[LINK] Two links on the many, many problems with Korean reunification

[rfmcdonald]

From the side of the South, Ahn Mi Young's Inter Press Service article "North and South Korea Far Apart" examines the perspective of North Korean students in the South, who are frustrated and surprised by the South's lack of interest in reunification and upset by the material prosperity South Koreans take for granted.

"My dream is to get the two Koreas united. In a united Korea, I will run a shelter to feed hungry North Koreans," said 20-year-old Yu Chull-Min (not his real name), a North Korean studying at Yomyung School in Seoul where students from the North, aged 16 to 24, are finishing high school.

But this lofty dream often gets lost in confusion and sometimes humiliation, as these young North Korean realise how different they are from South Korean youths.

The biggest difference is their divergence on the unification issue. In a unification camp rally held in April, undergraduates from both South and North gathered to talk about their vision on the unification of two Koreas.

"Why should we bother to unify two Koreas?" said a student from South Korea. "We must recognise that two Koreans have drifted too far away from each other. Therefore, wouldn't it be more comfortable for two Koreas to stay apart as it is now?"

A dozen North Korean students in the meeting were taken aback. "How shocked I was," said Lee Hyun- Ji (not his real name) a 25-year-old student from the North.

[. . .]

Many believe that South Korean students are more individualistic, while North Korean students are more united in their group-minded pursuit of unification.

[,. . .]

Another difference is that South Koreans are used to luxuries alien to youths from the North. "I felt the outrage when I saw students here did not eat all of (their) food just because they don't like it," said Lee Hyun-Ji (not her real name), a student who fled North Korea.

"When I see leftover food, I am reminded of North Korean children who were starved to death (when I was there)," said Lee, who arrived in South Korea in 2006 via China.

Meanwhile, at Asia Times Andrei Lankov's pessimistic article "The inevitability of Kim revisionism" argues that even though the North has suffered terribly, the likely marginalization of Northerners in reunification will lead to nostalgia for the Kims' rule.

We cannot know the future, but currently it seems that the eventual unification of Korea under the Seoul regime is the only possible long-term outcome of the Korean crisis. But once the Kim family regime is gone, the 25 million human beings who lived under their rule will have to make something of their sad and terrifying experiences. Frankly speaking, the entire era was a massive waste of time, resources and lives, but can the average North Korean person accept and admit this? Some people, no doubt, will come to such painful conclusions, but many more will probably not.

There will be no shortage of people who are bound to lose out from unification and/or regime change in North Korea. The Kim family has produced a small army of professional indoctrinators and overseers. Many a well-educated North Korean has made a decent (that is by North Korean standards) living by lecturing his/her compatriots about the finer points of the Juche (self-reliance) doctrine or the heroic deeds of the Kim family. Many others have been employed to enforce the manifold regulations and rules. Under the new system, these people will instantly find out that their arcane skills will be of little use. They are bound to feel unhappy about the new world and they are also bound to search for ways to justify and embellish their past.

[. . .]

Once the country is unified, the majority of North Korean professionals will find out that in the new world, their skills are of little if any value. What can be done by a North Korean medical doctor who knows nothing of 95% of all the procedures and treatments which are routine in modern medicine? What can be done with an engineer who has spent all his life repairing rusting industrial equipment of 1960s' Soviet vintage?

[. . .]

None of these people can be portrayed as a regime collaborator, but they are likely to share the sorry fate of former ideological indoctrinators and minor police clerks. Some of them will manage to re-educate themselves, while others will find new and rewarding career paths, but the lucky will be few in number. The majority is bound to have at least ambivalent feelings about the post-unification situation.

[. . . T]he common North Korean will also have many good reasons to feel dissatisfied about the state of the country after unification. Assuming that North Korea will not change much until its collapse (and this is very likely), after unification more or less every North Korean above the age of 30 will find his/herself restricted to low-paid, unskilled or semi-skilled jobs.

This does not mean that unification will bring ruin to a majority of North Koreans. On the contrary, their incomes, their nutrition and their consumer lives are likely to improve dramatically and almost instantly. Nonetheless, they will probably soon take the new relative prosperity for granted, and will compare their income and social standing not with Kim Il-sung's past, but with the situation of South Koreans.

Alas, this comparison is almost certain to be discouraging. Most North Koreans are likely to remain second-class citizens because the lack of relevant skills will prevent them from acquiring skilled work in the post-unification economy (reeducation is difficult in their age, with a heavy burden of social responsibilities on their shoulders). Formerly skilled blue-collar workers as well as many office clerks will have to spend the rest of their work lives sweeping streets and washing dishes. They will probably earn more than a minor official under the Kims' rule, but their relative inferiority will cause much problem.