Comment by richsinn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by richsinn | Hacker News Reader

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You're conflating your Korean friends with the entire younger generation of South Korea. That's like saying all Americans supported the Iraq War because Bush was elected twice, or that all Russians support invading Ukraine.

Yes, the trend amongst the younger generation disfavors unification, but a sizable percentage of the younger generation still supports unification (49% of twenty-somethings in 2010 [1]).

Domestic sentiments inside South Korea are very complex (as is with any country). For example, some South Koreans strongly oppose the US military presence in the peninsula, while others greatly support it (and others simply don't care). Contemporary South Korean culture is very unique, and concepts of nationalism are very strong across the age demographics. But even the various forms of nationalism that exists is complex.

>>It seems like the rest of the world wants them to reunite, but they don't want to.

This simple statement is simply not true. Or at best, it's incomplete. Once again, the region's relationships are very complex, and the desires of the various actors don't necessarily indicate a want for unification. US-China relations, US-Japan relations, Japan-Korea relations, Korea-China relations, etc. all have its nuances that make Korean unification a tricky event. It's hard to say that any one actor truly "wants" unification when they're all looking out for their self-interest (China doesn't want any more US military and influence in the region, US wants stability and prioritizes de-nuclearization of the peninsula, Japan's strategies are conflicting within their own domestic ranks, etc.)

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/27/south-north-kor...

First of all, I thank you for responding and bringing statistics to this conversation. You are right that I seemed to have generalize what my friends said to all young Koreans, at least in the way I wrote it. I should have been more careful with what I said.

I think the article you linked actually gives ammunition to my claim that as time passes and memories fade with them, reunification is becoming less popular. I mean, the headline ends with the clause: "dreams of unity fade into past for young South Koreans." One of the 20-somethings interviewed here opposes unification based on economic and financial grounds. As another poster commented, though, a majority still do support reunification.

With respect to my saying the rest of the world wants them to reunite, I admit that was hyperbole. The reason I said it was that every single comment on this story so far started with the assumption that reunification was right and we want it to happen[1]. I think something closer to the truth is that a lot of us in the western world don't necessarily want to see reunification happen as much as we want the North Korean government to fail. Anyone who has heard about the famines and seen pictures of children dead in the street would want that. Reunification, of course, would be the "natural" step after that. However, it's ironic that for many South Koreans, they are simply indifferent, or outright opposed to the idea.

So, I what I was pointing to was the fact that while a lot of us in the west seem to think reunification is the end goal, a significant number of Koreans, the actual people who we are discussing, do not favor it. I felt it was fair to point that out since the conversation at the time seemed to have hinged on the assumption that it was the right thing and the South Koreans themselves wants to go along with it.

Somewhat related, but this [2] has always stuck with me. This video was aired back during the time when tensions were running high and CNN was ablaze with talk about Kim Jong-Un and the NK state-run media said this and that, etc. At that time, I was considering studying in SK for grad school, and the typical response involved some shock that I'd want to go to a warzone. It's ironic that in SK itself, people were much more interested in their pop culture, their daily lives, than the hatred spewing from up North that was littering our news articles here in the west.

[1] So by "the rest of the world", I meant, "you all in the room", the kind of hyperbole you let out when you want to say a dissenting word against the common opinion.

[2] http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/international/2013/0...

>>I think the article you linked actually gives ammunition to my claim that as time passes and memories fade with them, reunification is becoming less popular.

Yes, that article is stating that the trend amongst younger Koreans is moving away from reunification, but that's actually been an established fact for the past couple years now. If you read the article carefully, the trend was newsworthy at the time because reunification used to be a nearly unanimous sentiment in Korea, whereas now it is merely a majority sentiment.

I wasn't refuting your statement about the trend amongst the younger generation. I was refuting your generalization that the entire younger generation doesn't want reunification. It is much more complex than that, and there is still a sizable number of younger Koreans that still do want reunification. Nationalism in Korean culture is strong and Korean nationalism usually entails a reunification aspect of it.

It is also true that the primary concerns voiced by the opposition groups to reunification is economical, and they have been very vocal about it in recent years. But being vocal doesn't mean that it is representative of an entire demographic (e.g. squeaky wheel gets the grease).

>>So, I what I was pointing to was the fact that while a lot of us in the west seem to think reunification is the end goal, a significant number of Koreans, the actual people who we are discussing, do not favor it.

There is a disconnect between what the Western media portrays to its Western audience about Korean reunification and the actions and goals of the Western governments. Yes, the average US citizen might assume that the US wants Korean reunification, but the State Department and the many other various US foreign policy groups can have very different goals and strategies. First and foremost, the US will always care most about stability in the region - if maintaining the status quo means stability (i.e stability without reunification), then so be it. Furthermore, the US's current priority in Korea is denuclearization of the peninsula. Denuclearization is only tangentially related with reunification, and the strategies for denuclearization do not necessarily require reunification.[1]

>>It's ironic that in SK itself, people were much more interested in their pop culture, their daily lives

It isn't ironic at all, if you look at the history. The cycle of escalation/de-escalation by North Korea is so obvious now that most South Koreans don't even bat an eye with each provocation. Once in a while, an unfortunate event happens where there are some casualties, but most South Koreans know and believe that it won't escalate any further because an all out war would be disastrous to both sides. If you do a quick news search of North Korean provocations, there is a similar pattern since the mid-90s after Kim Jong-Il came in to power. Here's a headline [2] from 1999 that sounds like it could also be from 2002 or 2004 or 2009 or today.

I quote Dr. Jim Walsh, "I think we're just going to see more of the same, and we've been in this cycle a long time now, where we have provocation, followed by resolutions and naval exercises, military drills, and around and around it goes."[3]

It's been like this for over 20 years. The reason why it makes the news every time is because this cycle is not sustainable and will collapse one day. We just don't know when.

Actually, if you're really curious about the North Korean situation, Dr. Jim Walsh is an excellent person to start with. He's an American scholar with very good insights about the region (as well as foreign policy security, etc.)

Also, if you really want your mind blown, check out this photographer's project.[4] Yes, a lot of the craziness you hear about North Korea is true, and there is a lot of propaganda and suffering. But it's not all doom and gloom. I believe that once we stop looking at North Korea as the "other side" and start looking at them as people, we can start effectively engaging them.

[1] http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Korean_P...

[2] http://web.archive.org/web/20041028203647/http://www.cnn.com...

[3] http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/04/22/north-korea-nuclear

[4] http://iamkoream.com/photographer-aram-pan-presents-a-differ...

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