“Spearing the Hearts” of Our/Those Korean People
A reminder of what family reunions look like when they go ahead. | Original image: Saudi Gazette
The cool reception in Beijing to Kim Kye-gwan’s call to resume the Six-Party Talks notwithstanding, North-South relations were (at least imagined to be) warming on the humanitarian level in anticipation of a round of reunions for separated families, in which nearly 200 families were slated for meetings due to start at Mount Geumgang in North Korean Gangwon Province today, the 25th. However, the DPRK’s swift cancellation of the event just days prior has revealed how flimsy that sentiment was, and ROK official responses in the interim have neither masked a general sense of disappointment nor shied away from pointing the finger of blame.
Just as the different North Korea state media “continues a pattern of different emphases for different political audiences,” so we also see different tactics followed by actors in the South. For example, one day after the cancellation the Ministry of Unification released a strongly worded statement berating Pyongyang for causing pain to the people(s) on both sides of the DMZ. (An “unofficial translation” can be viewed on the Ministry’s website.)
A September 22 Chosun Ilbo article contrasted this response from the Ministry of Unification with that of Lee Jung-hyeon, the senior PR secretary with the Blue House, the office of President Park Geun-hye:
At 3 p.m. that day [September 21] the Ministry of Unification released a statement on North Korea’s action, calling it an “inhumane act [반인륜적 행위] that speared the hearts of our citizens [국민],” and that they “deserve condemnation.”
In addition to highlighting Lee’s difference in tone, the Chosun article also made excuses for the Ministry’s response by describing it as being that of an agency backed into a corner:
Approximately twenty minutes later, Lee Jung-hyeon, senior public relations secretary from the Blue House (Cheongwadae, 청와대), said, “Because we believe that we’ve continued to give humanitarian assistance to the North Korean people, so we hope that this time North Korea will proceed with the reunion of separated families.” Compared to the sharp criticism from the Ministry of Unification, the secretary’s tone was somewhat calmer.
“Generally speaking, the Ministry of Unification had no option but to issue a strong public statement in order to address North Korea’s erroneous action in breaking the agreement,” said a representative from the government.
The diction of these statements is important, in part since it underscores the continuing reconfiguration of ways of defining (or not) “our people (민족)”. Recent data from the Asan Institute of Policy Studies in Seoul suggests that in 2013 there has been another year-on-year decline in the number of South Koreans in all age cohorts who see citizens of the two Korean nations as being of “one blood” (danilminjok, 단일민족). These statements from the Ministry of Unification and Blue House both emphasize the hurt the South Korean people feel at the way their benevolent assistance to the other Koreans up north is treated. Statements such as these implicitly signal that the idea of a unified Korea may continue to be less and less dependent on reuniting families and uniting a people, and forecast greater social identity issues to play into future politicking.
Source: Kim Jin-myeong. “Ministry of Unification: ‘North Korea drove a spike in the hearts of the separated families’” [통일부 ‘北, 이산가족 가슴에 대못 박아’].” Chosun Ilbo, September 22, 2013. Translation by Darcie Draudt.
