2017-12-24

5,000 in center of Seoul, Korea shout, "No war! Peace in Korea!"

(4) North Korea Study Group


Charles Park shared a link.
22 hrs
5,000 in center of Seoul, Korea shout, "No war! Peace in Korea!" They must be all communists.
Just saying, the South Korean definition of a "commie" traditionally seems, in one respect, to have been anyone who does not support the ongoing war with NK and the dictatorships/authoritarianism and U.S. forces in SK that ongoing war justifies, irrespective of how logical, factual, or reasonable your argument may be.... or how illogical, unfactual, and unreasonable that charge of being a "commie" may be...
But this peace activism may have been emboldened by the new liberal president, who himself have been called a "commie" by ROK conservatives. The warmongering talk coming from the U.S. might also be another factor.


광화문광장에 5000여명 모여 전쟁반대 집회
주말인 23일 서울 도심에서 한반도 평화를 기원하는 집회가 열렸다. '새로운 100년을 여는 통일의병'은 이날 오후 2시 광화문광장에서 회원 등 5000여명이 참가한 가운데 '2017 한반도 평화대회'를 열고 전쟁에 반대하는 목소리를 높...
NEWS.JOINS.COM

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Edouard George Next time will be 50 000 and then 500 000 I hope

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Charles Park With candles!

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Felix Abt Careful, Charles, you're going to be called a communist for just posting this 

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Jasmin Fosse Exactly! 😉
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Charles Park Have you ever done a book tour in ROK, Felix?
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Felix Abt No, because no newspaper would report it. No ROK newspaper has written a book review. Also the somewhat dangerous book is either not displayed on shelves in book shops at all or somewhere in a dark corner where nobody can see it.
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Felix Abt ROK newspapers also refuse balanced op-eds from me, but gladly print any op-eds trashing North Korea.
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Charles Park Just saying, the South Korean definition of a "commie" traditionally seems, in one respect, to have been anyone who does not support the ongoing war with NK and the dictatorships/authoritarianism and U.S. forces in SK that ongoing war justifies, irresp...See more

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Enrico Chee Agreed with Charles..since they invited you there for a seminar anyway, posting about your alternative opinion on their newspapers is more than ever before, a reachable goal under this Moon administration perhaps.

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Yi Quan SK should stop buying weapons from US

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Stephen Schuit Got any shots of the protests from Pyongyang?
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Bob Hahn For whatever reason the conservatives in SK believe any peaceful resolution on the peninsula will lead to a victory for the North. And as far as Pres. Moon is concerned he will hand over SK on a silver platter to the North to avoid a war (per the conservatives).
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Bobby Morpheal A very American viewpoint and in that sense they are entirely right, it would be a victory for the North, and a partial liberation of the South from being under the American yoke. It would, however, prove out to being a huge bonanza for Korea as to its development. The two combined, in closer league with China, could do great things that neither can do alone.
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Charles Park South Koreans are brain washed in that way.

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Charles Park North Koreans are brain washed in another..

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Bobby Morpheal If you are constantly battered by American psychological warfare, trying to force you to submit and surrender, since the early 1950s, you certainly do count as seriously brain washed. However, they are extremely interesting as to how they have defeated America not once, in combat, but twice. They have defeated the American brainwash machine. Almost no one can say that, in the way North Korea can claim that victory.
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Charles Park But they brainwash themselves too... They have their own interpretation of things. Personality Cult. Etc.

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Donald Kirk Charles Park You're out of touch. Nobody thinks all 5,000 or 50,000 or 500,000 protesters in Seoul "must be all communists." When were you last there? You're raising a foolish image in order to show their critics must be idiots. Pres Moon, who rose to power in part due to the candlelight protests, has a tough enough job trying to deal with conflicting forces without silly stuff about "all communists.".

