Posted on 09/26/2009 5:36:26 AM PDT by joey703
You could also look at what South Korean historians are doing. Historians in South Korea put weight, as I've pointed out earlier (in Part I), on theories now that would otherwise be of little relevance were it to not the case that Korea still remains divided today. Specifically, the North-South States Period (남북국시대) serves mainly to justify the division of the peninsula in the mind of Koreans and to make it seem as if the division is entirely natural (since it happened before and the country eventually unified) and that it's perfectly alright to think of other things for the moment (such as leading your life and forgetting that your second cousin or a cousin twice removed is doing time as a slave laborer).
I wonder if the Japanese public ever think, "you know what, I bet you anything that life was better for most Koreans in North Korea when they were ruled by us." This was, of course, one of the justifications by the Japanese for colonizing Korea a century ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at northxkorea.blogspot.com ...
I was reading somewhere that as older South Koreans who remember the country being united are dying off that younger South Koreans who never knew that time don’t seem to be too hot on reunification. The latter group sees the North as so backwards that integrating it into the South that it would bring both countries down if it was attempted.
if the Japanese would bet anything that life was better for most Koreans in North Korea when they were ruled by us Japanese, they’d win the bet.
And as for re-unification, the Koreans I know are work-a-day, business-as-usual capitalists who saw the economic cost West Germany paid during that re-uni and aren’t interested in burning thru their won (and dollars) the way the West Germans plowed their marks into rescueing the Ossi’s.
It’s simpler just to have the leftist minority take control in the Republic of Korea and chant, “we surrender” to the illegal Pyongyang dictatorship.
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The Koreans were brutalised by the Japanese occupation. Involuntary conscription into workgangs, relocation out of Korea, confiscation, burning houses with people still in them, and so on.
Things would have to be pretty fracking bad in North Korea to be as bad as the days of the Japanese Occupation. However - they might just be that bad. I don’t know.
This isn't really true. I'd say the biggest cost seems to be the uncertainty of unification. That's why I believe South Koreans view unification with trepidation.
Germany saw vast inflows of foreign capital during this time that helped finance their unification.
Moreover, I would think that another twenty million consumers and cheap laborers and an entire half country to rebuild would be very profitable and much more useful than, let's say, speculating on whether land prices in Seoul will rise or not. Of course, then there's also the work that has been outsourced to countries like China can be brought back. There's actually studies that have shown that average South Korean incomes would continue to grow yearly (on average) after (peaceful) unification except that it just wouldn't grow as fast? That as a justification to "unification is too expensive" seems downright outrageous (In the meantime, the wealth gap between North and South grows unabated).
I think a lot of the trepidation in the South is that they would love to be reunified with their brethren in the North. However, remember that the reunification in Germany started when the EAST Germans started tearing down the wall.
I believe that the only way Korea will be reunited when the people in the NORTH refuse to deify the crazy Kim family and embrace their brethren in the South. The South understands they can’t use the tools of war to reunify successfully so they have to patiently wait until their brothers in the North rise up and throw off the commies just as the East Germans did.
As a justification, “unification is too expensive” seems downright outrageous? You just go ahead and be outraged, then, Joe. The Koreans I know seem to be right about there. Trust in government fits in, too. We probably would easily find many conservatives and small-business types who agree that our health insurance system needs some reform, but who don’t trust Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the two Emanuels (professional slanderer, Chief of Staff Rahm and his brother, the plug-pulling “bioethicist” Ezekiel) to do the reforming. Likewise, almost any Korean with a business or a nest egg probably won’t trust the griftocrats in Seoul and the vicious, totalitarian Communist, serial liars up North to take on such a huge, risky operation.
On Rahm-ie, please re-read “professional slanderer” as “professional blackmailer”. Think that’s a better fit. Thanx.
Businessmen and small owners in the United States don’t have (1/3) of half of their country working as slaves. It’s not the same when you talk about not trusting a government that you disagree with (the Obama Administration) and not trusting the DPRK. You’re analogy is downright ridiculous.
and no, contrary to what you might think, it’s not that the government in SOuth Korea is full of Communist sympatheziers (although there are); it’s basically that South Korea doesn’t want to pay for unification (and put it off until it becomes even more expensive). Hence, the entire denial thing.
“and no, contrary to what you might think, it’s not that the...”
If you say so. The Koreans I know say (and act) otherwise.
Is that right? How do they act like they want unification?
How do they act like they want unification?
They don’t. They act like they want money. Didn’t come to Mi-guk for freedom of speech, came here to make money & own property.
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