The very proof of the Cold War continuation until today.
The ideology difference that had affected many human lives.
I went to DMZ this week! Yes, it has been some time I blogged due to my hectic traveling on weekends. I decided to go for DMZ since my parents decided not to go there when they come here on late December.
Well, just a brief description of DMZ. From what I learned from wikipedia and the tour guide during my travel. Korea was initially one, and divided into two due to ideological difference. The North Korea, supported by Soviet Union was embracing communism while the South Korea, supported by United States was embracing liberalism. These real and ideological borders persists and erupted a war. A war that shook the Koreans to the core. In the end, the war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, which means, until this moment, the Korean war has not ended officially, yet. Well, what happened afterward, was that the UN interfered and made an agreement with both Koreans to form a demiliterized zone. In this zone, which spun 2 km from the North border and 2 km from the South border, not even a single personnel allowed to carry any type of weaponry with them. This zone persisted until today and it was opened, with lots of authorizations, to the public by the South for the people to understand the significance of Korean war history for them.
Before going there, I didn't have any thoughts about how serious and deep the impact of Korean war on the society who once used to live together. However, witnessing the scar of great battle, I developed a sympathy and irony at the same time. This shows that human stubbornness could transcended throughout generations and well, the stubbornness of few individuals could affect the fate of whole nation, sadly.
Well, enough of history, I have to say that I witnessed a lot of landmarks which once to be a part of a long history. Once I stepped into the very soil of DMZ, I understood and appreciated the significance of history in our lives. Kids, or primary schoolers, or even high schoolers often do not appreciate history. Why is this the case? There are two possible reasoning.
First, they knew the truth.
Second, they knew nothing.
Why if the knew the truth? As you all know, history is biased. It is written by the winners as the losers would not have a chance to write them at all. One that knew the real truth behind the 'taught' history either by direct experience, evidence or bequeathed knowledge or artifacts, would not appreciate the falsified story. These stories are always in favor of certain parties. For example, party A always portrayed as the 'savior' while party B is tagged as the 'terrorist'.
Why if the knew nothing? If one knew nothing about the history, one would develop an impression that 'history is not of my business' attitude. The story of how Colombus found America does not help my calculus homework in any particular way. Well, this is very true, but, in my opinion, this is a wrong approach to study history. The sole reason is described by a quote: One who doesn't know history, may repeat the same mistake. You know what I mean.
Yeap, enough of the lecture. Now, a couple of pictures of my travel to DMZ!
Oh, the cool thing about my visit to DMZ was that I went to DMZ the next day after two stray bullets from North Korea was reported by BBC.
peace
vixklen
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