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Charles Park How long did you live in South Korea?
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Donald Kirk Years, in and out.. And went to just about every candlelight protest. Got back to DC a few weeks ago, back again in a few weeks, inshallah. (Arab term, "God willimg.") How about u?
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Charles Park Obviously you did not learn some things.
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Donald Kirk Probably not. But where were you during the candlelight protests -- and how much time have you spent in Korea in recent years?
(I'm guessing not much, if any, judging from your posts.,) You seem to have missed a lot.

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Charles Park Do you know the National Security Act of the ROK?
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Donald Kirk Oh, c'mon. You don't have to patronize me with asinine questions.
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Charles Park Do you or do you not?
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Donald Kirk What do you think? (By the way, obviously you don't want to admit how little if any time you've spent in Korea in recent years -- and how out of touch you are.)

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Charles Park Ok. You don't know that either.
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Donald Kirk Charles Park, if you think there's one chance in a million that anyone who's been writing about Korea for years does not "know the National Security act," then by all means keep thinking so. My question, tho, was how much if any time yoiu
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Donald Kirk *if any time you've spent in Korea in recent years. Obviously not much if any.
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Charles Park Ok. Thank you for answering the question.
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Charles Park Then finally you answered that you know about the National Security Act. Then you know all about the McCarthyist Red Baiting political culture in SK. So stop denying it.
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Donald Kirk Seriously, have you lived, spent time, in Korea in recent years. Your avoidance of the question suggests not.
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Donald Kirk Tell us what you know about it -- based on your recent or current travels to Seoul. Would welcome your first-hand, on-scene impressions. (Not to be confused with nonsense from your graduate student days in Calif)
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Charles Park 한국말좀 하세요?
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Donald Kirk Ok, thanks for posting that anyway. (Gather you simply don't want to admit you have no first-hand knowledge of the situation there. Suggest you drop into Seoul, talk to people.)
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Donald Kirk Oh, let me see, Ahn Yang Ha Seo, Khamsamidah. (Pardon if you will be so kind, the really bad transliteration.)
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Donald Kirk You should be able to get really cheapie ticket, SF or LA to Incheon, Charles Park Go for it! You can do it!!
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Donald Kirk By the way, Charles Park, forgot to note, that piece that you posted by Geoff Cain is four years old. Interesting, no doubt, but a little outdated.
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Charles Park I was only curious to ask about your Korean because you lived/worked there so long and pass yourself as an expert on Korea or at least publish a lot of articles on Korean affairs.... Didn't mean to put you on the spot.
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Charles Park The article aptly points out that the NSA law is so loose that it can and does get abused as it was under Presidents Park and Lee. Then you know exactly what anti-Communist McCarthyst Red Baiting is often about and it's role in South Korean politics. Maybe you missed that aspect of Korea. How so?
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Donald Kirk You may not have realized it, but they did have that Candlelight Revolution since then. And, getting back to your latest comment, nope I don't think I'm an 'expert" at all, but if you thought so, why were you wasting time asking of I "knew" the Natl S...See more
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Charles Park You should learn some Korean and learn what Koreans really say. Get in there with the natives as Margaret Mead advised. I'm surprised you didn't hear people call each other 빨갱이. It indicates, you missed a lot. It is not too late to go back to school, me and you included.
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Donald Kirk Am really curious -- are you actually from Korea -- or second generation? Have you ever been there? C'mon, nothing to worry about, won't hold your ignorance against you.
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Charles Park Granted if you are an open minded and skillful observer, you can still get away with not knowing the language. Nothing wrong with that.
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Donald Kirk Oh, Charles Park can't you humor me, and others, by revealing your personal relationship with Korea -- whether you've EVER been there, when you were last there, whether Korean is your mother tongue. C'mon, Charles, I've carefully answered so many of your questions. How about a little reciprocation?
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Charles Park Won't take the bait.
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Donald Kirk Figured
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Craig Urquhart This mistakes what's going on in South Korea badly. A lot of people who have it in for American foreign policy - and think North Korea offers any kind of solution to anything at all, especially via compromises thrown at it - is fundamentally out of touch with South Korea and its people.

