A columnist recalls how the 1988 Seoul Games accelerated democratization, defied North Korean sabotage and left a cultural legacy amplified by Whitney Houston’s anthem.
A scene from the opening ceremony of the 1988 Seoul Olympics at Jamsil Olympic Stadium in Seoul.JOONGANG PHOTO
Cho Gab-je
The author is a journalist and the head of ChoGabje.com and Cho Gab-je TV.
Thirty-eight years later, September 1988 still makes my heart race. Heavy rain drenched Seoul the previous day, but the Olympic opening ceremony on Sept. 17 unfolded flawlessly beneath a clear autumn sky. Watching on television, I became so excited that I rushed to Jamsil and practically lived at the venues for the next two weeks. Those were days when South Korea seemed at its most beautiful.
Park Jong-gyu, president of the International Shooting Sport Federation, proposed bidding for the Olympics as part of a vision for national advancement. President Park Chung Hee approved the idea shortly before his assassination, but it was forgotten amid political upheaval until Chun Doo Hwan revived it. Ryuzo Sejima, the Japanese statesman who inspired a character in the novel “The Barren Zone” (1976), urged Chun to pursue the Games as Nagoya sought them.
After the boycotted Moscow and Los Angeles Games, Seoul also risked becoming a divided Olympics. Mikhail Gorbachev changed that. At a November 1986 summit of socialist leaders in Moscow, he said Kim Il Sung had asked him to boycott Seoul but he refused. The communist bloc decided to pursue North-South co-hosting but participate even if that failed.
On June 18, 1987, Chun saw protesters surrounding Busan City Hall and ordered preparations for military deployment the next day, then canceled them that afternoon. Rumors of martial law were intended as psychological pressure. Chun, who said a successful Olympics meant grasping the door handle to becoming an advanced country, understood that deploying troops could destroy the Games. The Olympics restrained both government and protesters. Ten days later came the June 29 Declaration, opening the way to peaceful democratization.
Sometimes goodwill gathers enough force to advance justice and peace. The UN intervention after North Korea’s 1950 invasion and the Seoul Olympics 38 years later were such moments. The Olympics helped accelerate South Korea’s democratization and development, the collapse of Soviet and Eastern European communism and North Korea’s decline. South Korea, which survived the schemes of Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung with international help, was repaying the free world.
The Kim Il Sung regime answered goodwill with malice. Seeking to sabotage the Olympics, North Korea carried out the 1983 Rangoon bombing and the 1987 bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 while dangling co-hosting proposals and preparing the World Festival of Youth and Students in Pyongyang.
Fortune prevented worse outcomes. Had Myanmar’s foreign minister arrived on time to escort Chun to the Martyrs’ Mausoleum, the 17 fatalities in Rangoon might have included the president, potentially triggering major conflict.
Likewise, Japanese diplomats in Bahrain stopped North Korean agents Kim Seung-il and Kim Hyon-hui, traveling on forged Japanese passports, from escaping after the KAL bombing. Kim Hyon-hui hesitated while attempting suicide with poison hidden in a cigarette. Had she died, claims that South Korea’s intelligence agency staged the bombing might have damaged the Olympic atmosphere. North Korea later poured $5 billion into its Pyongyang youth festival, worsening economic problems that preceded the 1990s “Arduous March.” Moral consequences are not confined to textbooks.
Another name South Koreans should remember is Whitney Houston, whose early death made her music more precious. NBC, the U.S. broadcaster of the Seoul Games, commissioned “One Moment in Time” (1988), which Houston sang for its Olympic soundtrack. It became an unofficial Seoul Olympic anthem in the United States and Europe and remains widely ranked among the greatest Olympic songs.
The official theme was Koreana’s “Hand in Hand” (1988), embodying the Olympic ideal of breaking down walls. If both songs are considered, Seoul deserves to rank among the finest Olympic opening ceremonies. The ceremony moved audiences worldwide and helped change history.
Park Seh-jik, president of the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee, believed the highly watched opening ceremony would determine the Games’ success and invested heavily in it. He also created the Seoul Olympic Sculpture Park, using the Olympic brand to assemble works by leading international sculptors at minimal cost.
Amid South Korea’s feverish democratization, these organizers ignored denunciations of Seoul as a “second Berlin Olympics” and quietly built a great legacy. We still enjoy what they created, even as we forget their names. Their achievement deserves remembrance not as nostalgia, but as evidence that ambition can sometimes serve broader historical change.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
