End of brotherhood

By Oh Young-jin

Assistant Managing Editor

We South Koreans should learn a couple of lessons from North Korea's fatal assault on our navy corvette Cheonan with a twist on the Talmudic approach that allows ourselves to neither forget nor forgive.

The first is that North Korea is not our estranged brother nation. In its stealth torpedo attack, the Kim Jong-il regime killed 46 of our young sailors. It was not the first time that it has committed barbaric acts against us but it is our duty to make this one the last.

For the past 10 years under a generous liberal rule, we went an extra mile showering our impoverished northern brothers with free gifts of cash, food and what not. Sadly, it didn't make a difference nor change their bad behavior.

Previously, the Seoul governments ― authoritarian and conservative ― have resorted to taking an appeasement approach to a lesser degree, sometimes for their political convenience and always out of the belief that Korea was torn asunder, divided North from South due to outside intervention, which should eventually be reunited back to one.

After the obvious failure of such an approach, it is time we must stop being sentimental and not give the benefit of doubt every time every time our supposed brothers play foul. Brothers don't turn guns on each other, not to mention pull the trigger. It is time to say enough is enough.

Calling it quits to this broken brotherhood requires an emotional cleanup on our part and entails a significant change in our attitude in dealing with the aftermath.

On the emotional side, we have to see the North for what it is. They are not and cannot be a friend or a partner who can coexist with us.

This emotional divorce from brotherhood won't be as difficult as we think. Surveys show that the majority of South Koreans don't want an immediate unification for the fear that it would create disruptions in their life, causing political instability and a financial burden. They have learned of the difficulties of the affluent and free West Germans during the German unification and its transition.

Ask young South Koreans what they think of the North and the chances are the first thing they mention is not brotherhood or friendship, pointing out that the two Koreas have been divided for too long. From television footage of the North, it is hard for South Koreans to identify with North Koreans' dictum or manners. Also noteworthy is the fast-dwindling population of those who were forced to flee to the South in a diaspora triggered by the 1950-1953 Korean War, who yearn in their twilight period of life to reunite with family members and relatives stranded in the North.

These developments provide grounds for us to redefine the North as a nation to which an emotionally-detached, cool-headed policy must be applied. Simply put, we no longer need to call a spade a diamond.

On a policy level, the government is given more leeway to act boldly in dealing with the North's misdeeds. By this standard, the current conservative government, led by President Lee Myung-bak, has handled the Cheonan situation well in general, but still left important things to be desired. For instance, it is running the risk of losing consistency in its hard-headed approach, when it suddenly backed down from its announced plan to renew its frontline propaganda through loudspeakers.

The North may take it as a sign of weakness and feel tempted to believe that it can literally get away with murder. I hope that this letup is part of the Lee government's overall plot to force the North to realize its miscalculations in its torpedo attack and pay the consequences. If not, President Lee would be misinterpreting the will of the people who gave him the mandate to govern.

Perhaps, more urgently, the Cheonan situation calls for a review of our current diplomatic priorities. South Korea has been frozen in its alliance with the United States since the end of the Second World War. The U.S. defeated imperial Japan and liberated Korea from a suffocating colonial yoke. Then, it defended South Korea from the jaws of the communist North at the cost of thousands of lives of young soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen during the three-year war. For the following five decades, its troops have been stationed in the South, acting as a tripwire for an immense U.S.-led counterattack in the event of another North Korean attack.

I, along with many other Koreans, am grateful for their contribution to the fragile but lasting peace on the Korean peninsula but the ROK-U.S. alliance has proven time and again to be less than perfect.

This requires a strategic reconsideration of this alliance, not for a drastic change but to supplement it. China has already replaced the U.S. as Korea's top trading partner and is emerging as a superpower set to go toe to toe with the United States. As shown in the Cheonan disaster or other previous North Korean affairs, China repeatedly holds the crucial key.

Can the current government or future governments in Seoul afford not to take initiatives to make China more than just a trading partner but a political ally as well? I think not.

Call it Machiavellian but we can't ignore the inevitable.