Shifting from "Security" to "Peace" in Korea webinar with Dr. Han S Park

Shifting from "Security" to "Peace" in Korea webinar with Dr. Han S Park

Women Cross DMZ

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279 views  May 23, 2020

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Why have the US and North Korea been at war for 70 years? How do we get to peace? What makes us truly secure? 

On May 21, 2020,  the Korea Peace Network, Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network, Peace Treaty Now, Re’Generation Movement, and Women Cross DMZ hosted a webinar with Dr. Han S Park on the need for a radical shift toward a peace paradigm in Korea.

Han S Park is University Professor Emeritus of International Affairs and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues (GLOBIS) at the University of Georgia. Dr. Park has visited North Korea more than 50 times since 1981 to further efforts for diplomacy and peacemaking. He was instrumental in President Jimmy Carter’s visit to North Korea in 1994 to avert military confrontation and President Bill Clinton’s visit to Pyongyang to free detained American journalists in 2009.

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Introduction

so welcome my name is Greyjoy I am a co-founder of regeneration

movement and a member of Georgia Korea peace campaign today's event is brought

to you by Korea peace network Korea peace now peace treaty now regeneration

women and woman cross dmz um we are so

glad to see you um virtually but first would you please on the chat box tell us

which city or state or country you are

logging in from um you should able to UM

use the chat room on the below of your page I see person from Boston Los

Angeles New York hello checking in from San Francisco Wow

amazing amazing thank you so much for joining us today while Kobe 19 has us

quarantined at our homes I think it's wonderful to see that ironically it is

also opening the doors for us to be ever more connected um digitally I also want

to mention that this webinar is being recorded and will be made available after the event ok um one last

housekeeping item also while listening to Professor Park you can write in your

questions on the Q&A box down below and

not this time at the chat box so there are two different rooms down below so

make sure you put your questions in the - in a box and dr. Park will go over

your questions later on okay without further ado I would like to

introduce our speakers professor Han Park Han Park is the University

professor emeritus at the University of Georgia and the founding director of the

center for the study of global issues he has a bachelor's degree from Seoul

National University masters from American University and PhD from University of Minnesota she was born in

