58 Years from the Korean War   2008-06-25 01:56

At 4:00 a.m. on June 25, 1950, North Korea launched a full-force attack upon the South. South Korea was totally unprepared for the invasion, and the 38th parallel was lost in a matter of hours. Seoul fell on June 28; and by late July, more 90% of South Korea was occupied by Communist forces. UN troops helped regain most of the territory, but the 3-year Korean War left a horrible scar in everyone's life. More than 1,000,000 people lost their lives, many of them civilians. Millions of others never saw their beloved ones again, as families and friends scattered across both sides of the border. The 155-mile DMZ between South Korea and North Korea remains the most heavily armed border in the world, with over one million troops guarding every single inch of it on both sides.

The Korean War is a very sensitive topic. North Korea's official position is that the South, acting on behalf of the United States, attacked the North first and committed all sorts of brutalities. South Korea, on the other hand, maintains with the rest of the world that it was the North that attacked first without any declaration of war, and that both sides were responsible for countless brutalities. There have been pro-North groups who have tried to convince the new generation of South Koreans that the North's position is correct, but this view remains a minority for a very good reason. But pro-North groups are also generally left-wing, and this makes it convenient for right-wing folks to make overgeneralized and unsubstantiated claims about its political opponents. Characterize your opponents as North Korean sympathizers and you win the game.

Several government officials, as well as pro-government newspapers such as Chosun Ilbo, have tried to say that North Korea is behind all of the recent protests. Taken to the extreme, the idea is that whoever protests against a South Korean government is either a North Korean spy, someone who agrees with the North Korean ideology, or else a victim of brainwashing and instigation by those who belong to the first two categories. Somebody is certainly going to make the same remark again this year, so let me make a preemptive strike. The right-wing rhetoric is total bullshit. Of course there are folks who would turn a blind eye to all the terrible things that go on North Korea, and of course something is terribly wrong with these folks. We also know that these folks are participating in recent protests. But the rest of us -- including tens of millions of ordinary citizens who have nothing to do with Kim Jong-Il's self-indulgence -- are simply protesting because the South Korean government is currently making our lives very difficult. There are many reasons why a person might protest against governments and/or government polices, and warm feelings toward an enemy of the state is just one of them.

Question One: Will North Korea invade again? I sincerely hope that it doesn't, but the possibility remains real. Question Two: Will North Korea invade if the current administration in South Korea yields to public opinion? No, the two issues have nothing to do with each other. The Republic of Korea (South Korea) is a democracy, and democracy means that political power changes hands every now and then. Back in the days of military dictatorship in the 60's and 70's, the government successfully kept the People in line by threatening that if the South becomes unstable in the least bit, the North will attack immediately. But that kind of rhetoric doesn't work anymore. Very few of us are North Korean sympathizers, and even fewer are spies. Any society contains a handful of weirdos, and the rest of us need not be concerned too much about them. And how do we keep South Korea safe from those who turn a blind eye to all the inhumanity that plagues North Korea even now? The answer is simple: by making the South a much better place to live than the North. Now, what is the government doing to achieve that goal?

Stop the ideological rhetoric; it's too last-century. What we're witnessing in the Republic of Korea is a new form of participatory democracy, not some sort of anachronistic romanticism about North Korea.