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COPYRIGHT 2004 Professors World Peace Academy
Korean reunification is almost unthinkable for non-Koreans. But more unlikely is the alternative that Koreans will never reunify their 1,200-year old country, which lost its sovereignty to Japanese imperialism in 1910 and was tragically divided by the Cold War. Achieving political unification is obviously problematic. Subsequently, building a harmonious reunified Korean society will also be difficult because two quite different Korean cultures have developed since 1945.
This article addresses issues relevant to social reunification and managing culture shock as North Koreans encounter confusing new cultural values. The essay presents a vision of unified Korean society and identifies key factors that will impact Korean families, religion, education, economics, and politics. As background, the essay also describes the two Koreas' contemporary cultures and traditional roots.
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Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again. Children's nursery rhyme
I. INTRODUCTION
Koreans understandably lament the tragic division of their 5,000-year-old ethnic nation into two countries at the dawn of the Cold War in 1945. National division ultimately ripped apart 10 million families and dreams of reestablishing a sovereign nation-state that had existed for over 1,200 years until Imperial Japan colonized the country from 1910-1945. It also set in motion the development of two divergent Korean cultures. In today's post-Cold War period, a totalitarian government rules a well armed but otherwise impoverished North Korea. South Koreans have established one of the world's most prosperous economies and Asia's leading democracy, a welcoming--if not confusing--refuge for North Korean defectors. South Koreans increasingly demand and endorse ROK government efforts to reunify their ancient civilization into one nation-state, which inevitably will continue South Korea's transition to the knowledge-age.
Achieving political unification will be difficult, because North Korea's political elite fears the consequences. Nevertheless, one of three general scenarios is likely to produce political reunification. These are war, collapse of the North Korean political system and absorption by the ROK, or through mutual assent as a result of inter-Korean reconciliation efforts. South Koreans favor the third scenario.
Building a new national society will probably be more difficult than political unification regardless of how it is achieved. This is because the two Koreas have developed significantly different--if not divergent--values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors within their major social institutions over the generations since national division.
POINTS OF REFERENCE
This essay examines some likely issues in building a new reunified Korean society following a brief review of some points of reference, listed alphabetically.
Culture is the set of characteristic internal and external features embodied by members of a particular society or other self-monitoring group. (2) Internal features are the distinctive beliefs, values, attitudes, and underlying assumptions that influence how group members perceive and interact with their environment and other people. External features are the distinctive behaviors demonstrated by group members in their interactions with their environment and other people. Culture, therefore, includes the society's values and behavior patterns as expressed in how members greet one another (shake hands or bow), find spiritual meaning, raise children, operate a business enterprise, govern, and express oneself through the arts, for example. (3)
Confucian personal relationships: Thousands of years ago, Confucius envisioned society as a great family living in perfect harmony. Koreans accepted Confucius's teachings that such social harmony was achievable by exercising filial piety and other values through five primary personal relationships. In descending order, these are father-son, ruler-subject, husband-wife, elder brother-younger brother, and friend-friend. The resulting culture placed very high value on loyalty, orthodoxy, and, of course, social harmony. At odds with these is a modern value: "rule of law," which South Koreans increasingly accept.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Demographics: Reunified Korea will likely comprise roughly two south Koreans for every one north Korean.
Developmental indicators: South and North Korea had achieved significantly different levels of development by 2004.
Filial piety: This preeminent Confucian virtue is love of parents. The value requires and rewards (cheerful) obedience to the will of one's parents, especially the father, while they live and in death. Filial piety is a "traditional foundation of propriety and morality of Korean people," according to South Korea's KBS Online. (4) This ancient value seems to be even more important in the North, as the DPRK government represents Kim Il-sung as spiritual father of each family and demands appropriate respect and obedience.
Juche: A North Korean "self-reliant," nationalistic philosophy that stresses independence from foreign influence.
Kimilsungism: A North Korean social philosophy that established the cult of Kim Il-sung and, in some respects, resembles a secular religion.
Knowledge age: The knowledge age is an epochal period of history that follows the agrarian and industrial ages. "The fundamental social activity" of a knowledge age society is "the search for and the use of ... knowledge...." (5) The primary activities of such a society evolve, therefore, from a primary focus on manufacturing to the discovery, application, and dissemination of knowledge. (6) Knowledge-based business services comprise a significant portion of the economy compared to the industrial age. Manufacturing constitutes a smaller portion.
Major social institutions: To establish order and transmit values to future generations, societies tend to develop five major social institutions: family, religion, education, economics, and political. Families comprise the foundation where members first learn basic social norms. Religion enables members to meet spiritual needs. Education includes the structured transmission of required social and economic skills for advancement. Economic institutions facilitate the development and management of resources and wealth. Political institutions facilitate the ways a society chooses to govern itself (or allow itself to be governed).
