Mushroom Clouds

Ecocritical Approaches to Militarization and the Environment in East Asia

Simon C. Estok, Iping Liang, Shinji Iwamasa, Simon C. Estok, Iping Liang, Shinji Iwamasa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367694890
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000333718
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Mushroom Clouds: Ecocritical Approaches to Militarization and the Environment in East Asia examines the growing significance of the eco-implications of the increasing militarism of East Asia. As a transcultural image and metaphor, mushroom clouds signify anthropogenic violence and destruction, as exemplified by wars and nuclear bombings. Immediately evoking memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the mushroom clouds metaphor has deep roots and implications in East Asia, and this volume explores these roots and implications from the perspectives of a variety of scholars and artists from different parts of East Asia. The chapters that comprise Mushroom Clouds respond to the increasingly dangerous developments in the world that led up to and have occurred since the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump, developments that threaten the stability of the region and the world. In the wake of the 70th anniversary of the division of Korea, increasing attention has been focused on the legacy of the Cold War, on the one hand, and on the continuing militarization of East Asia, on the other. After the nuclear bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after the truce across the 38th parallel, after the shelling of Kinmen and Matsu, East Asia became (and remains) one of the most densely militarized regions in the world. Under the shadow of war, however, the concern about environmental impacts has been growing, not only in social discourse but also in literature and the visual arts. The first of its kind, Mushroom Clouds gathers ecocritics from East Asia to examine issues such as militarization, militarized islands, military tourism, military villages, post-war environments, nuclear accidents, and the demilitarized sone (DMZ) wildlife, among others, in East Asia.

Part I

The Korean War and the Cold War

1

Nature under Ideological and Utopian Seizures

Recent Political and Conservationist Discourses and Literary Representations of the Korean DMZ

Doo-ho Shin

In The World without Us, Alan Weisman pictures a world from which all humanity “suddenly vanished.” He believes that nature without humans would “recover lost ground and restore Eden to the way it must have gleamed and smelled the day before Adam, or Homo habilis, appeared” (4). Even today, he adds, there are still “a few Earthly spots where all our senses can inhale a living memory of this Eden before we were here” that invites us to “wonder how nature might flourish if granted the chance” (5). As an example of “a few Earthly spots,” he takes the Korean demilitarized zone (DMZ), describing it as a space where “war curiously has often been nature’s salvation” (181). He acknowledges the DMZ as “one of the [world]’s most important refuges for wildlife,” attributing the present condition as an inadvertent post-war result that has created a “no man’s” land. It is questionable whether Weisman really intends to suggest the DMZ as a utopia in which nature has flourished with no human interference whatsoever.¹ In the wake of the post-1990s political détente on the Korean peninsula, imagining the DMZ as an isolated and precious natural territory with no human interference as Weisman does is a quite apparent tendency in recent political, conservationist, and literary discourses and representations. The Korean DMZ, however, is a complicated matrix of political, ideological, and military conflicts and interests of South Korea, North Korea, and concerned neighboring countries. Such intra-Korean and international collisions have shaped the character of DMZ landscapes and ecologies which demand far broader and more in-depth attention and speculation than pictures of eco-utopia and “no man’s” land can accommodate. The purpose of this research is to refute such eco-utopian propositions and discourses through a critical examination of the political rhetoric of peace and the utopian proposals and representations of the Korean DMZ that politicians, conservationists, and literary works have predominantly shown in recent DMZ propositions and discourses.

Since the lessening of tensions on the Korean peninsula began in the 1990s, politicians and conservationists both in Korea and abroad have paid a great deal of attention to the DMZ and its ecologies. Politicians have prioritized peace moves, hailing the DMZ as a symbolic and potentially real space of the peacetime reality of inter-Korean future relations. Conservationists have put the preservation of nature at the forefront regarding the accidental utopia that the DMZ landscapes and ecologies have become. Politicians, conservationists, and scholars, however, have unfortunately overlooked and simplified the complex nature of the DMZ under ideological and utopian tropes. The political voices of peace movements and ideas not only mask the ideology of development but also mostly stop short at unrealistic political rhetoric. Conservationists tend to idealize the DMZ as a utopia or paradise, overlooking or even distorting the physical realities of the area.

Like political and conservationist camps, post-1990s Korean literature has paid considerable attention to DMZ landscapes and ecologies, focusing on similar themes: peace and conservation. Beginning in the mid-1990s, writers—Go Eun, Shin Dong-yeop, Moon Jeong-hee, Lee Ho-cheol, Shin Kyeong-rim, Oh Jeong-hee, Park Sang-woo, to name but a few—have been producing substantial work on the DMZ. Literary associations have held individual DMZ sessions in seminars and conferences, and literary magazines and journals have featured the DMZ in special issues. In the article “Literary Meaning of the Korean DMZ,” Korean literary critic Im Heon-yeong defines the literary sense of the DMZ: “Literature of the Korean demilitarized zone can be summed up in two significant meanings: anti-war peace ideals, on the one hand, and nature conservation for a healthy environment, on the other” (115). The DMZ discourses and representations in literature have not, in general, been much different from the peace rhetoric of politicians or the eco-utopian impulses of conservationists. Like political and conservationist propositions, the literary representation of the DMZ also either minimizes attention to or ignores the physical realities of DMZ landscapes and ecologies.

