternal seeker. In 1967 Ham became a member of the Society of Friends as he became the voice of Korean pacifists and a champion for democracy. Yet as early as in 1965, Ham was spoken of by American Quakers as if he were already a member of the Society of Friends and his picture appeared in the Friends Journal as the "Gandhi of Korea". In fact, Quakers tended to not distinguish a great deal between a member and an attender. That is the reason why Arthur Mitchell, the first American Quaker Ham met, pointed out: "You [Ham] were already a Quaker before you become a Quaker." This remark by Arthur Mitchell is very appropriate. For although Ham was drawn by the Quakers' characteristic anti-formalism, anti-dogmatism, simplicity, the spirit of egalitarianism, pacifism, and social reform, these elements were already a part of Ham's intellectual formation long before he joined the Society of Friends.
On the other hand, Ham's former faith, the Non-Church Movement (NCM), which was based on the principle of sola-Scriptura, stressed the vertical relationship and the merit of absolute loyalty between master and disciple, comparable to the way of the samurai in feudal Japan, which was Uchimura's personal background. Hence in Ham's view the NCM lacked the horizontal or egalitarian relationships among themselves and with other people in everyday society. In consideration of this, Ham commented why he liked Quakerism: "I like Quakerism, because it is not interested in formalism, creed, and theological discussion. No priest, no minister, everyone is equal to the Friends. They are natural and they have a sincerity along with wide views. The Friends have an open mind for anyone: Buddhists, Unitarians, and even atheists. See how fair they are!"
Ham's comment on the character of Quakers shows the egalitarian nature of the Friends and their impartial and equal view towards any individual's religious or non-religious background. Nevertheless, one might argue that Ham's disciples treated him in a way similar to that in which Uchimura's disciples treated Uchimura. In other words, most Korean Quakers came to Quaker Meetings in order to listen to Ham's ministry or to attend his Biblical study group after the Meeting for Worship, rather than out of interest in Quakerism per se. Thus, unlike Western Quaker Meetings, the Korean Quaker Meetings were not truly egalitarian but Ham alone was the focal-point of the meeting. Ham's position was somewhat like that of a traditional East Asian scholar within the Confucian mould and ethos. Far from objecting to this lack of egalitarianism, Korean Quakers on their part treated Ham with special reverence.
In spite of the above limitations of Ham and the style of Korean Quaker Meetings, over all, Quakerism was very important to Ham's life and thought, because it stimulated his consciousness regarding religious tolerance and social responsibility. Inasmuch as Quakers are intensely concerned not only with religious matters but also with diverse secular issues, for Ham Quakerism provided both wide views and a variety of standpoints for his ideas.
What is more, somewhat secondarily, Ham's various activities were backed by the Western Quakers, concretely and substantially. The characteristic of the truth, as Ham once noted was: "The Way [Truth] is connected with human relations. I behold a star [Taoism] in the sky [East Asia], yet I can only walk on the earth through my feet [Western Quakerism]." Once Ham became involved in Quakerism, the Quakers also provided international backing for his civil rights activities. They helped draw public attention to his plight. Thus, when he was detained by Park Chunghee, the British weekly magazine, The Friend, reported:
"Ham Sok Hon Detained; --- He was arrested with 8 other Christians, following a 'March 1st Declaration for Democracy'. This is not the first time that Ham Sok Hon has been arrested during the regime of President Park, --- FWCC [Friends World Committee for Consultation] has sent an appeal to President Park urging a speedy release of the detainees. A letter has also been sent to the Korean Ambassador in this country. --- jointly with the secretaries of the Peace and International Relation Committee and FSC [Friends Service Council], --- They speak of the well-known dedication of Ham Sok Hon to non-violence, based on religious principles and aimed entirely towards humanitarian ends. The AFSC [American Friends Service Committee] has also cabled President Park, and urged President Ford to halt United States aid to South Korea because of the flagrant denial of human rights there."
Surely, Ham could not have anticipated this kind of international backing and support from such groups as the Taoists or Buddhists in East Asia. That is why he viewed the influence and efficiency of the West in today's world in a practical way. He pointed to the predominance of the West within the present world: "Anyway, the contemporary world has been preserved by Western ideology, more or less through Christianity." Consequently, without the support and the backing from the human rights groups of the West, his activities would have been even more restricted by the totalitarian regime in his own country. Indeed, Ham could resist effectively and outwardly by maximising the civil rights and democratic movements within South Korea because of the stable backing of the Western Quakers.