It's not 1978. Anyone who bases calculations of what the South Korean people are likely to endorse is dreaming. It's common among left-leaning Koreans living abroad, but reflects no real lived reality within South Korea.

Getting a few protesters (and 5000 is a small number) out to a protest is ludicrously easy in SK. Since the 1970's, protest has become something of a ritual performance, a social-bonding agency for like-minded fellows, a time of street parties. It's more like a socio-political issue festival process. And 5000 people is a pathetic turnout. Anyone passing by or working near Gwanhwamun on any given day sees spectacles like this, and that's what they are - spectacles.

Also, civic consciousness is slowly replacing racial-nationalist consciousness in South Korea, or at least augmenting it; the work of Emma Campbell is particularly useful for understanding this. Most Koreans abroad are unaware of these changes, and those whose families left in the 1970s-80's are particularly so.

The old racial-nationalist left, thoroughly anti-American, mostly illiberal, and "socialist"only in the sense of being national-socialist and not in an international marxist or liberal sense, has been shrinking. Look at the slogans on offer here: It's the same recycled stuff from the hard left of the 1970's, if somewhat moderated. What's unusual about the old South Korea is the fact that there were no liberals on the left; liberals were mostly in the old conservative parties, a growing faction there. Note that the only non-racially-Korean member of the national assembly is Philippina, the wife of a (deceased) South Korean, and she is widely loathed on the left for being, well, not to be too blunt about it, racially impure. But that left is dying, along with the old nationalist right.

This protest looks like a last gasp, not an upcoming surge. Most South Koreans younger than 45 are hooked into the international cultural and social scene, and are becoming polyglot and polycultural in outward aspect. Groups like the organizers of this protest have a smaller and smaller base from which to draw, and anyone familiar with South Korean politics knows this.

I live in South Korea, have South Korean family, study it formally, as well as studying the North; I see the trends in real life. Nothing I've said here will surprise anyone who lives in the country.

I'd say that Donald's conjecture that Charles is out of touch with SK society at it is now is roughly correct, in that he seems to represent an increasingly minority understanding of its socio-political environment. 

Also, as for being deluded by propaganda, South Koreans are actually extremely well-informed about the North. Much of this can be put down to mass media and the use of exiles in TV - refugees and defectors - who have now pretty much shared their life histories with people in the South. Most South Koreans are aware that the South's government engages in naked propaganda, and like those in the North, are somewhat immunized against it.

The people in the North are bitter, cynical, and largely despise their own government; anyone who has been there regularly knows this if they've spoken with North Koreans. They know their government is awful, and incompetent, and abusive and basically wretched. For them, unification can't come fast enough, but largely to bring better governance - many assume that the North will give way, not the other way around, in pragmatic terms. But they appreciate one thing about it: Its ability to articulate ethno-racial nationalism, something that does mean a very great deal to many North Koreans. The rest, from what I've seen and heard, much of it first-hand, they could dispense with in a millisecond.

Alas, in South Korea, this is also true. They know there's lots of propaganda, but they do take the first-hand stories of North Koreans into their consciousness and there's both no real sympathy for North Korea as a state, and often little enough for the actual people, and yet very real concern for SK's security.

In short: Far from being deluded, lots of people in the North and almost all young people in the South are highly informed and clued-in. The idea that there's a ton of brainwashing going on is nonsense.

And most people in the South aren't interested in what these protesters are peddling. Support for keeping US troops in SK is at an all-time high; President Moon is harshly constrained in potential fields of action, not just by foreign powers like China or the US or NK, but also by the public mood. People may support a new economic dispensation, but when it comes to NK and security, the current generation may be the most hawkish ever. And this is genuine: It comes from a solid articulation of their well-considered self-interests.

Another two decades and North Korea's dreams of unification will be not just unfulfillable, but unimaginable.

Expect a lot of relentless pushing by NK for a ""peace"" deal that guarantees US troop withdrawal and the creation of some confederal structure that privileges NK at the expense of SK.

It's about the only chance left that NK actually has.