China Manchuria to Korean immigrant parents and lived there until the end of

the World War two as a child he saw the brutality caused

by the conflict between Chiang kai-shek a Mazel Tov when dr. Park and his family

moved to Korea dr. Park was caught in the middle of the Korean War these

experiences he had as a child has engraved a deep yearning for peace

and also he dedicated his life for the cause of peace especially for that of

his home country of Korea he has visited North Korea more than 50 times since

1981 it worked tirelessly to persuade government officials to improve

relations with the US and to resolve the nuclear crisis he was instrumental to

President Jimmy Carter's visit to North Korea in 1994 to avert a military

confrontation and presented Bill Clinton's visit to Pyongyang to free

detained American journalists in 2009 for these efforts he had been recognized

as the thirteenth recipient of Gandhi King Ikeda community builders prize in

2010 the alerts previous recipients included Nelson Mandela Mikhail

Gorbachev and Desmond Tutu so dr. Park

has had a very distinguished career but in a nutshell dr. Park is a peacemaker

that's why we're so excited to have him to hear his insights on peace in the

Korean Peninsula today without further ado um Oh before hands OH I would like

to also introduce dr. Uslan Tong who is the associate professor in electrical

engineering at Kennesaw University and an eject again professor at Georgia Tech

he is also a member of Georgia Korea peace campaign and currently chairs the

education committee at the national unification Advisory Council Atlanta

chapter so without further ado dr. Park and dr. Chung the floor is all yours

thank you very much professor Park for joining us today

Dr Han S Park

I heard that you were born in China and you went through gruesome Chinese a

civil war during your childhood and then all your families actually I came down

to South Korea but then you suffered a lot from Korean War to there and then

you've been thinking why people are killing each other and then you're

almost obsessed with the peace indeed it's been almost 70 years since the end

of Korean War but we're still suffering from we are not even getting closer to

make any peace agreement between North Korea and the United States so could you

share some of your wisdom why this is happening and then what we could do to

make a better situation it's not an easy question but I'll try

Three developments

70 years that has been appeared of cease

fire cease fire is supposed to be short but 7-0 years something wrong there

there must be darn good explanation for that I think I've got one there are

three developments that we can assign to this unusual phenomenon one the Cordova

after the Korean independence from Japan

Korea became divided by the Soviet Union

and United States at the 38th parallel followed by a long period of cold

war-era cold Oh as we all know was a direct confrontation between the Soviet

Union that is communism and liberal democracy of the United States and the

two Koreas divided Koreas became subsequently the forefront of these

dividing the world order that made unification impossible division lasted

as long as the World Order is polarized

during the Cold War era and then something happened

after the demise of second the Soviet

Union China became very formidable player in world politics immediately

China replaced the Soviet Union to counter the United States so you have us

Soviet tension replaced by us-china tension which is a very formidable today

so North Korea on the side of Communists South Korea on the side of the United

States they have maintained forced to maintain such a separation

death called WA after the Cold War the rise of China China when China was

independent when I was little there in China China was a very poor country

starving country military intelligible country because

Britain and Europeans occupied basically most China for 100 years 100

years of humiliation they call it so

because of that the emergence of new China was given great deal of attention

because China came with a great deal of potential

indeed today China is the second largest economy perhaps one of the leading

powers of the world basically we have China helping North Korea the United

States on the side of South Korea so China u.s. tension has been translated

into the tension on the Korean Peninsula northern South Korea between the mean

time ah the United States developed something

unusual something called the deep state America is not governed by elected

officials anymore governed by elements of deep state the deep state players are

military industry intelligence and

thirdly mass media when you hold control

over these these three entities in the United States you control the political

system political players are superficial so in this case very importantly

military industry became very formidable determinants of American foreign policy

military industry must sell weapons continuously there must be buyers or

us-made weapons South Korea came very

handy for that weapons ma market

so they're North Korea is sort of became

demonized became ridiculed by the United

States so that North Korea can provide the justification or the United States

to beef up its weapons component

so throughout cold war-era and and throughout the division of Korea Korean

systems have competed in in the area of countries and they accumulated weapons

of all kinds eventually North Korea accumulated the nuclear arsenal so this

is where we are so because of these developments we have never seen a

glimpse of any successful effort to reunify certainly to end the Army's

trees temporary ceasefire that is the question/answer okay so indeed it is

very insightful thought about the complex situations and in seemed like we

are all surrounded by the desire to have more military power but then the

question is once we have more military power more weapons then doesn't make us

more as safer and then does it do it actually would it give us the more

secure world would you a little bit elaborate about this from your concept

security were dime transition two key spirit I'm happy to

Security as a national objective

throughout the Cold War ii-era and post the Condor development up to today we

have seen security as a national objective for the United States or South

Korea for North Korea for China everyone worked for and pursued the

security security cannot provide us with

sivan security security is self-defeating when you have a weapons

weapons are to be used then you have a mutual fear suspicion and antagonism all

these things the kind of hostile culture will develop so here more weapons more

better weapons that desire developed

eventually North Korea decided to go for nuclear because in conventional weaponry

arms race you need a lot of money strong economic background which North Korea

didn't have so he was the rational decision to look for and to make nuclear

weapons because historically we learn that when you have a nuclear weapons

your security is not going to be threatened by any country any government

so North Korea pursued and eventually successful and all costing sacrifices

they develop these weapons but now all

these weapons will not give us any security will only give you such a fear

suspicion distrust

security is not there in pursuit of security because security is not what we

need what Korea needs we need a peace

peace is not the absence of conflict we

it's it's a mistaken notion that when you do not have a conflict you have

peace that's not the case we don't have peace even without conflict peace is the

presence of harmony rather than the absence of adversary or country presence

of harmony harmony as we know in musical

harmony requires diversity different

notes different instruments and so on diversity when you have a diversity you

have the potential of harmony without diversity harmony is not a

relevant concept even so it is some sort

of so Latian company to know that North

and South Korea are very diverse very different

but the difference can work for peace

now will not work for security but work for peace so with that how can we

compromise a harmonized North in South Korea in a way that the two systems will

not fight will be mutually supportive virtually accommodating and mutually

communicating and empathizing so there

we have the great potential for developing great peace

you see unlike a country peace unlike I

mean security peace comes in various sizes great peace and minimal peace when

you have a great diversity potentially we have great peace indeed Korean

Peninsula is prepared for great peace if people we understand and we look willing

to work for that so peace paradigm that's a harmonious I said but but

harmony requires not only depressants of diversity but also we have to know one

another we have to know South Koreans must know North Korea the way it is and

vice versa because of demonization because of misinterpretation each other

we don't know each other very well especially South Koreans and Americans

we are far from having a realistic and accurate picture of North Korea so we

have to work for that and then we need to have peace education and all these

specific steps we need to take but these

hopefully will have another another question regarding specific road maps

okay thank you very much professor Park indeed so you mentioned peace is harmony and we

