By Here is the question many Iraqis are asking themselves:
As for Abu Wissam, he doesn’t know why the people he cheerily said good morning to for decades all of a sudden slaughtered his boy.
“They were our neighbors, they lived in the homes around us,” Abu Wissam says.
He tells us how on hot summer days when ice was in short supply and power cuts were rampant, he would take a cold pitcher of water over to their house. He tells us these were the people who sold vegetables at the market.
Now murderers. [CNN]
Make sure to read the whole thing because the article is a perfect example of why reconciliation in Iraq is going to be a decades long process and not be something that can match some politician’s timetable.
If Iraqis are looking for an answer on how their neighbors can turn on them and kill them the perfect people to ask are the South Koreans. Prior to and during the Korean War the rivalry in ideology between communists and capitalists was often bloody with atrocities on each side with neighbors turning on neighbors. The best example of this for people to watch would the movie Taebak Mountains.
The movie directed by acclaimed director Im Kwon Taek is based off the book written by Cho Jeong-Lae that describes the conflict in the rural South Korean village of Bulkyo prior to and during the Korean War. Best friends and neighbors become enemies due to the differences in ideology tha eventually becomes bloody. In my opinion this is one of the best movies to come out of Korea.
South Korean troops in the streets of Gwangju.
However, the lesson Iraqis can learn is that reconciliation in Korea is still going on with the extreme partisan differences between the Korean left and right that extends all the way back to this period prior to Korean War. They are just not shooting each other any more, but they were shooting at each other as recently as 1980 when the Gwangju Uprising happened and that was 30 years after the start of the Korean War. Can anyone imagine an Iraqi leader ordering his military 30 years from now to slaughter civilians in an Iraqi city? I sure can.
10:00 pm on May 28th, 2009 1
I LOVE ????. I even recently added a review on my blog with a few clips I enjoyed. Such a great look into the Korean war and the immense personal struggles many most likely went through. Anyways, yeah, healing the wounds of war and separation is definitely going to take a while sadly. Unification in Germany was a whole different matter which will most likely not happen with the Koreas. Hopefully we’ll be pleasantly surprised, but only history can tell.
Reply
12:27 am on May 29th, 2009 2
Unification of Korea will only change the North Koreans from slaves to the communist party to slaves of the Cheabol. The South Korean companies that even now are profiting from slave labor at the Keasong indutrial prison camp will move in and take ownership of every last piece of the North. North Koreans will be treated as second class citizens by their South Korean cousins and many after having their very tightly controlled world view smashed will commit suicide or become criminals or vagrants. Meanwhile the social costs will bankrupt the South Korean economy reducing the standard of living to pre 1980 levels. It will take 50 years for Korea to recover from the disaster as the U.S. and Japan watch in silence.
Or not. You can’t really predict the future.
Reply
May 29th, 2009 at 5:30 am
Preventing South Korean carpetbaggers is one of the reasons why I have been promoting North Korean property rights post-unification:
http://rokdrop.com/2009/04/26/why-it-is-important-to-establish-north-korean-property-rights/
Reply
May 29th, 2009 at 6:38 am
Pretty much everyone wants status quo on North Korea, except the North Korean civilians.
Reply
1:14 am on May 29th, 2009 3
And who created the environment in Iraq where they turn on each other? Timetable or not, the division will be lasting and it has nothing to do with those trying to get troops out.
Reply
May 29th, 2009 at 5:33 am
There has long been historical divisions in Iraq but it didn’t turn bloody after the overthrow of Saddam until these divisions were stoked by outside forces. Much like in Korea immediately after the defeat of Japan it took time for outside forces to stoke bloodshed due to the historical animosities on the peninsula.
Reply
May 29th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
The divisions were in Iraq for a long time. The 1st Gulf war set the resistance in movement, and the US did not follow up. Should we have? I don’t know, but Sadam rapidly and brutaly squashed it.
So in the end the US did create the environment for change, when the large oppressed majority took control from the much smaller minority.
It remains a problem. More for the minority who are now being persecuted for past sins.
Reply