창작과 비평

 

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

 

 

Korean reunification conceived as the overcoming of a division system has certain implications, including the following:
1) Insofar as there is a system that needs to be overcome, neither of its main components, the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, merits full support. In fact, neither constitutes a full-fledged system of its own but only a subsystem of the division system. Thus, there is a limit to how far their peaceful coexistence and respective developments may go. Reunification of some kind is called for not by the fact of mere consanguinity or unified existence in the past but by the systemic nature of the divided peninsula.
2) The kind of reunification must derive from the nature of the division system. Inasmuch as it deserves the name of a 'system', however deplorable, it must have acquired certain roots in the daily lives of the people involved, and therefore a certain power of self-reproduction. Consequently it cannot be abolished out of hand without doing significant damage to those lives: it must, in other words, be 'dialectically overcome' in the particular manner called for by its inherent contradictions, and, in practical terms, its overthrow must involve meaningful input from popular movements opposed to its anti-democratic and heteronomous nature.
3) If, as I have argued elsewhere, the division system is itself a subsystem of a larger world system, even the most self-reliant reunification effort must involve cooperation with forces outside the Korean peninsula and the Korean nation, and no real overcoming of the division system could succeed without a corresponding vision of the long- and short-term changes in the world system.

That the division system is an artificial system which needs to be overcome, finds a dramatic illustration in the highly militarized state of the so-called Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Even the Berlin Wall was a rather minor affair in comparison. But not because Koreans are inherently more warlike than the Germans, nor merely because of the memories of the internecine Korean War. Rather, the Korean peninsula was divided against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of its residents, undemocratically and through forcible foreign interventions, and even after decades of considerable solidification the division system remains too unstable to survive without overwhelming military support.

For instance, what would happen if the DMZ were to be suddenly and completely thrown open? Assuming, as is the current wisdom, that the movement of the population from North to South would far exceed that in the opposite direction, could South Korean society rejoice or indeed cope with the consequences? It won't be long before the authorities in Seoul try to control the influx of Northern compatriots much as the United States has done to the foreign refugees from Cuba or Haiti, and many of the hard-won democratic rights in the South are taken away in the name of controlling the 'social chaos'.

A 'sudden and complete' abolition of the intra-Korean border is of course a piece of fantasy, but we need nevertheless to learn to imagine the various consequences of a reunification made on the initiatives of South Korea's ruling circles. One thing not at all difficult to imagine is the disappearance of the unique ecological domain formed in the DMZ over the past forty-odd years. In the event of German-style annexation, the area will most probably witness a wild spree of 'development' and land speculation. Even in the case of the two governments' agreeing to add other points of passage than Panmunjom, it is quite unlikely that ecological considerations will enjoy top priority.

The existence of a rich and unique ecological space as a by-product of the fierce armed confrontation offers a peculiar illustration of the proposition that a system with certain self-reproductive powers, however deplorable, must have some compensating virtues. The most obvious of such in the case of Korea's division system is that it has at least prevented the resumption of (a probably nuclear) war. Among the more unintended achievements must be counted the growth, in South Korea at any rate, of a popular movement to overcome the division system. Other meaningful results, less visible, must also have found their place in the lives of numerous people and ought not to be lost in the course of reunification. The DMZ offers a peculiar yet highly symbolic instance of such unintended achievements.

What are the chances of preserving the ecology of the DMZ in the event - or during the course - of reunification? Involved in this question are numerous problems attendant on the overcoming of division. To begin with, the idea of a literally complete preservation is neither realistic nor theoretically defensible. Proposals for rehabilitating at least the Seoul-Wonsan and Seoul-Sinuiju railway lines have already been made and enjoy broad popular support. This project alone will cause considerable ecological changes. And what about motorways? Or the notion of a 'Park for Peace' or 'Park of National Reconciliation'? Any one of these would also require some attendant facilities - not to mention the consequences of bringing in tourtists.

Insomuch as the DMZ is a part, though an unexpectedly desirable asset as well, of the division system, it makes theoretical sense, too, that it should not remain intact in the course of overcoming division. The difficult question is where to draw and how to keep the line once you have admitted the inevitability of some change and destruction in its current ecology. Developmentalism prevails in the ruling circles on both sides. Besides, the DMZ at present is a heavily guarded and highly restricted area. Not only is it impossible to stage any popular resistance action on the spot; it would be difficult for the public even to know what decisions have been made regarding its fate until many of them have been implemented.

One may, therefore, easily imagine the difficulty of the task of ecological conservation and peaceful utilization of the DMZ. Only a broad alliance and solidarity of many movements and forces would produce meaningful results. But such solidarity involves not only organizational problems but complex questions of theory to reconcile the possibly conflicting aims of 'conservation' and 'utilization'. Also, while conflict with the government(s) is inevitable, the task cannot be accomplished, either, without the latter's involvement; hence, alliance with advocates of conservation and/or utilization within government circles - even with those chiefly interested in the revenue from tourism - should not be excluded. But still more important will be international collaboration with individuals and organizations for environmental protection or ecological research.