Peace is harmony

can get peace out of diversity in norms different cultures and different norms

and different ideology but in in reality it still seems like really far away to

carry oil to execute the Peace in real life what are the core elements and if

you would like to love her a little bit more to make more peaceful world especially in respect to Korean a

relationship with you North Korea and also the United States

think about Orchestra think about the

art of creating harmony in music you

need to know one another so we have to put ourselves in other

people's shoes in other words South Koreans must be able to put their shoes in North Koreans life situations

our knowledge Americans in South Koreans about now North Korea is so pitiful so

unrealistic how many people know that North Korean North Korea

it's a socialist system they don't have a private ownership when it comes to

real estate buildings and so on South Koreans think they will go and purchase

a lot of land and become rich people it's not the case no land is for sale

there are a lot of things that Americans and South Koreans do not know anything

about North Korea we have to change that for that we have to have a good

education we have to have open mind dialogue with them not only that we have

to travel and receive North Koreans outside North Korea communication

transportation and education is that

much important so unification doesn't begin after the collapsible system or

out after unified Korea unification

campaign must begin right now when we are still divided we can try to

build what I call peace culture and unification culture

so correct knowledge and empathy being able to consider the world from North

Korea's point of view which is very oddly lacking in the United States and

in South Korea so if we did that

unification movement begins right now here don't wait until the country

politically unified so that's the not really roadmap roadmap but it's so

important to have a transition model a period where this

divided two regimes or two states may

interact and become more similar for

that we need to have a mediation entity that is you know as a president Kim

dae-jung and chairman Kim jong-il agreed

on June 15 19 2010 it is so important

that we prepare to accept our differences accommodate differences and

we work with the differences so that we

have written in prints but we're not practicing that at all so we have to

travel we have to let North Koreans a travel out and get to know one another

in order to communicate and understand them you don't have to agree with them I

visit North Korea so many times I did not agree everything I hear and I ever

everything I I learned certainly but I understood where they're coming from if

you have understanding that is a good base of communication and peace without

understanding peace you will not have understanding you don't have to agree

understanding sometimes you hate but at least you accept as being the case on

the other side so that is a basically peace education

piece culture and peace attitudes that

we have to cultivate in our socialization education processes

okay indeed thank you very much a professor part for your wisdom so to

Demonization of North Korea

make more peaceful relationship I guess the core element as you mentioned before

is a dialogue between two entities and then understanding each other so in

terms of demons the demonization of North Korea what do you actually take on

that what the opinion on that demonization of North Korea do we see them as they are what is your opinion on

that who started demonization I think the United States started demonizing I'm a

Christian but misguided Christianity will give us a sense of two worlds

Heaven and Hell right and wrong chosen

people and discarded people all these dichotomies worldview will make

temples untouchable in I will we learn

to love our enemies but we're not told to lava the devil table is supposed to

be destroyed will not be accommodated in

this world or any world so that kind of misguided Christianity has encouraged

American policymakers to demonize North

Korea and probably demonize China as well you see without demonizing you

cannot kill in order to kill your enemy you have to make your enemy a devil

demonize so that's what it's going on in real politics during the Vietnam War

time during the Korean War many innocent young Korean and Asian people were

massacred after having been demonized so

humanization is something we have to change correctly no you can if you

understand North Koreans you don't want to humanize them you know where they're

coming from when you redeem an ID then we think the

devil is or should be destroyed should be killed if that's the case then there

will be no moral nor moral guidelines

for conflict when you kill devil anyway

you can kill still justified in a legitimate war there is ethics of war

you don't Massacre you don't assassinate

leaders when the America assassinated

bin Laden it was assassination assassination is

not in the books of war so when we need

to have a different perspective about North Korea and China - today China is

being demonized by the Trump administration it's a team table because

China deliberately intentionally manufactured the coronavirus to attack

the United States and export to America that tables work when we tell lies

Chinese behavior like that we are indeed humanizing the Chinese after such a

demonization is complete then we'll go slaughter them you know slaughtering

people with the chemical agents biological weapons Neroni nuclear

arsenals so we are living in a very dangerous world where Devils should be

should be dehumanized

so that requires a great deal of discussion understanding knowledge of

North Korea and South Korea okay

professor Park thank you very much to share your ideas on this it's been

Peace Education

already 30 minutes passed and then we are ready to take some questions from

our audience I'm reading some questions right now if you willing to take it

please one questions you mentioned our

roadmap to peace including peace education can you elaborate on what

peace education can be particularly and

how can we be implemented in elementary middle school and high school classroom

the peace education requires two elements one is attitude which is a

personality character attitude and the other is knowledge in terms of attitude

we need to be prepared to accommodate differences when we face differences we

feel almost instantaneously uncomfortable fearful so we should be

comfortable by facing the uncomfortable

so it requires education the requires

socialization so in that sense peace education especially to children the

formative stage of personality it is so important to let them realize that

accommodation of differences what is what peace is about what is what

creativity is all about you know differences will produce will produce

new things when things the same then new things may not be

developing north northern South Korean differences we have to tell the children

the way it is in North Korea rather than the way we would like it to be so that's

