War and the human face

Until my middle and high school years, I used to draw posters with slogans like “Never Forget June 25th” and even participated in anti-communist speech contests. My parents, who lived through the Korean War, would occasionally share stories of their evacuation to Busan and Jeju Island.

My father lost his parents at a young age and lived under communist rule for three months when the war broke out. He recalls how they were deprived of sleep for ideological indoctrination and how there was no such thing as freedom. He also often mentioned the tragic stories of young students in the family who were called to an emergency assembly at school, only to be mobilized into the army and taken to the North, their fates remaining unknown for decades.

As of 2026, Korea remains in a state of truce. Since a peace treaty has never been signed, the war has not officially ended; it is merely on pause — an extremely uncertain and unstable situation. Perhaps because of this, one can easily find highly bellicose and combative behaviors within our society that mirror the nature of war.

The 1950-53 Korean War resulted in approximately 1.5 million deaths and 3.6 million injuries across both the South and the North, with civilian casualties exceeding 2 million, according to Lee Woo-jung's "A Hundred-Year Trace of Korean Christian Women." The Korean War erupted during the process of attempting to form a unified modern state following Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, at a time when the nation was divided into South and North due to differing ideological backgrounds. It was also a global war fought between two hegemonic powers — the United States and the Soviet Union — with distinct ideologies and systems.

Amidst extreme confrontation over whether to accept trusteeship, the North, viewing itself as the legitimate governing authority representing the entire nation, initiated the war to exclude the sovereignty of the South. The war further solidified the division of the peninsula, served as a major catalyst for the rise of authoritarianism and dictatorship in both governments, and reinforced the Cold War order led by the U.S. and the Soviet Union internationally.

Due to the Korean War and the subsequent division, our society developed an extreme form of anti-communism. The origins of this anti-communist ideology can be traced to the ideological conflict between the left and right under Japanese rule, the persecution of Christians by communists in North Korea and the anti-communist policies of the Syngman Rhee administration. Rhee, a Christian elder, sought to develop the nation based on Christianity and American support, and more than half of his cabinet members were Christians.

Meanwhile, war is experienced and perceived differently by men and women. Official records and data of war describe the numbers of casualties, injuries, economic damages and war orphans, yet accounts regarding women are difficult to find. In the state’s official narrative of the Korean War, it seems as if certain women do not exist: those who lost their husbands and suffered to provide a living, and those who endured sexual violence such as rape during the conflict, leading to prolonged physical and mental agony. The issue of sexual violence during wartime is rarely found in official histories or documents.

In the case of Korea, these issues of wartime sexual violence often transitioned into the miserable lives of women in "camp towns" near U.S. military bases following the armistice. Throughout my 12 years of primary and secondary education, I never once heard or learned about the specific damages and suffering women endured due to war.

War does not wear a human face. The America-centrism of the United States, a global hegemon, led to the arrest of President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela through a military operation in January and the attacks on Iran in February. These actions resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians, including innocent children.

Threats against North Korea also continue. Furthermore, reports indicate that our society possesses a very low sensitivity toward peace. This suggests that our society is routinely exposed to violence, war and military culture due to geopolitical factors and the division of North and South Korea. It is time for us to overcome violence, conflict and war through peace, dialogue and intimate fellowship, starting from the small details of our daily lives.

Lee Nan-hee studied English in college and theology at Hanshin University.