Statue of Brothers

Here's a statue only a few subway stops away from where I am staying right now.

It's called "Statue of Brothers," located at Seoul's War Memorial (a museum on the site of former headquarters of the South Korean military, next to the former US Army base). It stands 11 meters tall.

It's based on a true Korean War-era story, where a South Korean Army officer (the tall guy in a helmet) faces his younger brother, a North Korean private, on the battlefield, and instead of killing each other as ordered, the two run up and embrace each other. The moral of the story: blood and family trump ideology.

The cracked dome below the brothers symbolizes the division of Korea, and the two halves are linked by chains to emphasize the inseparable bond between the people of the two Koreas.

Wikipedia article

I had mentioned that I was not going to visit the War Memorial due to its McCarthyist propaganda, but actually I was going to visit its courtyard, just to look at this statue, soak in its message, and take a few detail photos. But I scratched even that, as of today - the reason why I am mentioning this statue now.

I have just learned that South Korea's Ministry of National Defence is asking textbook publishers to stamp out "leftist bias" in the nation's history textbooks, and replace that with its own version of history. Specifically, 18-year unitary executive Park Chung-hee (Masao Takaki) would no longer be described as "being above the Constitution," but only as "the architect of industrialization." The first President, Syngman Rhee, would likewise change from "a dictator who used the division and the war as an excuse to consolidate power" to "the founder of Korean democracy and a patriotic anticommunist fighter." North Korea would change from "Kim Il-sung's one-man autocracy succeeded by his son Kim Jong-il" to "an unprecedented evil regime beyond the normal evilness of communism." I am all for unbiased factual history, and all against revisionist history of any kind; therefore, South Korea's military doesn't deserve any respect or support from me, and I won't even go close to the War Memorial.

South Korea's military also maintains a list of "subversive" books banned at military facilities. Currently there are 23 books, divided into "pro-North," "anti-government and anti-American," and "anti-capitalist." The "anti-American" books include American books by Noam Chomsky; no Korean Confucian bastard will ever tell me, or any other American, that we hate our own country. In the civilian world, however, being deemed "subversive" boosts a book's sales significantly.

(The worst part is that every South Korean man is required to spend 2 years in this evil institution and soak up its McCarthyist propaganda. No conscientious objector exemptions are available; refusal to serve is punishable by jail and a permanent criminal record - and rampant discrimination in the job market.)