The Long Road to Reunification

The question of unification has plagued the Koreas since the peninsula was split after the Second World War.


One example of unification could be found on the other side of the Eurasian continent, where two bitter foes finally reunited to form today’s Germany.


But that formula, while it can be applicable here, is still a far and distant dream due to the Koreas’ continued adherence to different ideologies.


“I am sure that one day the Koreas will unite because I deeply believe that communism and dictatorships are against human nature,” said Hans-Gert Poettering, chairman of the Konrad Adenaur Foundation. He was president of the European Parliament from January 2007 to July 2009.


“I am deeply convinced, this change will come as it has came in Europe, but no one can say when it will come. It depends on many factors,” he added.


After years of division in Europe between democracy and communism or socialism, a movement known as Solidarnosc, or Solidarity, in Poland brought about a peaceful wind that broke the back of an oppressive regime that divided Europe.


“There must be many components working together and certainly the developments in China would be of greatest importance because North Korea is not in control, but more or less, is in very close connection with China,” he told The Korea Herald.

Poettering said that in the long run, if there is a market policy in China with new media and free and full access to the internet, then democracy will sprout its wings and take over in the minds of China’s citizens.


“There is a chance for freedom but it will take time and no one can say when it’ll happen but it will happen because communism, or national socialism like we had in Germany, is against human nature.”


The greatest challenge after unification, Poettering said, is in the minds of the citizens of both countries that now have to think as a group, working for an ultimate goal, instead of having the proverbial wall embedded in their psyche driving them toward social division.


“Then the challenges and problems which will certainly arrive with unification can be solved,” he said.


Poettering, who is also the chairman of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation a German research foundation associated with the Christian Democratic Union believes that any resolution in Korea can be achieved.


As an example, he pointed out South Korea’s incredible rags-to-riches story. In a little more than half a century, South Korea went from one of the poorest nations to one that is hosting 20 of the richest, most powerful economies at the upcoming Group of 20 summit in November.


“The people in the North are suppressed because of communism and once they are free they will be more active and can be more active, and even if it costs a lot of money, it would be to the benefit not only to the North but to the South as well,” Poettering said.


Predicting when unification will happen is a lot like predicting the change in weather.


In East Germany, shortly before the wall was torn down, people gathered peacefully with lit candles showing their need to unite with their brothers and sisters on the other side of the wall.


But the wall holding back families from uniting on the Korean Peninsula remains a government in the North that “will not be a partner because they would have to give up their own future.”


As for regional integration, Poettering strongly believes that “you cannot make a community or Asian union with different ideological beliefs, you cannot make a union with democratic countries like South Korea and Japan and communist countries like China and North Korea, this would not work.”


Even with all the differences and challenges in the Europe Union, regional integration worked for members of the European Union because of the simple unifying value system that united people which were once at odds with each other.


“I don’t see that with China and North Korea,” he said. “The European Union, at its core, is a union of values such as dignity of the human being, human rights, democracy, freedom, peace, solidarity, these are our principles and if these are not recognized in the countries that want to make a community or union then it would not work.”


This does not mean that there cannot be any form of cooperation, “but this would not be a union like we have.”


“You need the same approach and we say in the European Union, unity in diversity but the values, must be the same otherwise it would not work, I’m deeply convinced,” he said.


Poettering has been a member of the European Parliament since 1979, the only member of the European Parliament to have served continuously since the first elections.