Art at the DMZ. ‘A Collective Prayer’
I’m participating in an exhibition in the Odusan Unification Observatory. Every time I drive to my studio, I pass this building, which is perched on the top of a hill overlooking the DMZ, with a clear view of North Korea across the Han Estuary. But I’ve never bothered to drive up there, so when I was invited to participate in the exhibition the ‘73 Project: A Collective Prayer, Divided Time, Connected Future, which was to be held there, I decided to visit.
‘Flood the Zone with Shit and Howling’. Lessons from North Korea
Sometimes, I’m grateful to North Korea for helping me to see more clearly what’s happening in the world more generally. In this case, their ‘noise-bombing’ and balloon sending has helped me understand President Trump.
Martial Law in South Korea (Cancelled)!
It’s Christmas Day. A lovely white Christmas, here in South Korea. For one reason or another, I haven’t written any blog entries since the summer. But today, I feel compelled to comment on the recent drama here in the Republic of Korea. I refer to President Yoon Suk-yeol’s martial law declaration on 3rd December, which turned out to be the shortest period of martial law in history, as it was cancelled the next day.
Murderous keys to history
We who live near to the DMZ like to joke that people in Seoul are more endangered by North Korea than we are, that we’ll watch the missiles flying high over our heads, aiming at targets in the densely populated metropolis. And anyway, as you can see from the photograph at the start of today’s blog, there’s a handy bomb shelter just one hundred meters from our house.
But this shelter probably wouldn’t be much protection against marauding North Korean soldiers if, for some extraordinary reason, all the many South Korean soldiers garrisoned around here took their time arriving to project us. In such propitious circumstances, would the North Koreans wreak in our village such ghastly vengeance on me, my wife, and all my neighbours – the children, pregnant women, elderly, and their pets - as Hamas did in Israel? This is more than just a macabre thought-experiment, because it helps foreground what is specific about the worldview of Hamas.
Fences
I live near a fence - actually, several fences - that have been erected to defend South Korea from North Korean aggression. People have asked if the current terrible escalation in the conflict between Hamas and the state of Israel, which began when Hamas forces breached the fence dividing Gaza from Israel, has provoked in me any specific reactions concerning the wisdom of living near a border separating sworn enemies, in close proximity to what Bill Clinton once called “the most dangerous place on Earth”.
Honour the dead and protect the living
When one sees an army pill-box nearby a grave, one is witnessing in very concrete terms the two pillars upon which all human societies are founded: respect for the dead and protection for the living.
The map and the territory
These days, as I take my morning walk with the dog and traverse hills criss-crossed by trench lines and defended with bunkers and gun emplacements, my thoughts inevitably go to similar but much more deadly defenses that now exist in eastern Ukraine.
Axe Murder at the DMZ!
On August 18, 1976, about a mile from where I live, near the Bridge of No Return – a ruined bridge that became famous during the Korean War because it was a key route south - the infamous ‘axe murder incident’ occurred. The reason it’s come to mind recently is because it involved a poplar tree.
Slaying Satan near the DMZ
Some reflections on a Catholic sculpture next to a a church near the DMZ