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Craig Urquhart PS, most left-wing (as in illiberal old-lehft) sociologists in SK are despondent about this state of affairs; the old 386 generation has largely passed out of public consciousness, and those left are ragged and despairing. 

The new generation is solidly South Korean, and this means a lot. It means they mostly view NK as a threat - and even unification as an economic threat. North Korea's regime has few friends in South Korea, and the few friends it does have are facing uphill struggles. 

Moon's economic message resonates, but to appeal to those who voted for him - the plurality, not the hard-left base - he has to be more hawkish than LMB ever was. And this is what we've seen from him.

Moon is driving many old lefties crazy by not being, er, by not being Moon.

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Charles Park Twitter.
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Charles Park Craig Urquhart, I doubt NK wants to unify with SK. It may say so as a matter of propaganda for internal consumption - as is the function of the unification meme in the South. However, at least since 1970s, they may have given up the idea and/or lost th...See more

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Sejin Pak Yes, I got that impression from my talks with some univ professors in Pyongyang in my visit last July. They are more worried that other countries, including SK but especially the US, wanting to change their system. You keep yours and we keep ours, don’t threaten us, we can compete. One prof said.

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Charles Park Whatever they say, think about it. ROK military budget is 1.5 times the entire NK GDP. ROK GDP is $1.8 trillion vs. about $28 billion NK's. SK population is over 2x NK's. Etc. The people hawk NK takeover and plans to unify by force dwell in fantasy.
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Craig Urquhart Not so sure. I've spent a lot of time there in the last two years, and immersed in their texts, movies, video and propaganda. I'd say the regime has banked pretty heavily on some variety of soft unification with nk coming out on top. It's not inconceiv...See more

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Sejin Pak Two system federation is of course still on their agenda. The main point now being do not ry to change us.
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Sejin Pak Who among SK scholars do you have in mind since they have a big sectarian differences.
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Edouard George I attended last year a seminar in Seoul KODAe about NK.....none of the participants had been to NK ...(Sk citizens I understand) ...but everyone had a fierce opinion about what to do and how it is there.......so funny....and dangerous

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Charles Park Bryan Meyers is another nutcase pedling NK takeover fantasies.

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Craig Urquhart Have you read myers? He's hardly a fantasist. He has the salutary habit of reading nk in Korean, which can't be said about many of the talking heads who project various versions of Western realpolitik or cold war tropes onto nk. Myers is, on this score, of a mind with Bruce Cummings, even Lee chongshik (of the past generation), or hassig and oh, or heonik Kwon, or Lee hysang.

If you read Korean and read nk in Korean, as we should and as many don't (ahem ahem, Columbia, ...), then the projection stops and suddenly what nk does makes perfect sense.

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Craig Urquhart The only reason anything nk does seems mysterious or opaque is because every squabbling faction outside nk paints its own nonsense onto nk. It's like a universal screen for everyone else's arguments. Few actually look at nk to see nk.

Whatever the crimes of myers or Lee hy-sang, this is not one of them .

It's telling that most of the people who make claims that decentre nk from its own narrative are usually careerist academics in related butnot nk fields, or politically motivated outsiders with agendas that they use nk as a canvas for.

We need to take nk on its own terms. When we do, none of its actions are quixotic or mysterious or weird. They make perfect sense in nk's own context.

This is a pretty basic point. How it escapes those who pretend some higher insight into NK based on (insert agenda here) is beyond me.

But it's a very straightforward and sensible approach.
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Charles Park Said in another place: ROK defense budget is about 1.5 times NK's entire GDP; ROK GDP is about $1.8 trillion whereas NK GDP is about $30 billion; ROK population is over 50 million vs about 25 million for NK. Even of most of the 25 million believe in the fantasy (not), it is not possible. Whatever NK propaganda says, whatever wishful thinking whoever up north may have, whatever mushroom the academic is smoking, NK cannot swallow up SK.
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Charles Park Oh, they say, NK nukes will check US and make ROK conventional forces impotent. But you can't occupy a country with nukes. Neither will the population of fifty million sit around and say, "Take me to your leader we will follow him now because he now ha...See more
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Craig Urquhart Look, this was spelled out by each Kim, the nk propaganda arm and various Juche study groups overseas. Inside nk, it's common knowledge.