Ham believed that the early meaning and essence of Christianity might have lost its effectiveness, even if many individuals had not lost their faith. He considered that Christianity began to take an incorrect path from the period of Constantine the Great (280-337 AD.). It was he who officially approved Christianity as a state religion in 313 AD. It was at this time that the Christian Church became a part of the secular order and the radiance of gospel became a shadow under the reign of political power. Thereafter, as Ham argued, the Christianity which had been an underground religion of the persecuted turned to the religion of the one who governs. The belief which consisted of the lament and protest of the persecuted, as a religion disclosing revolutionary possibilities, was co-opted at the hand of Roman political power.
Accordingly, established Christianity degenerated into the dogma of the one who governs, and it had tacitly approved both the wars and imperial policies of the West. Ham believed this to be wrong for a practising Christian, which is why he did not approve of established state religion and why he favoured Quakerism as a non-state religion. As he argued: "When the disciples of Christ were oppressed by the Roman Empire, they tried to overcome the oppression through their living faith, yet when their faith became established as an absolute religion, Christianity began to decay."
Ham's immediate involvement in pursuit of socio-political justice also coincided with his deep affinity with Ahn Byungmu. In 1963, after his period of study in Pendle Hill and Woodbrooke, Ham visited West Germany to meet his follower, Ahn. When they met in Germany, Ahn likened Ham to Moses, who had remained in the wilderness for 40 years before he stood up to carry the 'mission' for his nation. Ham was also a humble man, who never dreamt of becoming his nation's leader.
Ahn and Ham travelled together for a month throughout the Scandinavian countries. During their travels, Ahn firmly urged Ham to take direct political involvement against General Park's junta: Following two years of military junta control, in 1963, General Park designed an additional referendum to pursue public agreement for an extra four years of military rule (though earlier he had persistently denied any plan of participating in civilian politics), claiming that political parties and political discussion would not help Korea. Intense objection at home and from the United States impelled Park to drop this strategy. Instead, Park left the army in August 1963 and declared he would be the recently-organised Democratic Republican Party's presidential nominee at the election.
Hearing this news while abroad, and what is more 'pushed' by Ahn's 'pressure', Ham cancelled his trip to India and Africa and returned to South Korea immediately. On his return, Ham become ever more involved in South Korea's chaotic and aggressive political situation. Later on, as Ham admitted, Ahn's urging contributed to the principal turning point for Ham's direct political participation and social activism. Although even before this event Ham was active in political participation by writing articles in papers, only through this event, for the first time in his life, did Ham directly mobilise public meetings for political and civil rights issues. Accordingly, when Ham returned to Korea from Germany, he wrote a letter to Ahn. Through this letter one can see how much Ham was determined to change the political climate of South Korea: "I am determined to resist. I will try to organise the non-violent civilian movement. Of course, I am not a politician, but I will vigorously encourage public meetings and activities. I will mobilise public lectures and assemblies throughout South Korea --- July 1963."
Consequently, Ham held various public gatherings in the Citizen's Hall (Simin Hoegwan), Osan High School in Seoul and Taegwang High School also in Seoul, where he directly criticised the injustices of General Park and his regime. These gatherings consisted collectively of eighty or ninety thousand people and had a symbolic impact on Korean society, influencing both the Korean intelligentsia and students. For his activities in promoting the freedom of speech and democracy, in 1963 Ham received the First Wolnam Press Prize from Sasang-gye magazine. Ham's emphasis on human rights, social justice and political concerns became more direct and distinct as did his sense of social responsibility. It was at this time Ham "became a realist".
Ham also criticised the illegitimacy and injustice of the military coup via his various writings in daily newspapers and journals, arguing that "if we connive at injustice and inequity we have a hand in that crime." I include an example of Ham's critical writings from Sasang-gye in August 1963 to General Park:
"Dear Park Chunghee, Forgive me for not addressing you as the Chairman of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction or General of the Army. I would rather address you as Dear Park Chunghee, a man with conscience and reasoning. You and your military colleagues have made many mistakes. First of all, the military coup was wrong. Probably your motive and aim to correct the national destiny was right, but the means were wrong. When the means are wrong, aims lose their meaning. You have no revolutionary theory. You rose up believing only in swords. You cannot gain the confidence of the people by military power alone. The biggest mistake of all is that you have not kept your declared promises given at the time of the coup. People were astonished when they heard that the military would govern for two years. However, now that the two years are coming to an end, instead of stepping down, you are thinking of a new political party and you are running for the President's seat, thus utterly disappointing the people."
