11/11/2009
International conference: “Twenty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and Lessons for the Korean Peninsula”
On Monday, November 9th, 2009 – twenty years after the world looked to Berlin and enthusiastically celebrated the fall of the wall and the end of the cold-war era in Europe – the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF) and the Institute of Far Eastern Studies (IFES) held an international conference in order to newly evaluate the German and European experience and benchmark the suitability of used strategies for the Korean Peninsula.
The newly appointed German Ambassador, Hans-Ulrich Seidt, on this occasion gave a sensitive congratulatory speech, capturing the audience’s sympathy by addressing it in Korean. He pointed out that the date November 9th should be a reminder. Only the freedom movement within the former GDR and other communist countries would have made the happenings of this day possible that finally led to the lifting of the iron curtain. He stressed that there were still people “not able to enjoy the same benefits as we do today”. The world should remember those who were “not free” and still “longing for justice and democracy”. Working for freedom and democracy in the 21st century were to be a specific task for every German government.
The Keynote speaker, Bernd Florath, head of a research project in the office of the Federal Commissioner for the records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic, who was active within the citizen’s movement and had suffered from the oppression by the GDR despotism himself, outlined different internal and external factors that eventually led to the fall of the wall. From the perspective of a GDR citizen Florath revealed how the apparently “solid monolith” of the GDR ultimately “crumbled to dust”. With carefully chosen words he traced back what was going on within the heads of those, who lost faith in their future and peacefully rose up against their oppressive government. “They saw the disappointing situation of East German economic, social and political development. (…) One could see, feel, smell and taste that the country was starving. (…) The country was living from its substance. We’ve been eating the seed of the bread of our children in this time.” Especially younger people left the GDR in order to gain new perspectives in the West. In September 1989 the voices of the opposition “became the voice of the majority and were amplified by the electronic media of the West”.
November 9th 1989 “is a day when a variety of developments culminated. An American policy seriously aiming at the establishment of democratic conditions in Eastern Europe met a weak Soviet Union ready to quit its imperialist ambitions and willing to withdraw. Collapsing Communist economies met political opposition prepared to break autocratic rule. And the majority of the people in the countries of East Europe didn’t hide themselves any longer in fear of terror and repression. Last but not least the membership of communist parties ceased to be the thorn in the flesh of the society. The negotiated change of power in Poland, Hungary was accompanied by the demonstrating, singing or velvet revolutions in the GDR, the Baltics or Czechoslovakia. (…) November 9th connected the civil revolution of the different states into a European one because the fall of the wall was the final and decisive sign that the Iron Curtain has lifted and the division of Europe founded and defined in Yalta 1945 was terminated.”
Within the first session of the conference the German and Korean cold war regimes were compared. First, Hanns Günther Hilpert of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) pointed out similarities and differences of the German and Korean division. ‘More revealing than the similarities the differences, may explain why unification took place in Germany only. (…) The demise of Soviet power ended the cold war in Europe, but not in Asia. (…) The differences may imply that unification may be much more difficult for Korea. The DPRK is poorer and larger and more run-down than the GDR was in 1990. Korean division is deeper, it is more complete and it has endured twenty years longer. (…) For the coming Korean unification it may be expected, that more resources will have to be spent, that the North Korean people’s mental adaptation to capitalism will be much more difficult and more protracted and more probably, more frictions will occur.” In only one aspect Dr. Hilpert saw an advantage on the peninsula. “Korea can learn from practical experiences of system transformation and from Germany’s experience of unification”. Hilpert described multilateralism as a catalyst for German unification. “Multilateralism will be a prerequisite for Korean unification as well. Multilateralism brings all relevant actors together, enables dialogue, communication and cooperation.”
In a second step Walter Klitz, the resident representative of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty in Seoul, outlined, what is known as “Neue Ostpolitik” (new policy towards the East) of the social-liberal coalition from 1969 onwards: “Following the German reconciliation with France, the new policy aimed at reconciling the country with its eastern neighbours and at rendering the Iron Curtain a little more bearable. As a long-distance goal there remained the dream of a reunified Germany. (…) This implied focusing on commonalities and common interest rather than contrast, increasing trade, communication, and negotiations on every social level. In short: using shared interest in filling up and eventually levelling the dividing gaps. Moving towards one another until eventually meeting on common ground. Convinced of its own strength and superiority over the communist system, the Western idea of “Wandel” (change) intended a peaceful and dynamic change of the other side’s mentality.”
Finally, Kim Keun-sik of the Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES), elucidated and evaluated Korea’s “Sunshine Policy”. He stressed that Korean engagement policies with North Korea were not invented by Kim Dae-jung but already “laid out” during the Roh Tae-woo administration. “It has been confirmed that the most realistic alternative for peace on the Korean peninsula and bringing about change in North Korea is the engagement policy based on confidence of the ROK’s position over the North. The only North Korean Policy that fits in the current in the current spirit of times is the engagement policy towards the DPRK, with a recognition that the past policies of hard-line and high-handedness only induced tensions on the Korean peninsula rather than fulfilling anticipated results.” It “should enlarge multifaceted contacts that are more stable in order to induce significant change in North Korea. For this, the engagement policy, should also evolve into ‘structural engagement’” that also “stabilizes and institutionalizes inter-Korean relations that have developed until now (…) and aims at strategically bringing about significant changes in North Korea”.
In the second session of the conference Cho Hong-Sik of Soongsil University examined the European integration and German unification and came to the conclusion that “national unification and regional integration are not automatically contradictory (…) with a careful management of both processes by skilful leaders, they can even create some kind of synergistic movement; German political forces and governments succeeded in preparing in advance the possibility of unification in the framework of European integration.”
In the context of regional order and possible lessons drawn from the European experience for the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia Park Myoung-Kyu, the director of the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University, noted that: “there is a need for South Korea to take an active role in leading the first stage of forming the regional multilateral organization. (…) it must promote the formation of numerous regional multilateral organizations. By taking on a similar role of European countries as Germany, Poland, Belgium and Switzerland” South Korea would be able to contribute to the formation of what he called a “mezzo integration system of East Asia”.
To read the complete speeches of the conference please click here. In our eventbox you will find a short summarizing clip and some impressions of the keynote speech deliverd by Bernd Florath.
