창작과 비평

 

Paik Nak-chung
Editor, the Quarterly Changbi. Professor Emeritus of English Literature, Seoul National University

 

1. On the concept of a 'Korean ethnic community'

 

'The Korean race' in the theme of this conference is a different concept from 'the Korean nation' as members of the nation-state(s) in the Korean peninsula. In Korea, however, the two are often confused because of the exceptional racial and linguistic homogeneity of the population of the peninsula and the unusually long history of centralized political rule. Also, the experience of Japanese colonial rule, forced dispersal of many Koreans off their homeland during this period and the division of the peninsula after 1945 have tended to make Koreans identify the notion of 'citizenship' or 'nationality (in the political sense)' with that of 'race' or 'ethnos'.
But the presence in this conference of many intellectuals of common Korean lineage but of different national or residential status demonstrates that precisely that historical experience has by now given birth to a reality in which not a few members of the Korean race are living as citizens or permanent residents of nations outside Korea. If one may speak of a community of Koreans that includes ethnic Koreans all over the world, it must already be a multinational ethnic community. It is also a multilingual community since for many among the Korean diaspora Korean is not the mother tongue, for some not even an acquired foreign language. Indeed, even within the peninsula, Koreans live de facto in two different countries, hence no longer (or not yet) as a single national community in the strict sense.
In speaking of a 'vision for the Korean race in the twenty-first century', therefore, we need to reflect on 1) what kind of community its members (who include those other than residents of the Korean peninsula) may constitute and 2) what significance the existence of such a community may have.

 

2. The possibility of a Korean ethnic community in the twenty-first century

 

The sense of ethnic identity among some 70 million Koreans of the peninsula and roughly five million in the diaspora appears at present to be fairly strong. But will it continue to be so through the twenty-first century?
There are too many variables to make any prediction other than rash. It seems evident, however, that the reunification of the peninsula would constitute a variable of special importance. For a world-wide multinational Korean ethnic community to survive in the long run, some strong center would need to hold that community together, and obviously Koreans of the Korean peninsula would have to fill that role.
The problem, of course, is that precisely these Koreans remain divided in hostile confrontation along the Military Demarcation Line, with less mutual communication than with compatriots living in far-off lands. Consequently, the Korean peninsula, far from generating a unifying and centripetal force in the Korean ethnic community, has often acted to create dissension in the various regional communities of the diaspora and contributed to actual loss of some members. True, there are those who believe that even without unification either of the two Koreas - mainly South Korea in the currently prevalent discourse - could fill that central role even under condition. But it is my conviction that there is not and has never been on either side the kind of exemplary society to hold the worldwide community together nor is it likely to emerge so long as the division remains fixed.
Some recent political developments in South Korea as well as the serious difficulties faced by its economy would support this belief. Perhaps an even more important question than the prospects for the economy is what kind of individuals and collective life come to predominate. The capitalist logic that has propelled South Korea's economic growth is turning the relation of South Koreans and many of the Korean diaspora into one between the haves and have-nots, generating resentment of the former by the latter. Nor is there any real contradiction between this phenomena and the inhumane, often racist practices of Korean entrepreneurs against foreign workers in Korea or abroad (as in Southeast Asia). For nationalism has always tended to serve as an ideological cover for the contradictions and exploitations within its own nation.
Of course, one need not rule out a temporary strengthening of the worldwide ethnic community under the leadership of a strong, virulently nationalistic Korea unified through 'German-type absorption' of the North by the South. But such a racist solidarity will inevitably create conflicts between the Korean minority and other nationalities in the countries of their residence, and even more important, will tend to drive the most forward-looking and creative members of the diaspora out of the Korean community altogether.