As we can see Ham wrote so pointedly not just on religious issues but also on socio-political affairs. With this fearless writing, Ham became known among the South Korean public as 'the conscience of Korea'. Whether he wanted this label or not, by this time Ham was dragged into the political entanglements of South Korea. As Ahn Byungmu noted earlier, like Moses, long before becoming a public figure, Ham was a devoutly-religious man; it seems that Ham's previous period (before the 1960s) as a 'religious-Bohemian' was similar to the 'period of wandering' experienced by Moses before he became a public figure for Israel.
Despite Ham's criticism, the politics of the 1960s evolved into a one-man show, Park. According to Sohn Hakkyu, even President Park's second man, Prime Minister Kim Jongp'il, was completely absent from weighty decision-making and general political affairs.
In order to grasp the characteristics of Park's regime, let us briefly look into the personal background of Park. During the colonial era, certain Koreans were able to join the Japanese army, and a tiny number became junior officers when they demonstrated their devotion to Japanese rule, among them Park. Park was the best recognised graduate of the Manchurian Military Academy. Later on, while in the Military Academy in Tokyo, Park attempted to conceal his Korean traits to such an extent that General Nagumo Chuichi, the superintendent of the Academy, told the assembled cadets, "Takagi [Park] may be Korean by birth, but in his loyalty to the Emperor, he is more Japanese than an ordinary Japanese." Park therefore gained the nick-name from his classmates of 'tokuto Nipponjn' (super-Japanese). Takagi Masao was Park's Japanese name at the Tokyo military academy, but he used the name Okamoto Minoru while serving in Manchuria. This suggests Park was involved in intelligence activities against Korean rebels and the Independence Army operating in the area. The Japanese used Koreans to put down Korean armed insurgence. In this respect, Park had been a pro-Japanese Korean since the colonial period.
In July 1965, Park normalised relations with Japan for economic reasons, despite nation-wide demonstrations and massive protests from university students and civilians. Park used force to end the debate in the National Assembly. Subsequently the opposition party Assemblymen walked out from the National Assembly in protest. Park even used armed force in Seoul National University, the centre of the nation's intellectuals. Regardless of popular disapproval, using his troops Park closed all the universities and colleges and arrested his own fellow citizens. During this period of massive protests, Ham shaved his hair and went on a hunger strike for over two weeks as a symbol of his resistance. Ham continued to express his view on this issue via his writing in daily newspapers.
Although Ham had a strong awareness of social justice, he did not have the practical skill to apply his ideas by mobilising people and organising political rallies. It was through Chang Chunha that Ham learnt of a specific method to implement his ideas into socio-political reality. Chang and Ham had maintained a cordial relationship since Ham's satirical writing, "What is Christianity going to do in Korea?" in Sasang-gye in January 1956. Yi Ch'isok described the 'interdependence' between Ham and Chang as similar to Zhu Geliang (181-234) and Liu Bei (161-223): One is a wise-man and deep thinker, the other one is a great activist and remarkable mobiliser.
Ham's regard for Chang was special: In 1967, when Chang was in prison, Ham campaigned in the general election for the National Assembly on behalf of Chang. As a result, although Chang was detained and was unable to campaign for himself, he was elected as an Assemblyman. Moreover, although Chang was in prison, as an 'official editor' of Sasang-gye, he still appealed to Ham to write for the magazine. Ham considered Chang's appeal from the prison as the "Command of God" rather than his personal call for help.
In the meantime, in the 1960s, the 'Church Growth Movement' was formed operating vigorous slogans amongst the Protestant ministers and churchgoers. This period saw an expansion of evangelistic out-reach as well as the establishment of a nation-wide radio network, the Christian Broadcasting System (CBS). The 1960s witnessed a twofold increase in the size of church membership until it represented more than 6% of the population. But the very acceleration of church membership also brought about a concern that quantity was overtaking quality as a basis in the growth of the churches.
Regardless of the Church Growth Movement, in the same period, the political scene was near to disaster. On 20 June 1969, opposition party leader, Kim Youngsam was attacked with acid by government-backed gangsters, narrowly escaping serious injury. Despite intense objection, Park amended the constitution in mid-September 1969 allowing himself to continue for a third term of presidency, while the opposition Assemblymen were boycotting the National Assembly sessions. The political circumstance of South Korea appeared like a comedy but was in fact a tragedy.
5.2. The Voice of the People and 'To the Last Breath' (1970-1989) Table of Contents