Could the future of the Korean peninsula look like Ireland?
Posted on: 05 June 2018
An international documentary on how the Irish peace process could offer insights for the Korean peninsula co-ordinated by academics in the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin at Belfast will air on Korean MBC channel this evening (Tuesday June 5th, 2018).
The documentary was produced by ‘Producer’s Notebook’ — one of the leading current affairs programmes in South Korea with an audience of 4 million. The programme comes amid a renewed public focus on peacemaking in Korea in the run up to the planned Trump-Kim meeting in Singapore on 12 June. The show will focus on life in post-conflict Belfast and poses the question of whether the Irish experience could offer insights into a possible post-conflict future of the Korean Peninsula. The programme makers received significant support from Dr Dongjin Kim and Dr David Mitchell from the Irish School of Ecumenics.
Dr Kim and Dr Mitchell facilitated filmed encounters between the producer, SeongHyeon Jo, and a wide range of stakeholders including politicians, ex-combatants, academics, youth workers, teachers, young people and peace activists. Filming took place over eight days in Ardoyne, Shankill, Lower Newtownards Road, Stormont Parliament, Belfast City Hall, Derry City, Corrymeela Peace Centre, and Dublin.
Dr Mitchell commented: “The programme focuses on ongoing segregation and sectarianism in Belfast, and reflects on how this mirrors the fears and prejudices that exist between the peoples of North and South Korea. It also highlights Trinity’s presence in the North, and its Masters in Conflict Resolution and Resolution which is taught in Belfast. Coss-border connections of this nature would be impossible in divided Korea.”
The programme is unprecedented in the Korean media. However, through Dr Kim, an Irish Research Council Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Co-fund CAROLINE Fellow, the Irish School of Ecumenics has strong links with Korea and has been facilitating the exchange of experiences and expertise on conflict resolution. Last year, it co-hosted in Belfast, with Korean partners, an academic conference on peacemaking and borders in Ireland and Korea.
Dr Kim added: “The documentary asks the question ‘Could the future of the Korean peninsula look like Ireland?’. The comparison may seem a stretch. Ireland is half a world away, and the conflicts that have divided the two counties are starkly different, in nature and scale. But as the planned Trump-Kim meeting in Singapore on 12 June raises hopes for a peace agreement in Korea, Ireland – with its long-established and relatively robust peace process – has emerged as one possible model of the post-conflict future.”
“Despite the differences, there are good reasons why the Irish case may be worth Korean consideration. The peace process did not result in Irish unity but multi-levelled political arrangements accepted by north and south. It is what John Hume, the moderate Irish nationalist leader, called an ‘agreed Ireland’ – something much more achievable and unthreatening than a united state. As clear from previous accords, an ‘agreed Korea’ will need to precede or even replace the long held maximalist dreams of re-unification under one system.”