Thursday, August 25, 2005

So, let's talk North Korea

Frankly, I know very very very little about the current deal with North Korea... But honestly, I don't like to read those op-eds by foreign relations experts because they simply don't get it.

They have never heard a little first-grader give an extemporaneous speech about Korean Reunification. They have never seen my relatives shed tears of joy after seeing the two Koreas enter the Olympic Stadium together. They have never heard my great-grandmother's terse explanation on why her back often troubled her. They have never heard children talking, eyes sparkling and expressions animated, about the future- meeting new friends from North Korea, being reunited with fellow Koreans on the other side of that grotesque line, and erasing the wounds accumulated over the last several decades. They have never seen, with the naivete of youth, the emotional encounter of families torn apart by war. A CIVIL war.

But the irony is always that civil wars are often the most brutal- there is never a winner.