Will Unified Korea Have Divided Heart?
By Daniel H. Fernald
Contributing Writer
During our first month or two in Korea, my wife and I took our children to Seoul Land and the zoo. As we walked from the subway to the tram, I saw a group of what appeared to be soldiers milling around an otherwise empty parking lot. I wondered what they were doing there, and watched them curiously.
Before long, an authoritative voice barked orders, and the men began a series of drills. It quickly became clear that they were riot police. They held batons and bore shields. Their coordinated movements were impressive in their precision. They appeared well-disciplined, and worked well as a team. I would not willingly have faced them.
It occurred to me then what a pity it was that so many young men had to be trained to maintain order among their own people. The U.S. has riot police, too, of course, but this was the first time I had ever seen a group of them in action. It got my attention. I had no idea at the time how the ranks of riot police were filled. I guessed that these were probably regular police who were receiving specialized training.
A student of mine, whom I'll call Chung Wook, later set me straight on this. Rather than to the South Korean Army, he was assigned to the riot police. As he told stories of facing down his fellow citizens during political protests, and even having to push them with his shield, or hit them with his baton, my heart went out - both to him and to those on the other side of the barricades.
Although he strove to keep a stiff upper lip, his emotion was apparent when he described the sickening feeling of being pitted against his own people. I was reminded of the Ralph Ellison short story, "Battle Royal," in which young men who have no grievance against each other are forced to fight in a battle to the finish.
Chung Wook also said, though, that when he was in the middle of a situation with his fellow policemen, there was no longer any question of what to do. From his perspective, he and his mates were protecting themselves from an unruly mob. From the other side of the pickets, the view was of course much different. He clearly understood this, and I could see that it pained him.
I like and respect Chung Wook. He is intelligent and thoughtful - a fine young student and a gentleman. He loves his country and his people. This young man, then barely more than a boy, was put in an impossible situation. One can see reason in both sides, while nonetheless feeling a deep melancholy that borders on the tragic. A people should not be divided, but there it is; and there's very little to be done about it.
Chung Wook's counterparts in the Army faced a different sort of barricade, another kind of picket. As Chung Wook tried to stay with his team and get back safely to his barracks every night, these other young Koreans guarded their nation from another nation defended by its own young Koreans.
A people divided. The stage is set for a "battle royal" that could plunge East Asia, and even the world, into a devastating war.
Even for those soldiers who do not serve in the DMZ, it remains their picket, the dividing line between "us" and "them"; and the equally young Koreans on the other side remain an accidental enemy that no one wants to fight. The war that their great grandparents wished had never started was the same war these young men hope never to have to finish.
The United States, as is well known, fought its own war between north and south. The causes were different, naturally, but the effects have proven long-lasting.
A native of New York City, I grew up being told that Southerners were a bunch of "hayseed hicks" who married their sisters and hated blacks. Seriously. That's not even a slight exaggeration.
When I moved to Georgia, part of the so-called "Deep South," for graduate school, I bore these preconceived notions in my heart and felt contempt for my new home. It was a badge of honor, not being from this "benighted" place. I actually bragged about it. It's fun to feel morally superior. It gives a nice little adrenaline rush. It's also ignorant and wrong.
At 25, mine was a heart divided - divided by a war that had ended roughly 125 years earlier. I bore that legacy, and I was far from alone. Most Americans in the North and the South still feel it toward the "other" side, however vaguely; it is a prejudice whose universality makes racism and sexism seem marginal in comparison.
I recall a social gathering in the northern state of Connecticut about five years ago, during which a well-educated woman in her late 30's opined: "I could never live in the south because of all the bigots." That she had herself just made a bigoted statement apparently escaped her refined sensibility.
Hers was a heart divided, but not pained. Her contempt for her countrymen south of the Mason-Dixon Line kept her from feeling any pain.
By way of contrast, Chung Wook's affection for his fellow citizens made his assigned duties all the more onerous and unwelcome. Chung Wook described to me a heart both divided and, to his great credit, pained by that division.
I have thought at some length about how Korea will weather any eventual reunification. I wonder how long the bulldozed and demined DMZ will linger in the hearts of Koreans, an invisible barrier to true unity.
The American Civil War ended in 1865, and we still hate each other.
Let us hope that Korea fares better. If Chung Wook is an accurate bellwether, I believe that it will.
The writer is an Associate Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. He may be reached at professordhf@hotmail.com.