Two Important Dates in Korean History

When I wrote about my lifelong learning experiences, I mentioned that I lived in South Korea for a year. At that time, I was a Fulbright grantee to South Korea, teaching English as a Foreign Language in a public boys’ middle school in Ulsan, a city in the southeastern part of the country (see map below). While in Korea, I learned to play the gayageum (a traditional Korean stringed instrument), I learned to love Korean food, and I learned the Korean language, to name just a few lifelong learning experiences. While I have forgotten how to play the gayageum, and I no longer have easy access to Korean food, I have tried to maintain some level of Korean language fluency over the years, and I’m currently using Duolingo to brush up on my reading, writing, and listening skills.

A general map of South Korea. (Wikimedia/Ksiom)

 
When I was getting ready to go to Korea, two people in my life who had lived and worked there previously told me that once I lived there, the country would always be important to me. I found this hard to believe, given I hardly knew anything about Korea at the time. I had been attracted to the Fulbright opportunity not so much because it was based in Korea but because it involved travel and teaching. In fact, my original application to the Fulbright program was to teach in a refugee camp on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. When Fulbright canceled that program due to security concerns, I put together a new application, this time to go to Korea.

Nonetheless, those two people who told me that Korea would always be important to me after I had lived there were right. Although I knew nothing about the country before I went, I’ve carried an interest for the place with me ever since. On Facebook, I’m involved in a group called Critical Korean Studies, and I also keep up with Friends of Korea on both Facebook and through its newsletter. These two groups allow me insights into Korean happenings both now and in the past.

I find my thinking enriched by considering world events though the lenses made available by these groups. For instance, how are domestic events in Korea (the mayor of Seoul, Korea’s capital city, recently died of suspected suicide, for example) impacting the country’s experience of the global economic and health crises all countries are facing right now? Is it true that kimchi, a common Korean food, can protect people from contracting COVID-19? These are just a few examples, but they illustrate how an interest in another country’s experience can influence my views about current events.

With that background, perhaps you’ll understand why I’ve chosen the topic for this blog post. In May and June, two important dates in Korean history occurred, and I’d like to let you know a little bit about them.

May 18

May 18 of this year marked the 40th anniversary of the start of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980 (you can find Gwangju on the map posted above). This uprising is today considered a key event responsible for the transition to a democratic government in Korea. For context, I’ll provide a brief history of what led to this uprising. From the early 1900s through World War II, Korea was occupied by Japan and was ruled as a colony, one in which the Korean people were forced to use Japanese names, were required to speak the Japanese language, and were subjected to other repressive practices, including forced labor and sexual slavery. After Japan surrendered to end WWII, the Korean peninsula was divided, with the southern half of the country occupied by the United States and the northern half occupied by the Soviet Union. From the suspension of Korean War hostilities in 1953 through the early 1990s, South Korea was ruled by authoritarian or military governments. It was not until 1993, the year I arrived in Korea, that the country elected its first democratically chosen president, President Kim Young Sam.

Leading to this point in Korean history were multiple protests and uprisings, many of which turned violent and/or were violently repressed by the police. The Gwangju Uprising, which took place from May 18 – May 27, 1980, was no exception. Prior to the uprising, in October 1979, President Park Chung Hee, who had taken control of the country in a military coup in 1961, was assassinated by the director of the Korean CIA, and soon General Chun Doo Hwan took control of the government. Student-led protests opposing the military’s role in government erupted around the country, and in response, on May 17, 1980, Chun closed all universities and prohibited all political gatherings.

The protestors in Gwangju refused to be silenced, and this led to ten days of violent confrontation between the protestors, police, and the Korean military. At first, local police officers tried to disperse the protestors, but as the number of protestors grew from about 600, to about 10,000, and then to about 50,000, the Korean military entered into the conflict with heavy equipment including tanks. Interestingly, in order for the Korean military to participate, they had to be released of their duty protecting the North Korean/South Korean border by the United States. Debate still exists about how much United States officials knew about the way the Korean military would be used in the uprising. Official counts claim that 200 people were killed in the uprising, but first-hand witnesses estimate the number to be closer to 2,000.