 

A broad, complex, and multi-national solidarity movement, however, would require for its success a core group capable of providing intelligent answers to the questions of what to preserve, how to preserve it, and why. Also, it is a matter of common sense that with the DMZ in question, such a core should form itself inside the Korean peninsula. But what are the concrete vision and practice needed by such a group?
Of course, the details ought to be left to the experts in various relevant fields and remain flexible. But the question of the DMZ cannot be simply handed over to experts, either. Indeed, measured solely in terms of the 'balanced development' or 'sustainable growth' of reunified Korea, no expert calculation is likely to come up with a recommendation for more than a partial and quite limited preservation of the DMZ, especially since the pressures of 'unlimited global competition' will continue to tell so long as the current world system remains in force. Only a qualitatively new thinking - a leap of the 'ecological imagination' - that goes beyond all existing logic of calculation could produce the answer of 'conservation and peaceful utilization'.

If, however, this answer is to be more than a flight of fancy or another variant in the many fundamentalisms that characterize the 'postmodern' world, the ecological imagination in question must provide an insight to the spurious logic of the current world system and its subsystem of Korea's division. Not that ecological fundamentalism is without any merits. Its critique of anthropomorphism as an ideology threatening even the human species or its resolute condemnation of the whole world system as one of ineluctable hostility to the natural environment deserves attention from all. But exercise of the ecological imagination - whether of the fundamentalist or other variety - can result in a movement of only limited practical power unless it offers a cogent analysis of the specific workings of the world system and adquate ways of dealing with it. Of course, the will to action has not been lacking in most green movements. What they often do lack is a 'middle term' to mediate between the specific local struggles against pollution or for conservation and the long-term goal of a fundamentally changed relation between man and nature.

Of intermediate terms, too, there are more than one, to be sure. But the power of a movement will obviously grow in proportion to the number of its participants sharing a central task in the given situation. In today's Korea the crucial link in the actual mobilization of the ecological imagination appears to be the task of overcoming the division system. Connecting the questions of division and ecology presents no diffculty at the level of general theory if one accepts David Harvey's thesis that "all ecological projects (and arguments) are simultanuously political and economic projects (and arguments) and vice versa. Ecological arguments are never socially neutral any more than socio-political arguments are ecologically neutral." (D. Harvey, "The Nature of Environment: the Dialectics of Social and Environmental Change", The Socialist Register 1993, Merlin Press 1993, p. 25) But the more important task is to realize how problems like class rule, sexism and racism in the present world system are related to its environmental destructions, and how such a system actually operates on the Korean peninsula through the mediation of its peculiar subsystem of national division. At the same time, starting from the opposite end, one must grasp how South Korea's environmental problems are inseparable from such matters as the deepening gap between its rich and poor, the still powerful sexism, increasing signs of its nationalism taking on a racist and (sub-)imperialist character, etc.; and how this particular combination reflects the essential nature of the capitalist world system as mediated by the division system.

This is not the place for that analysis. But in the case of the Korean peninsula it needs little analysis to surmise that no movement will attain to substantial influence without addressing the wishes of the preponderant majority of its population for a reunified national life. At the same time, few of its major tasks are likely to be accomplished without involving forces outside Korea. In this context, the goal of ecological conservation of the DMZ acquires a more than symbolic weight. I indicated above that this goal is more a product of the imagination than of calculation, but 'calculation' in this instance means calculating from mistaken premises. Preserving some nearly one thousand square kilometers of truly demilitarized green strip in the middle of the peninsula neither accords with the interests of the division regimes nor makes practical sense in terms of the logic of the world market. Yet for a movement that attempts to creatively utilize the assets of the division period and thus genuinely overcome the division system rather than accept any unification whatsoever, such impracticality has a decidedly practical meaning as well. So 'impractical' a goal attained through a broad movement of popular solidarity will have inflicted on the world system the utmost damage possible in the given time and place. Not only will the Korean peninsula become a more propitious field for creative interactions by the people of East Asia and the world, but there will have emerged a model for combining different levels - from the personal and immediately local to the national to the fully global - of the common endeavor for a qualitatively different life from what we now have.

It is all the more significant that a sizable movement simultaneously advocating the abolition of the military demarcation line and the conservation of the Demilitarzed Zone has been launched by a group of artists, naturalists and scholars of various fields. It is inspiring, too, that signs of international solidarity have already made themselves visible. I hope the FRONT DMZ Movement, as part of a larger endeavor for overcoming the division system and transforming the world system, will continue to increase its imaginative power and practical effectiveness.