a basically bristled education and now you understand do you have to have a

much more precise much more reliable information on North Korea that the the

job of scholars and experts in South Korea and the United States

thank you professor Park another questions he says how do we start the

How do we start the peace

peace or unification specific please

well I would think when you have a

couple divorced for a long time you know I don't think humans divorce 70 years

but it was for a long time usually it takes a mediator in maybe the children

it may be friends mediation mediation is very important media case peacemaker so

all these people who are organizing this event are mediators peacemakers and

mediators mediators required to have

complete boys in two-piece devotion to the gore

rather than having some selfish interests in the process so the problem

here is so people who talk about North Korea they have tested interest in

keeping what they already had so I've heard lab in South Korea that

munication is not worth achieving because it took costly if you compute

unification costs in terms of how much money you will be ending up paying then

it could be very expensive for some people but we are talking about national

or nations collective community

unification will pay off economically culturally politically even militarily

especially militarily so it is so important to realize that unification is

good thing to have and I'm really concerned about those people who are separated from their

families for many decades we have to find the homes where they can live

together we have not seen that we don't have too many left anymore as far as the

directly immediate generation of separated families but we have to have

say a neutral place like DMZ area or Kaesong Industrial Park a lot of

apartments where separated families can come and meet spend not just 2-3 days

but as long as they need to be together that something we all we people who do

not have separate families or to these people that we must do

something politicians must be something you reunification all policies is part of

political national reunification we have

to consider family reuniting that importantly that grandly it's a part of

unification itself thank you another question is what kinds of Korean

Role of Korean Americans

Americans role or action be required to bring peace in Korea I think that

question is a very important one there are some

let's see the North in South Korean combined 880 million people of 80

million 8 million are living abroad 10 percent of Koreans live abroad

almost all of them living abroad in China in outside the United States are

divided families just like I was in China so these divided families living

abroad are coming with a lot of experiences and not knowledge about

different societies that is important asset of the country of the nation

yes there are some people in Cuba in in

Africa in remote corners of the world they have a lot of experience and it is

the asset not liability for our country so you have to utilize overseas Koreans

for the purpose of making peace between the two parts say if we ever form I am

as a scholar I'd like to advocate the creation of the the construction of a peace university

