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(2006) Memory, trauma and world politics, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
For over half a century now, the Korean peninsula has been one of the world's most volatile regions. At regular intervals Cold War tensions risk escalating into a more direct confrontation between the communist North and the capitalist South.2 The roots of the current conflict are located not only in the externally imposed division of the peninsula, but also, and above all, in the three-year war that devastated the peninsula from 1950 to 1953. More than a million people died as a result of the conflict. The trauma and hatred that the war generated continues to dominate virtually all aspects of politics. Each of the two Korean states has sponsored a historical representation of the war that is geared towards legitimizing its own views while discrediting those of the rival regime. Questions of memory are thus essential to understand both the dynamic of the current conflict and the sources for a more peaceful future. This chapter engages ensuing political challenges by examining the relationship between historical memory, identity and conflict.
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Full citation:
Bleiker, R. , Hoang, Y. (2006)., Remembering and forgetting the Korean war, in D. Bell (ed.), Memory, trauma and world politics, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 195-212.
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