North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Dong Jin Kim: What North Korea can learn from Ireland’s peace process

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Dr. Dong Jin Kim, a leading peace studies scholar with research experience spanning Korea, Ireland, Cyprus and South Africa, joins the podcast to explore how divided societies navigate conflict, peacebuilding and reconciliation, as well as lessons from these cases for the Korean Peninsula. Examining Ireland’s journey, he argues that lasting peace depends on sustained community […]

You're listening to an exclusive episode of the NK News podcast available only to subscribers. You can listen to this and other episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the Private Podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide on the NK News website at nknews.org slash private dash feed Hello listeners and welcome to the NK News Podcast. I'm your host, Jacos Wetzel, and this episode was recorded in the NK News studio on Monday, the 26th of May, 2025. And I'm joined in the studio by a first-time guest and that's Dr. Dongjin Kim, who is the Kim Dae-jung Chair Professor of Peace Studies at Hanshin University and

also at the same time Adjunct Professor at the School of Religion, Theology and Peace Studies at Trinity College Dublin. Welcome on the show Dr. Kim. Thank you so much for having me, Zach Ho. It's such a pleasure. I know we've been talking for years about getting you on the show and it's my fault that I... but it took some time and now we're finally here. So thank you for your time. I'm glad to be here. Once again, thank you for having me. So you're a professor of peace studies.

And so our big theme really, it's peace, it's reconciliation, coexistence, what that means for unification. These are the big buzzwords that I'm thinking of. So let's start with you've been, you spend a lot of time studying peace processes not just in Korea but especially in places like Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland on the the island of Ireland. Yes. This is how I'm going to phrase it. So let's begin there for listeners who might not know the details. How would you describe what happened on the island of Ireland in terms of conflict, peace, and reconciliation?

That's a very good question, Zyko. In terms of peace studies, it studied actually the dynamics of peace in conflict-affected societies in quite a comprehensive way in what we call transdisciplinary. So this approach could tap into various different disciplines like sociology, international relations, international politics, economics, and even natural science, religion, or theology. And then I was drawn to this subject of study because of my own context, the Korean conflict. But then when I had a chance to sort of spend a year abroad for my research leave. Was that in Ireland? That was in Korea.

So I was working in Korea about 12 years ago and I had a chance to have a year out abroad. And then I really wanted to visit other conflict-affected sort of societies and then I had a few options such as as you mentioned the island of Ireland or South Africa or Cyprus or other places and then two of those you mentioned Ireland and Cyprus are both divided by conflict exactly into two competing hands yeah I didn't have really comprehensive knowledge about the context of if I the context. I had general knowledge about it because of my interest in other conflicts. But then I really wanted to experience something different back in the day when the Korean peace process was on hold quite disastrously. This is 12 years ago.

Yes, exactly. 12 years ago, 2015, exactly 12 years ago 2015 206 So this is when he be on backwards was president President back and it was there and then suddenly the tension was really increased and I don't know obviously, you know, as you mentioned under the even black presidency the inter-Korean Corporation and exchange was put on a hold because of multiple issues including the North Korean and exchange was put on hold because of multiple issues, including the North Korean development of nuclear weapons and missile technologies, as well as the tensions because of the bombing on the island and then the capsized...

The sinking of the Cheonan. The sinking of the Cheonan and then everything. And then the government issued a measure court, May 24th measure, which stopped almost every inter-Korean interaction. 15th anniversary just two days ago. I know. And then when I was considering a research leave in another context, and then those were the time when the government was considering shutting down Kaesong Industrial Complex and everything. So I was just wondering how others were doing. And then what sort of lessons could we learn from other concurrent peace processes such as

Ireland or Cyprus and then reconciliation sort of process from South Africa for example. And because I was thinking that you know I mean we've learned a lot of lessons from German unification process but then unification of Germany happened like more than 30 years ago and then I saw that there were a lot of lessons and then I thought that still unification, political unification at least was quite a distant reality or future reality for Korea. So I wanted to sort of see what we could really learn from other sort of conflict

affected society, not just about the division, political division, but about the people's life there. And then I had a chance to be invited by sort of my current affiliation Trinity Calis Dublin back then, just to be there for a year as a visiting fellow and that it ended up 12 years now. So in an Irish sort of term there is that sort of expression like thousand welcomes. So I extended my welcome too much, I think. Okay, but how would you, so could you summarize what happened on the island of Ireland in terms of conflict, peace and reconciliation? How do you see that arc of story over the last three decades?

