60th Anniversary of the Start of the Korean War

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the start of what is termed as the 'forgotten war' in the West - the Korean War. However, for most Koreans, especially in the North, this war is far from forgotten as the after-effects of this conflict are still present. Technically, the war is still on, as the two sides only signed a non-aggression treaty on the 27th July 1953 at Panmunjeom, the village now famous as being the symbol of Korea's devision.

For three years, the Korean peninsula saw millions of people due to what started as a very mobile proxy war between the two new superpower camps at the time, and then resulted in over 2 years of practical stalemate centred around the 38th parallel. As this conflict still has not been settled, conflicting narratives provide us with black-and-white versions of events leading to the all-important factor of who started the war. On the one side we have the southern part of the peninsula occupied by American forces and having installed Syngman Rhee, a prominent Korean independence leader, who claim that the '6-2-5 War' (referring to the Korean-format start date - 6th month and 25th day) was started by an attack by the Communist North. The North Koreans, who had witnessed Soviet troops leave their territory 2 years earlier, claim that the 'Great Fatherland Liberation War' was started by a premeditated attack from the South by American forces. The war first resulted in a lighting North Korean victory, conquering/liberating most of Korea except for the area around Busan. However, General MacArthur led 'UN Troops' of 15 nations in a surprise attack on Incheon, behind North Korean lines and soon enough had pushed the North Korean forces almost all the way to Korea's Chinese border. This near-defeat is referred to as the 'strategic temporary retreat' in North Korea nowadays. What changed the fortunes of the North Koreans was when one million Chinese volunteers poured in to assist the North Koreans, pushing the US-led UN forces back to a stalemate at the 38th parallel. During the 2 years of attrition, there was talk of the US attacking Chinese cities in Manchuria with nuclear bombs. However, the non-aggression treaty was signed after prolonged discussions by both sides resulting in the permanent division Korea has witnessed for the past 60 years. North Korean propaganda interprets this stalemate as a victory over American imperialism.

What makes me ponder about the Korean War is the importance placed by both sides as to who started it. Such is the animosity and stubborness displayed by both sides that this thorny and somewhat pointless issue acts as a symbol for the fact that Korea has no chance of ever reunifying anytime soon. As we are led to believe that the North were the aggressors and the North otherwise, let's look at what led to these events. I believe that both sides wanted this war, and there were many factors leading to this suggesting that the slightest of provocations could and did start it. In the heightened tension of the early stages of the Cold War, coming very soon after the defeat of fascism in World War II, we found that the two new superpowers - the USA and USSR, had two powerful, industrial economies fuelled by military production. Both sides were eager to spread their dominance worldwide. The USA had successfuly launched the Truman doctrine to contain the spread of communism, whose first beneficiary - the anti-communist, monarchist puppet government in Greece - had scored a victory against all odds and public support over the Greek communists in a brutal civil war. The USSR too scored a massive geopolitical victory when the Chinese communists led by Mao Zedong won their bitterly-fought civil war with the Guomindang nationalists. With both sides buoyed by such victories, it was only a matter of time that Korea would be the stage for a 'hot war'. Having client cliques installed by both sides in their ooccupied Korean zones, the stage was set for creating a new conflict where the military complexes of both superpowers can continue to function at high levels. So it's pointless to lay the blame of aggressor on any side as both sides were itching to fight.

What separates the Korean War from other civil wars was the ferociousness of the conflict - Korean vs Korean. They say that the hate between brothers is the most intense, and that was in full display during and after the Korean War. What makes this animosity so strange in a way is that there is no firm basis for it. Korea is divided into regions where people speak different dialects of Korean and have slight variations in culture and food, but essentially Korea, both North and South, is the most homogenous nation in the world. The division between North and South at the 38th parallel is not a natural one, much like the intra-German border prior to 1990. The people of Kaesong, just north of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) dividing Korea, speak the same dialect as natives of Seoul, capital of the South. So what caused Koreans, who had been a unified nation for centuries, to hate each other so much? Surely the artificial border imposed less than 5 years prior to start of the Korean War couldn't have formented such deep divisions so quickly? How come Germany never went to war with each other in the same way as the Koreans? More so, how come Vietnam, which had been divided from 1954 to 1975, with a division which partly could be traced to French colonial boundaries and older and rather substantial Vietnamese cultural differences, was able to sustain a guerilla war in the US-supported South, eventually resulting in a Communist victory and reunification of the country? It must be sibling rivalry.

Koreans everywhere talk in high terms of yearning for reunification, but that won't happen if both sides continue to want reunification solely on their own terms. It's sad to see that such an anniversary is still being marked with the division of Korea, especially when families remain divided, lives shattered and Koreans in the North and South showing signs of divergence and the creation of separate national identities. As Germany discovered in 1990 when the GDR ceased to exist and the '5 new Länder', as GDR territory was euphemistically labelled, were annexed to the existing Federal Republic of Germany , even despite East German awareness of West German society through their exposure via TV, division is hard to heal with unification. After more than 60 years of Korean division, reunification now will be much harder.