 

3. The role of a multinational ethnic community

 

Thus, not only is the long-term existence of the Korean ethnic community dependent on the happy reunification of the Korean peninsula, the latter process largely coincides with that of maintaining and develping the former. For a desirable unification involves the overcoming of what I have called the 'division system' - in other words, not reunification of whatever kind but one that would put an end, through the growth of popular initiatives, to the system or regime that comprises mutually opposed but also curiously symbiotic set of two essentially undemocratic societies. And the success of this process, if indeed accomplished with meaningful popular mobilization of democratic forces on both sides, will produce a new model of compound state reflecting the different needs and experiences of Koreans North and South and, at the same time, radically limiting state power vis-a-vis its citizens. In addition, if migration of many different people into an economically and culturally advanced zone is inevitable in an age of globalization, the new compound state of the unified peninsula will need to assume, too, the framework of a multi-ethnic state.
Such a grand task can hardly be accomplished without significant input by the Korean diaspora. Of course, international support from other than ethnic Koreans will also have to tell, but even for this the mediating role of the diaspora will count as a crucial factor. Solidarity movements by Koreans abroad for reunification, in their turn, have now reached a point where a simple support for anti-dictatorship struggle or against anti-unification forces can no longer suffice. Needed now is an intelligent and flexible program based on the recognition of how the complex division system works.
Can Koreans in the diaspora, who have hard enough time even to pursue their daily lives in the adopted countries, afford to undertake so complex a task? Only if such a task coincides at many points with the solution of their own daily problems. And it so happens that the kind of multi-ethnic compound state desired for the Korean peninsula, aside from the national pride its achievement will inspire among Koreans everywhere in the world, would be precisely the type of state that would best serve the interests of the latter in their respective countries, where they live as ethnic minorities often subject to discriminations.
But will multinational ethnic communities, too, be vital to human civilization of the twenty-first century? A huge 'melting pot' may seem preferable in view of the bloodshed repeatedly caused by national and ethnic conflict in today's world, and such indeed is the official ideology not only of the United States but of numerous globalists today. But persistence of discriminations and inequalities in the U.S. and elsewhere and disappearance of more legitimate differences throughout the world actially constitute the two sides of the same coin. For the human race to survive and enjoy a humane life in the coming century, not only a materially more equal society but one with numerous communities not exclusively swayed by economic self-interest will have to be created. If the multi-ethnic state be one example of such a community, the multinational ethnic community would be another. For a total displacement of Tonnies' Gemeinschaft by Gesellschaft would spell an end to civilization, while the dream of a universal human Gemeinschaft without any intervention by more variegated smaller communities (but better adapted to new realities than T&oumlnnies' model) would remain both empty and unattractive.

 

4. The specific place of a Korean ethnic community

 

Granted that a new type of ethnic community is necessary for a world of genuine equality, the question remains whether Koreans have a specific role to play in this general picture. Some considerations come to mind.
First, much will depend on what kind of world-historical significance we may attribute to the overcoming of the division system, the immediate agenda of the Korean ethnic community as well as of the Korean nation. My own view is that even if its end does not spell the immediate transformation of the larger world system, the result will be weighty enough if a much more democratic, autonomous and open society than either of the present Koreas takes shape in Korea, for it will mean one great step toward a world order radically different from the current one.
Secondly, there is the question of what kind and degree of impact on the creation of a new human civilization may be expected from the historical experience of a nation who, as a full member of the East Asian civilization, has yet maintained its national identity despite the proximity and overwhelming presence of China through millenia and, again, the more recent attempt by Japanese colonial rulers to eradicate it. If an East Asian nation with such history manages to achieve a unified national life radically different from that of most or all existing nation-states, the future of East Asia will become so much the brighter. And the fact that even a reunified Korea will be significantly smaller than China or Japan will facilitate such a civilizational role.
Also, the fact that five million or so of the Korean diaspora are mostly concentrated in China, the United States, the former Soviet Union and Japan will work to similar advantage. That is, concentration in large, powerful states will tend to maximize their global influence, while their constituting minorities with limited power (unlike the Chinese in some Southeast Asian countries, for example) will keep their presence from becoming threatening to the host populations. Which means that once Koreans manage to acquire within East Asia the kind of civilizing influence mentioned above, it will be easy for them to expand the same influence through the rest of the world.
Of course, all this depends on the success of overcoming the division system. But developing that kind of influence will, in its turn, constitute a significant factor in the fate of the reunification process. As the reunification we envisage means an overcoming of the division system, it is not a separate goal to be achieved first with the concerns of the multinational ethnic community to be taken care of only afterwards. The division system, moreover, is a sub-system of the capitalist world-system which represents (in Won Buddhist parlance) 'the order of the old day (sonch'on sidae)' to be 'broken open (kaebyok)' through individual awakening of the masses including members of the Korean race, and their managing to build new forms of human community.