All posts tagged: Reunification

Parallel 38/Part III

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Parallel 38/Part III Remember I told you I was split two ways: My grandmother’s father was a Freedom Fighter in colonised Korea When we were Korea Not Korea, South/North Not Korea, Republic of/Democratic People’s Republic of Not South Korea/North Korea Like we see on the census slips and dropdown boxes Just Korea He and his country fought back against the Japanese The people who told us We could not use our own names We could not utter our own language We could not wear our own clothes But we must dress like the white man Because that’s who they learned their tricks from A sadomasochistic cycle of submission and domination On 15th August, 1945 We were made a free country On 17th July, 1948 We declared our Constitution On 15th August, 1948 We became a Republic And when my country became a Republic my great-grandfather became a criminal Because he was A Communist One of Them Granny said, then they came and took all our land and our money Overnight I went from going to …

Parallel 38/Part II

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  Parallel 38/Part II For three Christmases I had a German lover We spent Summers sitting on the balcony grilling Bratwurst Christmases eating deviled eggs and saying, Mahlzeit New Year’s Eve shooting firecrackers into the sky and screaming and kissing He told me Did you know It took twenty years For us West Germans and East Germans To marry amongst ourselves In the same numbers As we married foreigners We’ve been told our whole life, look at this country across the world Remnants of the Cold War, testaments to ideological warfare Your twin We know how it feels When people walk all over us with their dirty boots and say Thank us, beg us, revere us For pitting your people against your neighbours Because they’re wrong in the head And implant a seed of doubt for the coming three generations They tell us Look If the Germans can do it, you can You hardworking Koreans who rebuilt your country The only OECD foreign aid receiver turned donor, at the turn of the millennia But they …

S. Koreans. Germans. Reunification.

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Picture: Kim Jong-Un is seen walking with an aid against the backdrop of a row of North Korean flags. The words “Kim kommt” is displayed across the screen. A screenshot from “Kim kommt: Kurswechsel in Korea? (Kim is coming: A Change of course in Korea?), a documentary by ARD TV’s Weltspiegel Extra. http://www.ardmediathek.de/tv/Weltspiegel/Weltspiegel-extra-Kim-kommt-Kurswechse/Das-Erste/Video?bcastId=329478&documentId=51930738 “It is a border we Germans still have memories of. With barbed wires, minefields, and orders to fire. Between brother cities which shoot each other. From firing drills by Kim Jong-Un in the North, and those by the South Koreans and Americans in the South. A border which has separated families for decades. Except for a few days of government-organised day meetings. Now the change is in the hope that this border may fall, like it did in Germany. As the two heads of heads of state will meet in no man’s land for a new start” (rough translation by self) Because of our shared history, South Koreans and Germans tend to know a fair bit about each other’s people, process of …

North Korea Human Rights Act

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There’s a US NGO, called Human Rights Foundation, (HQ: New York City) which works on improving and promoting human rights in North Korea. One of HRF’s ongoing projects is called Disrupt North Korea, which in September 2015 created the Global Coalition for the North Korean Human Rights Act – a group of activists, academics and policymakers and technologists (including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales) whose goal is to encourage South Korean lawmakers to pass the law. The North Korean Human Rights Act (NKHRA) has been held up at the National Assembly in South Korea for 10 years now. In fact, there is no NKHRA – it hasn’t been passed yet and different political parties have put forth varying versions. However, both Saenuri (majority) and New Alliance versions contain similar ideas – to systemise North Korea human rights programs by creating new government agencies and archives specifically designed for this purpose (in coordination with the Ministry of Unification and the Ministry of Justice). The US Congress, on the other hand, has enacted the North Korean Human Rights Act (USA) in 2004. Japan …

Answer 1. Do (South) Koreans Really Want Reunification?

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Photo source: Yonhap News (Feb 22nd, 2014) Short answer: No. To be precise, it’s “Don’t really care“, not “Don’t want”. Reunification doesn’t carry the note of passion it used to in my parent’s generation – back then, if you were asked “Do you want tongil?”, and you said no, you were a complete treacherous, unpatriotic, heartless brat. But now, we’re too busy thinking about other things, the memories of having once been a single nation are fading, and most of all, Koreans most definitely do not want to carry the economic burden reunification will entail. Despite the avid propaganda from the South Korean government – Reunification will allow us to tap into the North’s invaluable mineral resources, we will gain direct access to cheap and disciplined (disciplined, for lack of a better word…) labour force, we are of the same blood and are one people – People’s enthusiasm has grown thin with the crazy outbursts of “We will see Seoul burst in flames if you don’t give us what we want and respect us” tantrum …