1) push us troops out.
2) use whatever means neessary (appeal to rich brother, intimidate rich brother, appeal to lower classes, raise nationalist furor) to push Sk into a losooe confederation with nk. This will legitimize nk's rule, frame nk as the great hero for forcing out the US, and provide it with serious nationalist street cred. 

3) force the south to open up its political process while keeping thenorth closed off, mostly. This is dirt easy: it's the status quo minus a little bit. It'll be an easy sell.

4) demand incremental changes. In the interest of peace, ban defamation of thenorthern ledership. Curtail immigration. Discourage outside interference, including cultural. Push for subsidies (most of which will disappear). Buy off the chaebol class, which is ludicrously simple to do. In fact, it's hard to prevent. 

Everything in 4) is possible because Sk has done it already at one time or another. 

Once the process begins, nk looks heroic and SK like it's admitting nk is heroic.

This had been the openly stated, much articlated plan for decades. They literally talk about it all the time. The nuclear umbrella is necessary protection only if nk intends to provoke or blackmail Sk. Otherwise nuclear weapons ar a huge security risk.

Everything nk has done fits perfectly into its already well articulated plan for unification. Literally, everything. None of it is mysterious or fantasy or projection: they say this is what they intend, every action they take fits this pattern ideally, and they then say this is what they intend as they outline how it should go down.

The details of 4) they have demanded repeatedly at different times, as well. They say them so often it baffles me why those outside refuse to listen.
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Craig Urquhart Likei said: you can only call myers, Lee hysang and Lee chongshik are all nutters. Also, most of the Sk academic world. Pretty much the entirety of that establishment- reading and writing in korean- acknowledges the obvious aims of nks policies. Because nk says so. Enthuastically, repetedly, often, to anyone willing to listen.

The act of dismissal says more about the projections of outsiders than it does about the issue. I'll let others be the judge, but I think the very basic point being made is relevant.
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Craig Urquhart I think the point is pretty simple and hard to ignore, except by ideologues with non-NK agendas.

I think the point is pretty simple ands hard to ignore, except by ideologues with non-NK agendas.e what happens, and listen to what it says it wants to happen.

When we do this, weirdly, by some bizarre coincidence, its actions make a hell of a lot of sense. Unification requires no tanks rolling through Myeongdong, or paratroopers in Gwangju, staging another redoubt in the mountains; it just requires a peace treaty that extracts nothing from NK and much from SK, and all of thnhhe proposals so far do precisely this. As KIS and KJI both said, once the peace treaty and the confederation are in the bag, eventually, NK will get everything it wants - the cancellation of the Sk threat, the unification of Korea on NK's terms, and the sanctification of the heroic Kim dynasty - the final liberators of Korea, the men with vision and the power to drive out the Yankee imperialists.

Yuo may think this is fantasy, but only because you imagine some kind of NK triumphalism on the order of a Caesarean march through Seoul. Nothing like that will happen; it's all about the gradual, incremental exercise of nationalism and hegemony on scales that are possible.

It's literally their plan. Talk to people and they will open up about it. It's not remotely anything like a secret. It's also eminently reasonable and absolutely possible.

It will leave a criminal elite in charge of a huge, mafia-like economy that SK's elite will, in the end, buy into. It will be a kind of Nationalist right-wing government, split at first, but whose elite will have steadily converging interests. The populace be damned; the elite will win their crony capitalist empire, and Korea will be united via the genius of the Kim dynasty.

Whether you belive it or not, NK certainly believes tihs is absolutely possible.




