3. Approach to Thesis Research
Ham was a man of the people. Unlike most of his contemporary intellectuals, Ham presented himself in public with plain speech and plain writings. Because his living style was also very simple and humble, everyday people did not feel distanced from him. Hence Ham's acquaintances felt that he was one of them, not a great hero. Therefore, Ham's friends 'pushed' him to be a civil rights leader and a national leader in a time of national crisis, although Ham felt he was not a suitable man for either position and sometimes resisted this pressure. While Ham promoted the common people as God, he neither relied upon nor fully gave himself into the hands of the common people. Ham's followers were also puzzled because of his unique mixture of outward modesty and inner strength which at times must have seemed contradictory. Ham may not have been born wise or courageous, but certainly he became wise by persistent learning and became a man of courage by cultivating his inner strength. He was an assiduous self-improver. He nurtured himself and refined his knowledge and internal potency.
Although Ham was fascinated by the unconditional pacifism of Quakerism, in my view he was not an absolute pacifist. He considered the value of self-defence as a much more important merit than sheer peace. At times men and nations, even when pacifist, have had to defend themselves when attacked. Perhaps Ham was an 'elastic pacifist', believing that peace could not be achieved without social justice. Similarly even Jesus, when he was left with no alternative, used force to expel the moneylenders from the temple. Jesus was not a man of violence, but had no choice but to use force against evil.
Ham was not always an outspoken man, nor was he always as candid as he might have been. While he engaged in democratic freedom activities, whenever he was arrested, he did not 'confess' what his 'crimes' were but rather kept quiet. Unless the inspectors and police held tangible material evidence Ham disclaimed his actions. In this respect, he can be seen as not-being a naive man but a pragmatic man, it is also possible to interpret such denial of his action as cowardly.
During the 1970s, while Ham's democratic activities made him known in the Western news media as the 'Gandhi of Korea', he was rarely an active mobiliser in the civil rights movements. He rather 'passively' participated in the human rights movement and found himself seeking to bring about the freedom of the press and of expression. That is why Ham described his democratic activities as 'Kicked by God', rather than being of his active volition. Ham was a passive and 'receptive' actor in the democratisation of Korea, not because of his cowardice but because of his humility and modesty. Ham never thought he could lead the various civil rights movements in Korea, since he regarded himself as unsuitable to be a national leader. But multitudes of Ham's follows were inspired by him and consequently 'forced' him to stand in the front line of civil rights protests. After all, Ham's humility meant he could become a leader without becoming a dictator.
Despite his subtle reticence, Ham was known not only to the majority of Korean people but also to the circle of the civil rights activists in the West, as the 'ideal pacifist' and even as the 'Conscience of Korea'. But Ham was a very realistic man in relation to his public struggles. By way of illustration, not surprisingly, Ham rarely protested and never trusted inspectors of police when they investigated him, believing his political views and theirs could never be united. Perhaps Ham understood well enough the lesson of Jesus, "be wise like a snake", to survive under the law of the inhumane jungle. This ambiguous and unique mixture of factors in Ham's personality could be the mystery of his character which ceaselessly and constantly attracted and fascinated his followers.
I consider Ham's life and work to be of great importance. By defining the dignity of humanity as moral (spiritual) he moved away from the accepted material or economic values of his time. Hence he sought to enhance the dignity of humanity by working for human rights, the freedom of expression, and democracy. These views were significant, especially when one considers the values of economic and material power which prevail in twentieth century Korea and the world.
Furthermore, Ham emphasised mutual tolerance between different religious groups. This emphasis was particularly appropriate since Korea has accepted various religious groups teaching such diverse doctrines as, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, shamanistic folk religion and Christianity.
I have to also acknowledge that, in writing this thesis, I was most baffled by the non-systematic character and writing style of Ham. Like Lao-tzu, Ham's writings are not systematic, not theoretical, not even methodological but intuitive and insightful without verification. Perhaps the characteristics of Ham's entire writings could be summarised as lamentation, exclamation and wailing, rather like an epic poem, just as though his whole life itself could be recapitulated as that of an epic poet. Ham was not a scholar nor a theorist. He could be best described as a thinker or even an activist-thinker. Although Ham was well read, his ideas were not formulated through literary studies or scientific experiments, but created from the very moment in life when the historical incident he was commenting on took place.
Ham was also a man of paradox and prescience within East Asia. Yet I had to analyse him and his ideas academically and 'logically' within a Western institutional context. How could I possibly rationally theorise a man's prescience? This has been a constant query of mine over the last four years. Gradually I realised that not everything can be defined by words or by logic. The evolution of humanity can not always be made sense of with logic but rather must be intuition. Faced with this contradiction, I sometimes felt this thesis to be an impossible task.
As I have pointed out above, in order to study the personality and religious philosophy of Ham, I have used two main sources. First, as a primary source I used his own works. These have been published in a series of over twenty volumes, Ham Sokhon Chonjip [The Complete Works of Ham Sokhon], together with several pamphlets written by him. Second, I have conducted extensive recorded interviews with people who were associated with Ham or who were greatly influenced by him, including academics, journalists, civil rights leaders and political leaders. The data assembled and presented in this thesis was obtained from my formal and informal interviews. I supplemented these sources with recorded seminar tapes, books, magazines, newspapers and articles on Ham and his thought. Other sources of information were from libraries and archives. In writing this thesis, all the translations from the original Korean documents including Ham's own works and recorded tapes, unless otherwise stated, are my own work.
Most Korean names are given according to the McCune-Reischauer system of transliteration. However, diacritical marks have been omitted. Some Korean names are given in their more common idiosyncratic renderings, such as Kim Donggill and Ahn Byungmu. Generally Korean names are written according to the Korean principle of surname first, for example Kim Ilsung, with a few exceptions where Korean names have been commonly used in the West in reverse order, such as Syngman Rhee (Yi Sungman).
Chapter 1: The Historical Background of Twentieth Century Korea Table of Contents Home Page