South, north, and other terms: South and North are typically capitalized in discussions of the southern Republic of Korea (ROK) and northern Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as sovereign nation-states. However, the lower case is used when discussing citizens of unified Korea--south Koreans, north Koreans--or in some other circumstances to transcend divisive political factors. Please see the glossary for other terms.
OVERVIEW
It is difficult to imagine two more different societies comprising such highly ethnic similarities as the two Koreas at the beginning of the 21st century.
South Korea was a dynamic country in transition to an increasingly respectable, prosperous, knowledge age democracy. Rapid modernization and democratization fed grassroots energy that prompted (admittedly controversial) changes upwards through the society.
North Korea, by comparison, was relatively stagnant. A totalitarian, dynastic ruling regime blended traditional social and governance values with some communist concepts to dominate all aspects of a society that was far from egalitarian. North Korean society comprised 51 distinct categories formed into three major classes, which were typecast as privileged-elite (tomatoes), ordinary people (apples), and undesirables (grapes). The system provided the privileged with significantly better housing, education, and medical care, for example, than less privileged members of the society. (7)
Unified Korea may find it difficult to replace the beliefs, values, attitudes and behavior associated with Kimilsungism and juche among north Koreans, as the depth of their sub-conscious influence can be difficult to assess and neutralize.
II. REUNIFIED KOREA'S MAJOR SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Describing the society of reunified Korea is admittedly problematic, but it most certainly will evolve to reflect the needs and goals of its citizens as manifested in their five major social institutions. While more details on secretive North Korea would, of course, enrich the analysis, sufficient information on ROK and DPRK social institutions exists to permit comparisons. The purpose of this examination is to develop an initial appreciation of what might be and to stimulate closer analysis. Each of the following five discussions touches on the traditional institution before national division in 1945, some characteristics evident in the ROK and DPRK today, and a vision of key features in reunified Korea (hereafter also called unified Korea).
A. Family
Traditional families lived primarily in rural areas, appropriate to the agrarian economy. Most families were large, ideally comprising several sons. Daughters in some cases were considered liabilities in the patriarchal society, compared to sons. Family members complied with the three major family-oriented Confucian relationships: father-son, husband-wife, and elder brother-younger brother. Filial piety was a major value. Parents and children depended on the first son to be an intermediary between parents and younger children and also primary caregiver for the parents as they aged. The first son and his wife cared for his parents who typically lived with them. Parents arranged their children's marriages. Divorce was unthinkable.
South Korean families at the beginning of the 21st century were quite different from the traditional model. Nuclear families with one or two children lived primarily in urban areas to participate in a dynamic, capitalist, industrial economy. Over 80 percent of South Koreans lived in urban areas at the beginning of the 21st century compared with roughly 25 percent in 1960. Children's responsibilities also had changed, as traditional roles no longer fit the new family. The elder child--whether boy or girl--tended to assume surviving "elder brother" functions while daughters generally became essentially equal to sons.
By the 1990s, about 80 percent of South Koreans selected their own spouse. This was a significant change from 1958 when parents arranged or decisively influenced 97 percent of marriages and demonstrated one of many major changes to the role of parents.
The increasingly liberal society also accepted divorce to an unprecedented degree. For example, the divorce rate tripled from 11.4 per 100 marriages in 1990 to 35.9 per 100 marriages in 2000. (8) Perhaps as a consequence, some South Koreans began turning to matchmakers around the turn of the millennium. One report suggested that about 40 percent of marriages were arranged in 2003. Nevertheless, by asserting their rights to select their spouse and to divorce, South Koreans demonstrated historic levels of personal freedom and accountability, presenting profound implications for the entire society.
South Koreans also placed higher value on the government establishing a social safety welfare net to meet a variety of needs including elder care, as work practices changed and the number of children available to take care of their elderly parents had declined.
North Korean families by comparison were stagnant. Marriage was discouraged for all women younger than 27 and men under 30, due to restrictions against marriage for military recruits who performed compulsory military service through age 28. Once eligible to marry, North Koreans married the person selected by their parents and approved by the Korea Worker's Party (KWP). Koreans who married without KWP permission would not qualify for a place to live, as work units provided accommodations only to couples approved by the KWP. In 2000 most North Korean families lived in rural areas with about 180 people statistically per square kilometer while approximately 480 South Koreans squeezed into a similar area. (9) Families typically comprised only one or two children. Divorce was considered immoral and detrimental to one's career; essentially it was unthinkable. (10)
The role of the state was much more pervasive in North Korea than in South Korea, as the late Kim Il-sung, who died in July 1994, was represented as the spiritual father of each North Korean family. North Koreans were expected, indeed required, to demonstrate filial piety towards Kim Il-sung in his role as spiritual family head. When his son, Kim Jong-il, formally accepted his leadership positions, he assumed some of his father's roles but perpetuated...
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