A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom
byFelix Abt
3.7 out of 5 stars
39



Customer Review


1.0 out of 5 stars... one gets reading this book is that the author wasted a golden opportunity to be genuinely neutral and share ...
ByCraig Urquharton February 6, 2015
Format: Hardcover
The overwhelming impression that one gets reading this book is that the author wasted a golden opportunity to be genuinely neutral and share expertise. Rarely has so proud a paean to a dictatorial regime been published under the guise of "objectivity".

Some of his stories are interesting, but the book is largely an apology for dictatorship and extreme social control.
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Customer Review


1.0 out of 5 starsOn the Kim Family Payroll?
ByCraig Urquharton November 15, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
Few books written about North Korea operate so effectively as propaganda for the North Korean regime. Abt has almost nothing bad to say about it, excusing it almost all its faults and blaming outsiders for most of North Korea's failings. He dismisses the grotesque human rights abuses in North Korea and seems to think defectors are disloyal or dishonest. Throughout the book, he uses weasel-words and half-truths to deflect criticism. While he maintains that there are few or unimportant human rights abuses, he excuses himself by saying "I'm not a human rights expert" - as if this requires a certificate from some grand authority.

The only conviction he seems to have maintained in North Korea while he was there was motivated self-interest, and this aligned with the interests of the regime. it takes an especially self-blinded man to go to a country like North Korea, one of the last truly oppressive dictatorships in the world, and try to be "balanced" by portraying it as just not all that bad. It's just, ... misunderstood. Or something like that.

It's hard to read accounts like this and still maintain faith in peoples' ability to be neutral in the face of self-interest. After reading the book, I could only conclude that Felix Abt has commercial interests in North Korea, and therefore needs to write open progapanda for the despotic rulers or face personal losses.

It was a very disappointing and disturbing read. I was expecting interesting tales from a near-mythical land. Instead, I got a completely predictable and unoriginal paean to a dictatorship that should be despised by all decent souls. The only word I can use to summarize this book is "shameful".

As Josh Stanton said on his blog, quite eloquently, "Of course, Abt must realize that joining in such a call might jeopardize his business interests in Pyongyang, but I’m sure he could find another profession equally suited to his character, like selling cutlery to ISIS, or picking through the dirt at Auschwitz to scavenge for gold fillings."

Stanton could not be more correct.------------------
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The book "review" by Seoul-based Canadian activist Craig Urquhart doesn't deal with its content but tries to trash it by using negative stereotypes against the author such as "proud paean to a dictatorial regime."That's not surprising: Urquhart has trolled Abt endlessly elsewhere including on a Facebook group with 50 hateful posts on a single day calling him "a criminal, a parasite transmitting diseases, a profiteer on misery using slave labor, unprincipled prick, so unutterably wretched, inhuman monster, package of lies and distortions." The character-assassination culminated with a call to "tens of thousands to get into Stone-throwing moods" against Abt. Urquhart, obviously seeking to generate income from sponsors for his political activities, must have a firm interest in the maintenance of North Korea's status quo as opposed to pragmatic entrepreneur Abt who wants a peaceful transformation of North Korea thanks to gradual, but substantial reforms, similar to those in Vietnam and China which lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. That reforms in North Korea help Abt's business interests and not Urquhart's is plain to see.




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American soldiers need to leave South Korea
Continuing U.S. presence helps Seoul avoid facing reality
Craig Urquhart
April 22nd, 2015
https://www.nknews.org/2015/04/american-soldiers-need-to-leave-south-korea/


It’s time for the United States to withdraw its soldiers from Korea. This has nothing to do with “liberating South Korea from U.S. imperialism,” and nothing to do with American retrenchment and isolationism.

On the South Korean left, calls for withdrawal reek of reactionary racism and thinly veiled Korean nationalism. The fascist Korean left and its mendacious apologists still lurk in open sight. Korea experienced actual colonialism under Japanese rule, and whatever the U.S. presence may be, it isn’t that. Even if Korea was once a client state, that changed decades ago.

On the U.S. right, the old Cold War is over and right-wing American politicians have grown tired of propping up wealthy Asian allies. But their nihilistic isolationism is misplaced. Power, respect and allies come with a price, and the U.S. should expect to have to pay it.

