Education can play key role of ushering in unification

Gabriele Linke, a professor at the University of Rostock in Germany

By Chung Hyun-chae

A German scholar has stressed the importance of education in creating mutual understanding between South and North Korea and overcoming our differences to pave the way for reunification.

“Education is important especially because the partition has been in effect for so long that family ties must have been loosening and for young people North Korea may have become a distant, alien country,” Gabriele Linke, a professor of British and American culture studies at the University of Rostock in Germany, told The Korea Times in a recent email interview.

Linke expected mutual recognition and appreciation to be difficult since the two Koreas have had different political systems and ideologies for over half a century.

“Education would have to aim not at presenting North Korea as an enemy but rather at providing realistic information and creating understanding and respect for the other, though without being uncritical,” Linke said.

She suggested that the two Koreas take a first step toward making an in-depth exploration of each other’s histories and problems.

“Then these findings should be popularized in educational programs, curricula, educational TV and websites,” Linke said.

She also noted that media should avoid stereotyping and present the other Korea in its many facets and depths.

“Education, through institutions as well as media, can at least try to reduce stereotyping, create respect for differences, encourage democratic approaches rather than hierarchical, superiority-based models and provide the public with balanced and in-depth information rather than biased, one-sided views,” Linke said.

She also recommended that South Korean students interview North Korean refugees, conduct joint projects, and have debates with them.

“It seems to be important that in both Koreas, Korean studies departments should study their own country and the other Korea thoroughly, critically and with empathy and not through an ideological filter,” Linke said.

“Only if it is acknowledged that the other country may have their own reasonable interests and goals, there will be fair treatment, and a mutual feeling of understanding and appreciation may develop.”

Linke, who was born and raised in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), drew her lessons from the German reunification.

“From the continuing differences between East and West Germany it may be concluded that South Korea should, in the case of unification, grant equal respect to North Korean ways and differences, treat North Koreans fairly and not as inferior, and try to honor their interests and contributions,” she said.

Linke visited Korea for about two weeks to participate in the Summer Academy Reunification, a seminar hosted by Ewha Womans University under the theme of unification on its campus in Seoul from July 6-17 in cooperation with the University of Rostock in Germany.

The event was a follow-up to a similar seminar held at the University of Rostock in Germany last year.

“From the Korean part of the program, I came to a better understanding of the political situation in East Asia, the powers involved, their interests, and the fragile balance of power,” Linke said. “The excursions, for example to the DMZ, made the arguments and descriptions given in the presentations more tangible and improved my grasp of the situation.”

Including Linke, seven professors and 10 students of the German university visited Ewha to attend the seminar.

Among the 10 students was Florian Lemke, 24, who is working on a master’s degree in political science with a special view on area studies at the University of Rostock and e-governance technologies and services at Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia.

Lemke also called for Korea to establish independent and constructive critical education which he believes is essential for reunification of the two Koreas.

“(Independent and constructive critical education) aims to create a unified society that does not necessarily agree with the thinking of others, but that may understand its own way of thought,” Lemke said. “To my mind, every Korean citizen needs to know the independent histories of both Korean states to start their own processes of understanding the turnout of history.”

He stressed that Korea should not repeat the same mistake that Germany committed.

“Short term decisions, as seen in Germany, could turn into long term problems that influence the economy, the society and the peaceful cohabitation of a reunified Korea in a negative way,” Lemke said.

According to the professor, there were no particular education programs focusing on reunification in Germany before 1990.

“This absence of an educational emphasis on comprehensive and ideologically neutral information about the respective other part of Germany has certainly been a factor in some difficult situations, misperceptions and imbalances after unification,” Linke said, emphasizing the need of education preparing for reunification.

“As German unification has shown, unification may come in unexpected ways at unexpected times and therefore cannot be prepared for systematically and fully,” she added.