All Olympic competitors are winners, but the glory goes to the medalists, those individual athletes who in the ancient tradition were honored with a crown of wild olive leaves. In this original spirit, Olympic athletes embody the common human ideals of physical grace, skill, strength, and beauty in the fire of competition.

Of course, the modern Olympics are also a vehicle for competitive corporate and national interests. Just so, the President Moon Jae-in administration’s object of these games was to use the Olympics to open dialogue with North Korea for peace. As the administration pointed out, this follows the Greek tradition of declaring a truce among states to celebrate the games. With this Olympic goal, let’s consider how they placed in the dialogue for peace event by comparing their performance to the competitors representing other nations in different events where dialogue also scores points.

By boxing Kim Jong-un into an isolated corner of the ring in which he desperately needed to escape the blows of international sanctions, the Moon and Trump administrations created the conditions for Kim to send his sister Kim Yo-jung for the charm offensive event. She had a good chance to medal in this for North Korea as South Korean and some international media judges compared her to the great US competitor, Ivanka Trump.

However, Frank Bruni of the New York Times pointed out that this was an odious comparison. Yo-jung may have been compelled to come, seeing how Jong-un assassinated his brother Kim Jong-nam and killed his uncle. Bruni sees no glory in supporting tyrannical aims that repress people instead of celebrating human ideals.

Nor did she initiate dialogue with US Vice President Mike Pence at the opening ceremonies. In final scoring therefore, the American judges were unswayed and gave her scores that caused her to fall far out of the medal race in the charm offensive event.

As a competitor in the don’t hijack the Olympics event, Pence charmed none of the South Korean judges. He wouldn’t sit down to dinner with Kim Yo-jung and emissary Kim Yong-nam, and made no effort to talk to the North Koreans, despite Moon’s valiant efforts. Since when, I wonder, do Americans shy away from telling people what they think? Pence didn’t make it past the qualifying round in the don’t hijack the Olympics event. Neither did Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

In contrast to Pence, I talked to North Koreans while standing right next to them during the participating fan event at the Sweden vs. Inter-Korean team hockey game. To the NK agent minders standing in line for the bathroom, I said in polite Korean, “Hello, I’m American. I hope there is peace between our countries. That would be great. Enjoy the Olympics in Dae Han Min Guk (South Korea)!” They were nice enough to smile.

When I wished the same enjoyment in South Korea to the cheerleaders also representing the North Korean team in the charm offensive event, there were some smiles, smirks, and a couple of disconcerted half-frowns. Only one verbally responded to my thanks for their great singing as they were lined up and marched out by their minders. No freedom of expression or medal there.

But I had acted humanely, in the Olympic spirit, and supported the free people of the republic. I had also given these North Koreans important things to think about, namely that the South is an internationally-minded land of free expression that is a different Korean possibility. Once again, I had done my educational job in a transformational moment that can stick in people’s minds and make a difference. In the participating fan event, I had medaled at the games!

When was President Moon’s transformational moment for medaling in his dialogue for peace event? I believe it came during dialogue with the North Koreans near the DMZ on the formation of the Inter-Korean team. This is when it needed to most draw on the Olympic spirit of the Greeks which Moon propounds.

In proposing the Unified Korean team, Minister of Unification Cho Myoung-gyon needed to explain this to the North Korean delegation, “We are a Republic of laws made by the people that put the rights of the individual before the power of the state. Though we, too, want a Unified Korean women’s hockey team, we must first ask our athletes their opinions. They must discuss this and take a democratic vote. If they vote for a Unified Korean team to play for peace, then we will make one. But we must tell you, if their vote is no, we must respect these individual players’ rights to play for the country they contractually agreed to play for, the Republic of Korea.”

Imagine how impactful the strength of this message would have been to the North Korean delegation. It would have clearly shown them that the way to peace lay in true dialogical values that the Moon administration practiced according to laws and the Greek democratic ideals on which South Korea was founded. It would have shown the humanistic superiority of South Korean democracy and would have sown Northern doubts about their own system.

This would have made the diplomatic rules of the game clear to Pyongyang and forced their hand. If they had said, “Yes, please ask the players to vote,” they would have accepted democratic values. If they had said, “No,” North Korea would not have even qualified for the charm offensive event. In reporting either outcome to the public, the administration would have had a publicity coup.

This strategic move would have empowered Moon, instead of now having the Kims proposing the terms of dialogue. The United States would have applauded this master stroke. And it would have further rallied the South Korean Republic around the Moon administration’s policy of implementing fair policies for all. Moon would have shown the true Olympic spirit of the PyeongChang Games: Com-Passion. Connected! He would have won the gold medal in the dialogue for peace event.

It is a pity that in his rush for Korean ethnic nationalism, he forgot the rules by which dialogue for peace are played and missed the transformational moment. The penalty laps from Moon’s slip again pushed the country to the back of the pack and out of the medal race. Let’s hope that he can bring Greek ideals of freedom and liberty to defeat Northern tyranny in upcoming world championships. 


Keenan Fagan
Keenan Fagan is a professor at Dongguk University who has lived in South Korea for nearly 20 years. -- Ed.