Writers’ declaration of human rights in North Korea

The PEN American Center, a U.S.-based human rights group, granted the 2014 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award to Ilham Tohti, a Uighur economist who criticized China’s separatism in May. In the award ceremony where Tohti’s daughter attended on behalf of her imprisoned father, renowned writers like Salman Rushdie urged for the release of Mr. Tohti. American writers who have nothing to do with the Uighur people stepped up to the plate to help him because human rights issues transcend ethnicity and nationality.

Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish writer, said that if a single writer is not free, no writer can be free. This does not apply to Korean writers, however. Nobody knows how many North Korean writers were persecuted and imprisoned, but it was a taboo to mention this among South Korean poets and writers who claimed themselves liberal. They were “fighters” to minor human rights violations in South Korea while they shut their mouth for huge human rights violations in North Korea.

Is it a sign of breaking long silence? Bang Min-ho, a literary critic and Seoul National University professor, read Tuesday the draft of the “Writers’ Declaration for North Korean Human Rights” that he wrote at a seminar for North Korean defectors’ literature and poet reading event for South and North Korean writers. He attempted something that everybody has pretended not to know and not done. It starts like this. “Finally, we cannot stop declaring that writers should no longer stay silent on what is going on in North Korea because turning a deaf ear to this issue is abandoning writer’s responsibility, which are to create a new reality with words.”

Many writers visited North Korea. They often deplore the miserable situation in the North privately while staying silent publicly. If a writer raises a North Korean human rights issue, the writer will be ostracized. Why do political liberals and conservatives matter need to be distinguished when it comes to human rights issue in North Korea? Turning away from North Koreans and being silent about the matter are not right not just as a writer but as a human being. What can they say if North Korean residents ask them "why did you keep silent to our pain and suffering?" after reunification?

Editorial Writer Koh Mi-seok (mskoh119@donga.com)