Sky Views: South Koreans not ready for unification
Wednesday 2 May 2018 05:11, UK
By Siobhan Robbins, SE Asia Correspondent
"I hate Kim Jong Un," he shouted just a few inches from my face. "I want to kill Kim Jong Un."
This was not the ranting of a mad man, rather a well presented, middle-aged South Korean called Thomas.
As leaders are doggedly negotiating and celebrating steps towards peace in Korea, thousands of the older generation have been protesting in Seoul, proving they're not ready to give up the fight.
"I think President Trump should bomb Kim Jong Un," another demonstrator, Lee, told me.
"Bomb him?" I questioned. "Surely they should try these negotiations first?"
"Bomb him," he reiterated. "The sooner the better."
While I don't agree, I understand.
Lee does not want Trump to bomb North Korea because he is a bloodthirsty warmonger, he believes it is a matter of survival.
He sees the neighbour that has spent 65 years breaking promises and issuing threats now suddenly wanting to be friends.
They are smiling beguilingly and suggesting they have changed.
But the hand that is now held out in friendship could also one day push the nuclear button on the desk and wipe out Lee's whole world in a heartbeat.
So Lee, like many of his fellow demonstrators figures, "why take the risk?
"Blow up their arsenal and show them who's boss, then we can talk about peace."
These may be the views of just one group but they highlight the flaw in paper plans for peace: they assume everyone will eventually welcome it.
While rightly, the South Korean government's focus is firmly on talks, truces and the details of a possible deal, the anger of the demonstrators in Seoul is a reminder why lasting peace can never just be a paper exercise carried out by politicians and why discussions of reunification currently seem an unlikely dream.
For decades Koreans have carried the scars of enforced separation. Kim Jong Un may argue they are brothers who share the same blood, but history has moulded them into different people.
Malnutrition, prison camps and censorship in a totalitarian state have taken a physical and mental toll on those ruled by Pyongyang.
Food shortages mean that now North Koreans tend to be three to eight centimetres shorter and live around 12 years less than their southern neighbours, according to the World Bank.
A lack of access to the outside world has led to a huge divergence in perspective since the times of a united peninsular.
Since 1948, those living under the Kim dynasty have only seen three different rulers, to Seoul's 12 presidents.
In 2015, around three million North Koreans had mobile phones compared to almost 59m in the South.
Although these differences are not insurmountable, in my view, talk of reunification at this critical junction adds an unnecessary complication to the already monumentally challenging road to peace.
It is an opinion supported by Professor Moon Chung In, special adviser to the South Korean President.
"We are hoping that we can build the peace first," he told Paste BN recently. "We can talk about unification later."
The Panmunjom Declaration, the offer by Kim Jong Un to let foreign experts view the nuclear site he is closing, and the much anticipated summit with Donald Trump are all hugely positive steps.
But given Pyongyang's previous track record of flirting with denuclearisation while continuing to develop its arsenal, even the suggestion that we are anywhere near pinning North Korea down to a lasting peace seems wildly premature.