(1888PressRelease)
April 19, 2007 - Last year when I participated in the grand June 15 national reunification festival held in Kwangju, south Korea, I again got well aware of the ideological and sentimental impressiveness of the song.
The reunification atmosphere at the festival venue grew higher with the start of the performance by the Pyongyang reunification music band.
Especially, the rhythmic tune of the song “By Our Nation Itself” stimulated the south Korean representatives and all other Kwangju citizens present there to rise to their feet and sang full of emotion after the singers, enthusiastically waving reunification flags.
Who else knows the pain of living separated?
Who else knows the pent-up anger against division?
We’re calling each other in a choking voice.
By our nation itself.
We open our hearts to each other.
By our nation itself.
O, reunify the country by our nation itself.
This surprised me because the south Koreans could sing the song so easily after the singers. It was not a previously well-known song but a new one they heard for the first time now.
When the singing of the song was over, all the audience excitedly called for encores in succession.
A Jang Jin Gyu living in Tuam-dong, Puk-ku, Kwangju, held my hand tight and said, “Why do you think we Kwangju citizens are so much charmed by the song? It’s because we’ve sympathized with the idea of ‘by our nation itself’. ‘By our nation itself’ is just the seed of reunification June 15 implanted deep in the minds of all our fellow countrymen. The joy at getting the precious seed of reunification and the strong sympathies with the profound idea have caused such a great spectacle.”
Touching my heartstrings, his words made me think a lot about the ‘seed of reunification’.
A seed is not big, and yet such a small seed contains all elements essential for the growth and rich yielding of the plant. This is why a seed is regarded as fundamental in cultivating plants or crops.
The idea of “by our nation itself” is quite suggestive.
The words “by our nation itself” reflect the Koreans’ will to put an end to their more than half-a-century-long history of division by foreign forces, the history of sufferings and bitter tears, and show all the clear ways and means to reunify the country by Koreans themselves. The words also represent the fellow Koreans’ sincere aspiration after independence and strong longing for peace, and show promise of the bright future when there will be spread a reunification party on the reunified land.
The prevalence of the song “By Our Nation Itself” in south Korea just manifests the confidence that if all the fellow countrymen are rallied in the common interest of the nation transcending the differences in ideology, ideal, political view and religion, they can achieve their lofty object, and the will of the entire Korean nation to accelerate the advance toward the independent reunification under the banner of “by our nation itself’.
In the new year of 2007 when greater successes are expected in the national reunification movement, they, in unity with one mind and one will, will spread far and wide the seeds of “by our nation itself”, the seeds of reunification, produced by the June 15 Joint Declaration, thus reunifying the country without fail.
By: Kim Yu Jong
