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The Zone remains a buffer between North and South Korea. It's part of the armistice that ended open hostilities of the Korean War. This bloody chapter in modern history continues nonetheless. It continues because the war hasn't ended. There's no peace treaty. It hasn't ended because the two Koreas remain divided.
The DMZ is a cold place. I've visited, but it never changes much. Soldiers peer across the zone. They're not holding fake weapons. Their guns show the presence of human war is right in that place. Occasionally violence erupts in the DMZ, such as the infamous 1976 "Axe murder incident" in the Joint Security Area.
I don't like it when leaders from America go to the DMZ and try to stare down the North from what they assume is a safe distance. With denunciations and avowals, their rhetoric looks tough. Today we are less secure day by day.
I did like it when Roh Moo-hyun walked across the DMZ and further than any leader before or since to meet with Kim Jong-il. That emotional day saw spirits rising further than in my life for the cause of peace on the Korean peninsula. Who's thinking about what they agreed to nowadays? Neither North, South, nor the United States _ not enough! Putin, Xi, and Trump go backwards. Kim and everyone go backwards.
I reread on Wikipedia what Roh and Kim's father's declaration stated: "The South and North share the view that they should end the current armistice system and build up a permanent peace system." I don't know if global leaders are even vaguely aware of this declaration. They need to dust it off. Maybe they need tutors and schools to school their ministers. They're too powerful to learn?
The DMZ stands as a testimony to the unfulfilled declaration of these two countries and the Korean people. We nowadays fortify the DMZ with ever more improved permanent war arsenals.
I don't like the DMZ because its cold face in that place, frozen regardless of the temperature, tells me the promises of Roh and an earlier Kim remain unsupported. Too many prefer "fire and fury" or "physical retaliation". Big and mean talk backed up with big and bad weapons. Instead of working to take apart the DMZ through peace, it grows. It grows not in size but as a wall topping military stockpiles and forces growing and growing on both sides.
We need to see in the DMZ a metaphor for the fundamental basis of present-day relations between the two Koreas. It divides the North, the U.S. and her allies. The bubble of seeming security propped up by "tourist visits" only covers more fully the monstrous reality of that place. Walking to the blue buildings where talks occur clarifies the point. A world of strife and weaponry, hidden but obvious, surrounds these silent, empty buildings.
I don't like the DMZ nowadays, but I'm not the only one. Most people avoid it because it symbolizes war. Roh and the late Kim did better, whatever critics might respond. When will the new Kim outgrow his panic and waste of scarce money? When will Trump and Xi work together instead of as supposed rivals in a coming competition? I think Moon Jae-in is already ready for a different mix.
South Korea has a role to play in reversing the trends. And despite deserving better support from America, Japan, and other countries, President Moon has the will, but the timing isn't helping. Responding and warning about provocations captivates too many these days. The North likes to reject overtures. I dislike the DMZ because it tells me the next decades won't return to where two dead leaders took us a decade or so ago. I fear it will take a good deal longer. As I wrote before, we can't get past the face-saving to save ourselves.
Bernard Rowan is associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University. Reach him at browan10@yahoo.com