The reason that U.S. troops should leave is that the presence of American soldiers encourages South Korean irresponsibility. South Korea has to grow up and take charge of its situation. How it got there doesn’t matter.

ENDLESS CHILDHOOD

South Korea has been allowed to act like an overgrown child for decades. The U.S. exercised exclusive military command because South Korea could not be trusted not to start a world war, and now resists the American push to transfer operational command. It relies on U.S. protection when it flubs its own diplomatic efforts. It carved out a state-sponsored industrial policy that flouted fair trade rules, but was given a generous pass, and now pretends that this was entirely a South Korean achievement. It received aid from the IMF during the Asian Currency crisis, but has made little headway in financial reform.

The United States has been bailing South Korea out militarily, politically and diplomatically since UN troops landed at Incheon.

The “Miracle on the Han” is indeed miraculous, but it came prepackaged with serious design flaws that South Korea is too smug to address. South Korea was allowed access to foreign markets without reciprocating; sheltering industries breeds inefficiency and creates justified resentment overseas. “Get-rich-quick” economic policies artificially concentrate wealth and power into the hands of a tiny class of fratricidal, laughably dysfunctional and incompetent elites. Favoritism and collusion enables society-wide institutional corruption. “Bbali bbali” (“speed first!”) development encourages a culture of shoddy workmanship and corner-cutting, which, when combined with corruption, actively endangers South Korean society. Rigid, military-inspired corporate cultures stymie the development of creative and knowledge industries, while heavy regulation drowns out domestic and foreign competition, allowing gargantuan family combines, the infamous chaebol like Samsung and LG, to treat South Koreans like indentured laborers and captive consumers. Government interference in the economy makes South Korea more like a nation-sized “company town” than a modern state.

South Koreans are both proud of and enraged by their chaebol. This schizophrenia is a direct result of the economic model spearheaded by South Korea’s 1960s and 1970s dictator, Park Chung-hee. While ostensibly successful, this model was also deeply flawed, yet few will openly admit that the rot was built-in and does not come from pernicious outsiders. Political actors blame vague and sinister-sounding foreign forces for manifestly domestic economic and social issues. They can do this because Korea abdicates responsibility for its own mistakes.


Photo by Moyan_Brenn

JAPAN, THE ETERNAL BOGEYMAN

While almost every word uttered by the North Korean dictatorship is a naked lie, one piece of propaganda hits home. Most of South Korea’s educated class and elites have elders who were energetic participants in the Japanese colonization of the Korean peninsula. Sanctimonious South Koreans angry at Japan should ask their grandparents some hard questions before they join online anti-Japanese riots. Much of this Japanophobia is little more than a species of self-hatred, resentment at what colonization told Koreans about themselves. Few other colonized nations were as tractable and easily controlled as Korea under the Japanese, and few colonial enterprises had so many enthusiastic collaborators. And while both South and North Korea adopted variations of Imperial Japanese social norms, Japan has largely moved on.


South Korea doesn’t have to take responsibility for its poor relations with Japan, its only real regional ally

South Korea was not unique in its acquiescence. After 1944, France overflowed with a comically large number of retroactive resistance fighters. The difference is that France has to handle its current relationship with Germany on its own. South Korea doesn’t have to take responsibility for its poor relations with Japan, its only real regional ally, because it’s free to take cheap potshots from behind America’s broad shoulders, safe in the knowledge that Uncle Sam will smooth it all out.

The Japanese Empire was blasted into oblivion 70 years ago. South Korea should face reality, suck it up and stop playing the victim. Whatever grievances exist, it’s going on four generations and it’s time South Korea joined the adult world. South Korea needs to be honest and it has to forgive itself. In the end, this will enable it to find some sort of psychological peace with its Japanese cousin. But the game of honesty and reconciliation is a game for adults, and America’s indulgence isn’t helping.