Contrary to Weisman’s conception of the DMZ as a “no man’s” land that exists independently of human interference, the landscapes and ecologies in the Korean DMZ have been heavily defined by the political and ideological circumstances on the Korean peninsula. That the fate of the DMZ is contingent upon the political and ideological atmosphere on the Korean peninsula becomes apparent in the correlation between recent inter-Korean relations and discourses about the DMZ. In 2018 and 2019, leaders from the two Koreas and the United States had historic summit meetings in the DMZ peace city of Panmunjeom. The leaders even acted out a symbolic gesture of crossing the South-North border of the DMZ iron curtain. While I was writing a draft of this chapter, Korean President Moon Jae-in, in his address to the UN annual gathering on September 24, 2019 urged world leaders to pay attention to the DMZ as a world heritage site and proposed the DMZ as a future “peace and cooperation district” on the Korean peninsula. Moon said, “The DMZ is the common heritage of humankind, and the whole world ought to share its value. Once peace is established between the two Koreas, I will work together with North Korea to inscribe the DMZ as a UNESCO World Heritage Site” (“President Moon’s UN Speech”). Moon’s wishes indicate that peace on the Korean peninsula will determine the fate of the DMZ. The 155 mile-long and 2.5 mile-wide DMZ along the 38th parallel came about by way of a 1953 armistice during the Korean War to keep a safe and protected distance between South and North Korea. It remained a tightly closed iron curtain until the year 2000, when President Kim Dae-jung opened it by crossing over the DMZ line to make a state visit to Pyeongyang. He became the first Korean president to thaw the political, ideological, and military tensions between the two Koreas. Since then, attention to the DMZ has risen to varying degrees, depending on political relations between South and North Koreas and neighboring countries.

In addition to political circumstances, human activities have continuously influenced DMZ landscapes and ecologies. Conservationists, ecologists, and writers have often reported that DMZ landscapes provide wintering grounds for hundreds of bird species—including a few rare animal and plant species—and that multiple ecosystems in some areas have become established.² The DMZ, in general, however, is in a disturbed and disrupted condition attributable primarily to both militarization and land development. Nature in the “Civilian Control Zone” (CCZ)—a three-mile ribbon of land on either side of the DMZ that functions as an additional buffer zone—is similar to the DMZ. Ever since the creation of the DMZ and the CCZ, these borderlands have been the world’s most heavily fortified areas. Landmines stretch throughout, the triple border fence wires are fiercely barbed, and heavily armed soldiers stand on guard. These material conditions have caused detrimental effects on DMZ wildlife and ecologies because buried mines maim animals, and the thick-wired fences block wildlife corridors, preventing animals from migrating among their habitats. Military measures and activities—such as drills, slash-and-burn vigilance, fire attacks, 24-hour broadcasting from loudspeakers, and high-voltage guard searchlights—have also been detrimental to the DMZ wildlife and ecology. Moreover, wide plains of the off-limits CCZ have been transformed and cultivated as farmlands. Cultivation of the CCZ landscapes on the North Korean side has been especially intense because North Korea has greatly suffered—and continues to do so—from a drastic shortage of food.

Political peace gestures and conservationist descriptions of the DMZ as a utopian space will remain naive if they do not address the DMZ’s innate political, ideological, and ecological interrelations and its present conditions. Visions and propositions from ideological and utopian lenses do not represent reality; rather, they are merely representations of wishes or idealized alternatives that do not fully correspond with reality. In his seminal book Ideology and Utopia, Karl Mannheim characterizes ideology and utopia as false consciousness through which people see and interpret the world. He states that “Knowledge is distorted and ideological when it fails to take account of the new realities applying to a situation, and when it attempts to conceal them by thinking of them in categories which are inappropriate” (340). Utopia, as a state of mind, is as much incongruous with reality as is ideology. He asserts, “A state of mind is utopia when (a) it is incongruous with the immediate situation and (b) when passed onto actions, tend to shatter the order of things” (341). To borrow his words, both the political-ideological proposals of inter-Korean peace and the conservationist eco-utopian ideas of Korean DMZ ecologies are “distorted representations of possible reality or idealized alternatives,” which do not “correspond with reality” (Mannheim 341). If we want to reestablish and preserve the DMZ landscapes and ecologies, we, first of all, ought to be wary of utopian and idealist discourses about the DMZ: the area demands far broader and more in-depth approaches and perspectives.

Some of these approaches and perspectives have become more possible since the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Just before the Olympics, political and military confrontations and tensions had been high on the Korean peninsula because of North Korea’s series of developments and test launches of missiles and nuclear weapons. At the last minute before the Games, both Koreas reached a dramatic deal, and not only North Korean athletes participated in the Games: high-level delegates, art performance groups, and cheerleaders also took part. Encouraged by the friendly inter-Korean mood, the Korean Olympic Committee and the federal and local governments set up DMZ programs and events. The DMZ photo and artwork exhibitions, DMZ music performances, DMZ guided tours, and the DMZ ArtFesta took place near the DMZ and throughout South Korea. These programs and eve...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I The Korean War and the Cold War
• Part II Nuclear Ecologies in the Pacific
• Part III Vegetal Memories and Food Ethics
• Part IV The Post-war Environment in East Asia
• Contributors
• Index