George E. Ogle B.D. '54
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| State and church:
Ogle greeted by South Korea’s President Kim Dae-Jung |
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Every detail of that day in December 1974
still stands out vividly to George E. Ogle: his arrest by South
Korean police, the hour he was given to gather his belongings before
having to leave his family and the country he had called home for
two decades, the tears he shed on the flight out.
But almost thirty years later, the bitterness of those memories
has been sweetened by the enduring justice of his cause and the
respect that so many people have shown for his sacrifice. Last
fall, he became only the fifth foreigner honored with an award
from South Korea’s Institute for Human Rights.
“
That was the most surprising thing about winning—that so
much time has passed, but there are still a lot of people in Korea
who remember what we fought for,” says Ogle, seventy-four,
now retired and living in suburban Atlanta.
Spurred by an interest in international relations and inspired
by a visiting Korean student he had met at Duke, Ogle became a
missionary for the United Methodist Church after graduating. He
headed for South Korea, which was beginning to recover from its
three-year war with North Korea. After a few years, he was given
permission to form a specialized ministry for the country’s
factory workers, who were often overworked and exposed to hazardous
conditions as the government pushed rapid industrialization of
the traditionally rural country.
Ogle, who grew up outside Pittsburgh, had relatives who had worked
in the region’s steel mills and coal mines and was familiar
with their struggles. “I carry my background with me wherever
I go,” he says. “I knew the workers needed support,
or they would be left out of the country’s progress.”
In the early Sixties, Ogle helped found the Urban Industrial Mission,
to educate Korean workers about their rights, counsel them in negotiating
union contracts, and assist their families. After several years
of success, the movement was targeted by a military regime that
seized control of the government in 1971.
“
They didn’t have any concept of social justice from a Christian
perspective,” says Ogle, who was arrested four times for
alleged Communist ties but never charged with any crime.
When eight Korean men were jailed on charges of leading a Communist
conspiracy, Ogle spoke out on their behalf and called for them
to receive a public, civil trial instead of a secret, military
one. That stance led to arrests and, ultimately, deportation.
“
There was no way I could retreat from where I stood,” he
says. The arrests frightened him, but also fueled his determination
to defy injustice. “When I preached, I often saw the black
jackets of the Korean CIA in the audience, which gives you a really
uneasy feeling. But I felt I had to speak the truth as I knew it.”
Back in this country after the deportation—his wife and four
children stayed in South Korea for three months to get their affairs
in order—he earned a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin
and got a teaching position at Emory University, where he spent
seven years. He then served for ten years as a Washington lobbyist
for the Methodist Church on health and poverty issues and headed
an interdenominational social-justice group in Illinois for five
years, before retiring and moving back to Georgia to write and
spend time with his grandchildren.
Ogle has written two books about life in South Korea during the
twentieth century, and groups often ask him to speak about the
country. He says he feels that the Korean people are better off
today than when he was there, and he is gratified by the role the
Urban Industrial Mission played in creating the country’s
strong unions. But the growing tensions over North Korea’s
nuclear activities concern him.
“
The long-range problem is that you’ve got people who have
been divided into two countries by politics,” he says. “We’ve
got to work with North Korea to open the country through trade
and cultural exchanges. We can’t be using military threats
to humble North Korea like we did Iraq. It would be disastrous
for all Koreans.
“
The problems there are quite solvable if the U.S. wants to solve
them.”
--Matthew Burns
Burns is a freelance writer in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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