REUNIFICATION LIP SERVICE

Foreigners have to be careful, because unification is the “third rail” in South Korean social conversations. Everyone pretends it’s important, but the truth is that South Koreans rarely do more than chant empty mantras. South Korea can’t even bring itself to endorse a basic North Korean human rights bill that the rest of the world passed long ago. Individually, South Koreans pretend that North Korea doesn’t exist, while successive governments absurdly claim to advance the cause of the entire Korean nation.

Like most socialist states, North Korea wastes its energy ruining the lives of its own people in fits of ideological zeal. South Korea heckles from the sidelines, throwing peanuts at anyone who steps up. Big Brother America runs interference, rendering South Korean inaction free of any blame or responsibility.

South Korea is the only country with the moral authority to tear down the North Korean regime. It needs to find the courage to seize this moral authority. Without American oversight, South Korea would finally be forced to negotiate with the sole foreign power that matters: China.

The presence of countless terrified North Korean refugees in China, theoretically entitled to South Korean citizenship, puts South Korean cowardice and greed into sharp relief. The refugees subsist in a grim limbo because South Korea won’t spend any diplomatic capital to help them. Are they, or are they not, Koreans? Is it fear of 150,000 hungry mouths? If solidarity is sold so cheaply, why the unification lip service? If South Korea really wants unification, it should prove it by first taking responsibility for those who escape the Kim-family dictatorship and bringing them to South Korea, the home they so desperately need.

North Korea is this century’s worst crime, masquerading as a state. Its regime needs to be toppled and a divided nation healed. Reunification may mean use of force or it may mean diplomatic acrobatics. It might also mean accommodating tyrants and slitting the throat of Korean democracy, if South Korea doesn’t have the courage of its convictions.

However it’s achieved, unification will certainly mean profound and wrenching social upheaval in the South, and quite likely economic and political chaos. Blindly hoping for a calm, orderly unification is irresponsible. The moment the process starts, the border will evaporate – unless South Korean conscripts are willing to shoot grandmothers and jubilant patriots – and once the border is gone, all bets are off. South Koreans seem to understand, on a gut level, that reunification will be a socio-economic catastrophe for them. Do they have the courage to stare damnation in the face, without flinching, for the sake of their nation? Few seem to consider the full implications of reunification, few willingly discuss it beyond regurgitated assertions, and nobody wants to plan for it.

BECOMING THE FUTURE


South Korea can still participate in military training, deploy forces internationally, and co-ordinate policies with its allies

While refusing to give up second-fiddle status in its partnership with America, South Korea vacillates between obsequious kowtowing and ingratitude. In between fits of petulant whining, it bemoans its perceived weakness but resents being asked to stand up. If South Korea is the future of the Korean people, it’s time for South Korea to stop talking and BE the future of the Korean people.

Withdrawing troops does not mean weakening the U.S.-South Korean alliance. South Korea can still participate in military training, deploy forces internationally, and co-ordinate policies with its allies. American troops can be in South Korea at a moment’s notice if North Korea attacks again. South Korea will still need a strong international consensus to confront North Korea, but this is South Korea’s game to play, and South Korea needs to be at the front of the lineup. It should be a responsible partner, not a dependent.

South Korea is more than ready. It has immeasurably more cultural, political and economic influence abroad than any ethnic Korean state in history. No Korean state has ever been tougher, stronger, richer or smarter. South Korea has all of the moral and political authority it needs to deal with North Korea’s isolated, xenophobic dictatorship.

America is the guest who brought the beer and the music and turned a sketchy party into a social event, but it’s lingering too late into the wee hours. All the good intentions in the world mean nothing if American overprotection prevents South Korea from learning to fend for itself, enables cowardice instead of courage, and allows South Korea to wallow in its own indulgent adolescence for another generation. It’s time for American soldiers to go home.


Featured Image: USFK welcomes new ambassador to Korea by U.S. Army Korea (Historical Image Archive) on 2011-12-05 15:17:32
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Craig Urquhart

Craig Urquhart is a Canadian expat working with NGOs and media in Korea.READ MORE ARTICLES
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