By Steven Denney
As historical memories fade, sympathy is waning.
The recent North-South family reunions event was another heart-wrenching affair in a war that has yet to come to a formal end. The event undoubtedly affected those who participated and almost certainly resonated with generation of South Koreans who actually experienced national division and the Korean War. But what about the rest of society? What about the youngest adults – South Korea’s future?
North-South relations do not matter to the youngest generation of South Koreans in the way they did for their parents and grandparents. Those in their 20s have no collective recollection of the Korean War or the decades of authoritarian rule that followed. Indeed, data suggest a rising pragmatism in the attitudes of young South Koreans towards North Korea.
For older generations, a historical memory of a time of national unification and a strong ethno-cultural connection conditioned views of North Korea. These generations, today’s parents and grandparents, cared about the country to the north. Anti-communist education and state propaganda certainly influenced people’s opinion of the Kim family regime, but North Korea certainly wasn’t “just another country.” Division meant a nation divided, and this was – and no doubt remains – a big deal for a great number of people.
The same cannot be said for South Koreans in their 20s. The “20s generation,” as it sometimes called, sees North Korea in a different light. This generation did not experience national division first-hand, nor did it take part in the protest-filled student movement of the 1970s and 80s, for which North Korea and national division were chief concerns.
South Koreans in their 20s have come of age in a political, economic, and social environment fundamentally different from that of their parents and grandparents. These are Koreans living in an era of greater political freedom but also increasing economic uncertainty. They never had to protest against an authoritarian South Korean government, but for some the most vivid memory of their adolescent years is the social dislocations brought on by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. That event brought a vibrant Korean economy to the brink and precipitated significant labor and financial reforms, the long-term consequences of which are now being felt.
Read the full story at The Diplomat