Graves in May 18 National Cemetery. (Wikimedia/Ulrich Lange)

 
I find it interesting to compare the use of force by the police and military to disperse protestors in the Gwangju uprising with what we’ve seen in the United States over the years. The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s is one notable example, with recently deceased Congressman John Lewis enduring particularly harsh treatment in Selma, Alabama, on what has become known as Bloody Sunday. A more recent comparison can be made with the protests in response to the death of George Floyd while being arrested by the Minneapolis Police Department and the resulting debate about the use of force by police as well as the debate about federal agents being used in Portland, Oregon, to disperse people engaged in protests there. That the death of George Floyd, which sparked these protests, took place during the anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising is remarkable.

June 25

June 25 is another important date in Korean history. It marks the start of the Korean War in 1950, and this year was its 70th anniversary. The war erupted when North Korean forces invaded South Korea. As I mentioned earlier, when Japan surrendered to end WWII, the Japanese occupation of Korea, which had been in place since the early 1900s, also ended, and the Korean peninsula was divided in two, with the northern half backed by the Soviet Union and the southern half backed by the United States. Neither the North Koreans nor the South Koreans were entirely pleased with this division, and several border incursions and skirmishes broke out over the years. It’s estimated that close to 10,000 soldiers on both sides were killed between 1945 and 1950.

In 1950, the North Koreans carried out a full-fledged invasion of South Korea. At one point, the North Korean invading forces occupied South Korean territory all the way to the southern port of Busan (see the map above). The United States quickly joined the war and participated as an ally of South Korea, and the Soviet Union participated as an ally of North Korea. In the first year of the war, U.S. objectives were unclear. Should the U.S. aim to contain the communist forces in the north, or should the aim be to rid the peninsula of communism completely? Although President Truman of the United States preferred a containment strategy, General Douglas MacArthur, commanding general of U.S. forces in Asia, aimed to eradicate communism from the peninsula and took a more aggressive approach to the war. Eventually, movement of South Korean and U.S. troops north neared the Chinese border with North Korea. This made the Chinese nervous, as they worried the United States might invade China, prompting China to involve its troops in the war on the side of the North Koreans.

Eventually, Truman removed MacArthur from his command in Asia in 1951, and the war dragged on for two more years. Eventually, an armistice was signed on July 27, 1953 that did not end the war but ended active hostilities. At the time of the armistice, it is estimated that close to five million people died during the war. The border between the two countries remained roughly where it had been before the war started, and a demilitarized zone (DMZ) was established between the two countries. Over the years since, several skirmishes have occurred at the DMZ, and many negotiations have been held there as well.

Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) from the South Korean side. (Wikimedia/Daniel Oberhaus)

 
When I lived in Korea, I took a tour to the DMZ. Somewhere I have a picture of myself standing inside one of those blue buildings you can see in the photo above. These buildings are where negotiations between the United States, North Korea, and South Korea often take place. To me, the feeling of tension in the DMZ was palpable. Knowing that over the years, North Korean, South Korean, and U.S. soldiers have all died in this area in shootouts and even an assault with an axe was discomforting.

As we currently face a global pandemic and economic crisis, I wonder how long it will be before people in different countries realize we are all one humanity and that cooperation is needed for survival. I don’t have much hope that this realization will strike soon. All we have to do to find evidence for this pessimism is look at U.S. immigration restrictions, trouble in the European Union over reaching agreement for economic recovery from the pandemic, and ongoing conflict between Hong Kong and China, just to name a few.

What can I do to sow peace in the world? What can each of us do in our daily lives to help reduce tension and conflict between people? Maybe as everyday individuals we can’t bring about change on a global scale, but perhaps we can focus on our friends, our families, our neighborhoods, our local communities, or our regions to make a start. Yesterday I smoothed things over with a friend after I misinterpreted the words in his text message, and I’ll keep looking for small actions I can take to make my corner of the world a more peaceful place.