Generations Xed   Preparing the youth for the day   they kick the white devils out   of South Korea.... It was not until 2000-2002 that I noticed a very important aspect of the culture of anti-US/USFK in Korea -- the promotion of hate in the next generations.  It seems to have accelerated with the "Sunshine" policy of reconciliation with North Korea begun under President Kim Dae-Jung in 1998 - when negative information about the Pyongyang regime and the plight of North Koreans was self-suppressed by the media, academia, government, and pop culture - and really began to blossom after the 2000 North-South Summit. I had grown used to second and third grade students saying with pride and venom how much they hate the Japanese, and everyone has long known one of the main functions of Korean universities is to promote negative views of the US and USFK, but the many photos of kids in the hate-US parades located all over the internet and in street-preaching displays in the early 2000s did not connect in my mind until recently. It seems clear from those images and the press coverage of the latest orgy of hate (in late 2002 over the accidental killing of two middle school girls run over by an armored vehicle driven by two US soldiers) there is a conscious effort by civic groups, the media, and it seems even schools to teach the future of Korea who its real enemy is in the world - The United States.    (summer 2002 middle school girls street demonstration      at US base north of Seoul) Let's start with an issue that should be innocent on the surface, but still sends many average, everyday Koreans into a tizzy -- Korea's outrage at the US missile defense program.  Kind of an odd thing for South Korea to get in an uproar about. Missile defense is an American initiative for its continental protection.      (Remember North Korea shot a multi-stage rocket     over Japan in 1998 that failed, but showed it     either had or was not far from having the capability     to reach the western coast of the US - not to mention Alaska and Hawaii. That isn't the same as having the ability to produce a nuclear warhead to tip the missile, experts tell us, nor the ability to successfully target - say - Los Angeles. Fine.  But how many feel comfortable with the idea that the leadership in Pyongyang might have the ability to explode a nuke "somewhere" on the west coast when they finish making a warhead - if they haven't figured it out already?) (by the way, the first words on the kid's sign read something like "murdering military unit") Regardless of whether missile defense is a good, cost-effective defense program for the US or not -- Korea can reject to join in a future regional defense shield if it wants, right?  They can point to the potential for an arms race in East Asia such a regional defense shield for South Korea and Japan might cause -    (but then their lack of strong anti North Korean     protests at the North's development of nukes in 2003     seems a bit odd in light of their anti-US missile     defense rage...) Above all, US missile defense would seem like an issue that would remain with the intellectuals and other people who enjoy debating politics - without much bleeding into the population as a whole, right? Not in South Korean society - Here is a pro-Bin Laden children's song popular among Korean elementary school kids in the Pusan area in late 2001 (months before the June 2002 tank incident) - around the first anniversary of the 9-11 attacks in the US -     From the Korea Herald 12/26/2001)     With lyrics like, "Osama bin Laden, the man I     respect the most in the world / President Bush,     the man I despise the most...     "I'm going to terrorize the 63 Building by blowing     it up with an atomic bomb..."     The Bin Laden chant is supposedly sung to the tune     of either a children's song or a cartoon song.     "I think the media's portrayal of bin Laden as the     central figure in the U.S. terrorist attacks has     confused the young children into viewing bin Laden as a hero," said a spokesman for the education office." (For videos of other Korean children's songs everyone can download off the internet from different anti-American websites in South Korea, check the "video page" of this newsletter.) Where would elementary school children learn to praise Bin Laden as America's #1 enemy and think the US is going to use nuclear weapons on the South?  First, look in the home.  Children learn from their parents. Second, loot at school (teachers and classmates). Third, in Korea look at the internet (PC Bangs (rooms)), with 30+ highspeed internet computers, located all over Korean cities large and small.  Fourth, look in the street where anti-US/USFK groups set up street preaching centers in all the major cities and even in minor ones during strong spikes in hate. The images speak louder than words.  What you can see is that all of the issues taken up in the process of hate for USFK and the US are taught to the children.  The new generations are learning that the US is the major threat to peace in Korea.  They are learning that USFK soldiers are killers, rapists, and destroyers of the environment who go unpunished - which does great harm to Korean sovereignty and  pride.  They are learning that the US is blocking Korean unification. They are learning that when the time is right, they should band together with the rest of the Korean race (North Korea) and kick the Americans out of "uri nara" (our country). I am very happy to see that some in Korean society have noticed the disgusting nature of this hate promotion and are speaking out about it...    The drive to plant seeds of anti-American consciousness    in elementary, middle, and high school students is    something that needs close attention from everyone,    because instead of healing the discord or providing a    solution, it could lead to endless conflict.            (Choson Ilbo 11/28/2002) But even as I edited this page in the fall of 2003, the voices against teaching young Koreans to hate US/USFK is much too small compared to the voices of anger and hate in mainstream Korean social institutions and still in Korean primary and secondary schools.  (The Korean government backed down from fighting the anti-American Korea Teacher's Union.) Sadly, this 12/2/2002 news article in the Korea Times is still the norm in thought in Korean society -    "They killed two girls but are just trying to justify    themselves, and I feel they are making fools of us. I    cannot stand it, and that's why all my family is here    to join the protest," Kim, 17, told The Korea Times.    Not far from the Kim family was a middle school girl, Yoon    Mi-ra, who said she came from Inchon, some 40 kilometers    west of Seoul, along with a group of her friends to join    the protest.    She continued, ``I wonder how many innocent South Korean    people have been killed by GIs since the end of the 1950-    53 Korean War. Do you have the figure?"    Her friend, Lee Han-na, shouting an anti-U.S. slogans,    said, "We want justice, and if they reject it, we want    them out, all of them, from our soil. We don't need them    any longer." The last sentence has been a very widespread, even defining theme of "Wish-to-pretend-I-believe" among average Koreans since the start of the 1998 Sunshine policy (the bulk of which I have long supported) and the suppression of negative information about North Korea. That all changed in early 2003 when the US announced long term plans to drastically change the USFK structure, including changes some predicted will result in a significant down sizing of US forces in Korea, which caused South Koreans to admit what they have been pretending they forget - that they still fear the North and don't want to pay for a self sufficient military force to face the North alone. Then Korean society "turtled" its public and media promotion of anti-Americanism significantly. But people outside Korea should know, even in the quiet times, the promotion of hate goes on in innocent places like some South Korean elementary school classrooms.

Shooting water guns at symbols of       the arrogant Americans - at a anti-US       festival for families in a park in Seoul       that was well attended.    From Green Korea - an "environmental    group" - dedicated to exposing crimes    against nature and the Korean people by    USFK and the US government in Korea    (like the embassy) that can't seem to find    the same problems at Hyundai or Daewoo    factories.    This is a lesson plan for elementary    schools.  Notice the Bush face,    "American Industry ? The Only Earth",    the US flag with negative slogans, and    "Bush stopped the Kyoto Treaty".  I    reviewed other anti-US lesson plans taken    from a nation-wide Teacher's Union in Korea in the 5th edition of the newsletter.    The priest is a long term anti-US activist.    Here he is street preaching why these kids    should hate America.  The cause -- this    time -- is the evil Missile Defense initiative.     Performance at anti-US festivals     geared toward kids.  They show how     removing the US will unify the two Koreas.  The blue flag is the "unification"     flag whose controversial status in South     Korea left with the Sunshine policy in the     late 1990s. the drawings on this page were   presented  from an elementary   student art class at an anti-US   festival. The sign reads something like  "murdering US soldiers, go to    Korean criminal court!"                         egging Bush on MD