between North and South Korea maybe TMG that Peace University should make a

peace between North and South Korea if we found a way of doing just that that

model will be very helpful to peace meeting in the world in Middle Eastern

Africa in Southeast Asia all over the world so Korean people partly because of

overseas Koreans are uniquely qualified to develop peace campaign peace model

not only for ourselves but for the entire world and history so that's where

young people in Korea must find a sense of pride yes it's nice to have economic

development in South Korea now yes it's nice to have a nuclear weapons in North

Korea so self-defense capability is good thing to have

but that's not the source of pride the source pride it should be found in the

people in the peoples attribute characters

the fact that we have 10 percent of Koreans living abroad

there's a lot of experience that should be utilized for unified and peaceful

Korea you see experience is so important the experience will make us more wiser

wisdom comes with the personal experience knowledge may come from

education but the education will not produce wisdom

so in terms of existence or understanding of overseas Koreans they

are very wise and they can be used for

something that cannot be created by any other people of different experiences so

I'm a korean-american I find myself in

this shoes a sense of pride there are things that we can be proud of we can be

shamed we learn from our mistakes so we have the dialogue very comprehensively

from human point of view with other people then we can each them wisdom and

we can learn from them more wisdom so without which the world will not be

sustained if we let the United States to

the way it has been doing last 30 minutes the environment is messed up and

distributive justice is not there so domestic as well the international

global community today is vastly skilled

in terms of wealth and income distribution we have to rectify that

in that rectification campaign Koreans especially overseas Koreans can play

very significant role Thank You professor for another

Security Paradigm Shift

questions about Corbett 19 and secure a paradigm shift so the question says in

the age of Kovac 19 we now have different understanding about security

out of this global crisis do you see any hope for the reducing emphasis on the

security which depending on the hard military power to more human yeah based

paradigm right I think that is a very perceptive question timely as well I

have been shocked I have lived in the United States for 55 years and

university professor almost 50 years I know America quite well I've experienced

some can prep presidents in the United States last 55 years I've never been

this much ashamed and embarrassed by American inability to cope with

coronavirus this is a embarrassment because there's nothing working

democracy we are bragging about is not working we have very special federalist

system where you have federal government in Washington and some 50 some states

governments this this was of course the ideal American Founding Fathers the

Confederacy Oh Federation system it's not working

it's not working because state governments are competing with one

another to get more share of goodies

testing materials or whatever medical equipments so so so here now the federal

government and state governments are also in competition rather than trying

to deal with real problem on the ground it is doing something about the virus

we're not seeing that America is way behind in fact behind the South Korea

certainly behind the North Korea behind also China so when we get out of this

dis endemic situation hopefully

Americans will be wiser with such a bitter experience no we hundred fifty

thousand people will die before summer is over

it's unheard of so we have to reexamine

the efficiency and effectiveness of our political system we have to really

examine American values norms freedom is okay good but not unlimited freedom

majority rule is fine but not majority

dictatorship so we've got to yes the kind of value system we have stemming

from Christianity is valuable but we have to selectively apply to political

lights to religion this good thing that religion stay in the religion domain so

churches state separation is good thing to do but we're not going to see that

very effectively in any case because of

the humidity that we are experienced in the United States with respect to covet 19 we have to be

smarter wiser we have to through serious

discussion and discussion of humility we

have to learn more learn better and be able to create a better world than

before Thank You professor port another

Demonization of America

questions about the demonization so um I'll read this thank you for addressing

the demonization of China - how can we

educate Americans that sought racism has a long history as a tool used to

manipulate public opinions into supporting war yeah when we reflect on

Chinese culture and Chinese civilization there are a lot of things we can be

thinking very carefully I think the slave system that we have

had we thought we abolished is not dead yet we have to be very seriously

involved in discussing whether the slave system is still remaining somewhere in

some form and also this country was created on the

I would call its original sin of killing

all the indigenous people with weapons that's American militarism

and then we have white supremacists too kind of perspective especially under

this administration so unless unless we change our basic

attitudes toward minorities in the United especially black and also toward

foreigners coming here we have to be

really honest to ourselves and meet the

fact that America did have something I would call the original sin we are not

getting away from that so so I think if

you are American citizens show your preferences in the election in other

opinion out that but it is such an important thing that we change the

culture of America you see America is a very very blessed government and country

for the sake of global human race improvement we need to improve America

America is not an isolated case we have to through America we have to save

humanity we have to make human race better so that's something we need to

sit down and discuss goods and bad of

both sides of America and see what

exists tential lessons we can learn from

so yes thank you very much professor

Closing

Park for your insightful comments and your wisdom I think what we have tons of

questions to ask to you but I guess it's time almost to let you go so thank you

very much for your time and joining today and I hope that this dialogue really give us an opportunity to think

about shift of paradigm from security to

peace paradigm to make our world more peaceful thank you very much joining

today and then back to Greystone Thank You professor Chang and thank you

professor part we can literally go over all the questions all right not all

night long but um with limited time we have I will turn over the mic to echo

Cho from woman crusty MC for the important announcement

hello everybody I am very inspired by

dr. parts of in our today and I hope to see him again at the Peace University

soon that he speaks more about peace we have a few announcements and some events

coming up right now very soon and we have a timeline of a calendar of events

and if we can share that on the screen

we have just finished the online advocacy registration and this webinar I

hope that it was very helpful for those people who are participating in the upcoming virtual advocacy week which is

the first week of June and if you are so inspired today after listening to dr.

Peretz webinar you can still register please email to come at women cross the

NZ auto ID and we will let you just those people who are on this webinar

that you register and participate in that um we have the online training

coming up on May 28th for the advocacy training it'll be about two hours so

that you're prepared for the advocacy week and anybody who has registered

should participate in the upcoming training next Thursday and it'll be very

insightful of all the legislation that we're going to go over which will be one

of the items that dr. Park mentioned on the divider family can be one of them

and H was 152 calling for more in the Korean War and hr6 639 which is no

unconstitutional war against North Korea act on that is of 2020 so every detail

of the advocacy week will be covered on May 28th makes Thursday and for our next

webinar for June it's the significant date of June 25th with dr. Bruce coming

he'll be joining with us and he will be talking of course on the Korean War and

the title that he wanted to use for this webinar is the unknown war

legacy of 70 years of Korean War so please register for the upcoming webinar

for June and we'll be sending you everybody all the invitation for the

June 11 are so thank you so much for joining us tonight and back to grace

oh yeah I'm sure same thing applies to you and hope to see you guys

all on our next webinar thank you for joining us bye good night

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