So if I may, I could sort of start the comparison with the comparison between Korea and Ireland, just to sort of summarize what's been happening on the island of Ireland. So the comparison goes back 100 years when an American missionary made a connection that saying that Koreans might be an East Irish and In her memoir, this is what the really as Horton underwood Oh, okay, she's an American 40 years among the top notch. Oh, yes, exactly

Yeah, and then she mentioned Koreans being Irish So the I island of islands shared a similar history of colonialism, for example, like the island was colonized by the UK, the near adjacent island neighbor. There's the comparison. But then in terms of the duration of the colonialism, colonial history was much longer than Korea, like more than 200 years. Some people say that it's 400 or some people say 800 years of colonialism. And then there was an independent movement in the late 19th and early 20th. And then the Irish independent movement became the independent war against the British. And then the UK and

it's this independent movement made an arrangement, and agreement that the six counties in the North, which you say the population of those counties would be predominantly British with the British identity, this is what we call unionist or loyalist. And the British government insisted that that part of the island of Ireland remain as part of the UK and then the other sort of 26 counties could be independent in the name of free state. So that was the division of the island of Ireland into two countries. The Republic of Ireland, now it's called that, and Northern Ireland. Exactly. So even though that that setup of division is completely different from the

Korean division, so there is an element of the political division on the island of Ireland. So we have colonialism and division on the island of Ireland, which led to the civil war, which is different again from the Korean war. However, there was a war on the island of Ireland because of the nature of the different ideals about the nation-state. Right. Are we part of the United Kingdom? Are we independent? Are we a republic? Do we recognize a king, all of that. Yeah, and all, do we recognize a division or we only want unification. So do we... Right, an insistence upon unification.

Exactly, yeah. Do we keep on fighting or do we stop here for the sake of peace? And then, so those were the sort of the driving force in terms of the civil war. And then as you mentioned, then Ireland became the Republic of Ireland in 1949 and then just after the Second World War. And then in terms of the Northern Ireland situation, and then during those time, the early days, and then people were just trying to sort of get by but then there were filling from the nationalist Irish community which would be the minority groups in Northern Ireland they felt like they're being discriminated under

the unionist rule which would be affiliated with the British identity so they felt like they could do something about it inspired by the sort of the civic rights movement in the USA, sort of the African-Americans and then people were really marching for their civic rights. And then inspired by those movements in Northern Ireland, there were huge march and rights movement. But then there was what we call Bloody Sunday. And in Derry, London Derry, there was a peaceful sort of march by the nationalist community. But then British Special Forces finally tried to stop those movements and then killing dozens of people people which actually ignited sort of the violent

resistance now with what we call the troubles. The troubles. Right. I'm going to have to interrupt here. We're going to have to skip over the troubles because we're trying to summarize it here. So three decades of various degrees of bombings and shootings and a lot of inter-community and sometimes intra-community violence. So skip to the Good Friday agreement, if you would.

Yeah, you're doing a really great job, Zach. Because you just gave me an almost impossible task just summarizing peace reconciliation conflict issues of like 400, 800 years old sort of conflict. But you're right, in terms of the troubles which killed thousands of the people in a relatively smaller community in Northern Ireland, which really was a big issue in the UK, in Ireland and in Europe, and then also in America as well because there were many Irish immigrants in the USA. So there were a lot of push from those actors like EU, US and then UK and Ireland tried

to really deal with this political violence in Northern Ireland. And there was an agreement in the 70s, what we called Sun Sunningdale Communique or agreement, which was really about setting up a power sharing sort of government in the north and then sort of reestablishing the relationship between north and the south of island of Ireland. But then it failed because of the resistance from the unionist side affiliated with the British sort of identity, they felt like that might be the way forward towards the unification by Obserjan, by the South. And then from the southern side, it was considered as a violation of the constitution.

The Irish constitution back then claimed the entire territory of the island of Ireland as under the Irish rule. So it was sort of those deals, the communique was considered as a violation of the constitution. And then Good Friday, so-called Good Friday and Belfast Agreement in the 1998 happened, which was named as an agreement for the slow learner of as an agreement for the slow learner of Sunningdale Communicate by a famous politician called Seamus Malone because from the perspective of Seamus Malone it was the same deal. Right, as Sunningdale from 1973. Yeah, and then for those more than 20 years, so many people died.

And then they actually had the same deal. And then so people ask what changed during those times. Of course, the geopolitical condition changed. We had an end of the Cold War. And then the European Union was taking off. But then I will say that in terms of the most important sort of lessons from the Irish peace process is what we call the parity of esteem between the people who have the

sort of different political identities. And then in terms of the consideration of the Irish unity as the people's unity rather than the political unification of different territories. So there was a famous Irish politician called John Hume who won Nobel Peace Prize after the Good Friday Belfast agreement. He used to really strongly argue and advocate at the principle that the Irish unity is really about people, not about territory. So if we have the parity of esteem, mutual recognition, Parity of esteem. Yes, mutual recognition of people despite the fact that we disagree wholeheartedly with one another.

If we recognize the humanity with one another, that is the most important thing. We can disagree in terms of the territorial sort of issues in terms of the... and then ideals for the political sort of unification or nation-state as such. But then unification isn't just about the political sort of power sharing, but it's really about sort of people rather than territory. So that kind of idea was really quite persuasive to the public, particularly when they saw many people lost their life because of the political cause. Right. Now I may be getting ahead of myself here, but this concept of a unity of people rather than a unity of politics or unity of understandings of sovereignty. It seems that that's really what is necessary to make that possible is contact between people,

which is something we don't really have in North and South Korea. But I don't want to get to Korea just yet, but how's Ireland doing now? How's the island of Ireland doing now in terms of reconciliation and coexistence? Curious to hear the rest? Become an NK News subscriber today for access to the full episode. Head to nknews.org slash join for more information. If you're already a subscriber to NK News, you can listen to full episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the Private Podcast Feed.

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