S uch is the political turbulence that has come to define this second decade of the 21st century that it seems we can go from…
S uch is the political turbulence that has come to define this second decade of the 21st century that it seems we can go from the worrying – and uncomfortably plausible – prospect of global nuclear warfare to selfies on the frontline in the space of less than 18 months.
The saying that “life comes at you fast” is a relatively recent, internet-fuelled addition to common parlance. But even so, this pithy directive is about the only expression you can use to sum up the announcement that tourists will soon be able to pose for photos at a spot that, barely minutes ago, seemed sure to be a flashpoint for the death of us all.
This is the news emerging from South Korea that, soon, travellers will not only be able to visit the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) which divides the two not-so-good neighbours of the Korean Peninsula – they will be able to hop back and forth across the precise “Demarcation Line” in the middle of the Joint Security Area (JSA) that, for more than 40 years, has been so starkly guarded that few have dared to cross it.
The Ministry of Defence in Seoul has revealed that international travellers will be allowed to walk onto the north side of the site “in the near future”.
It has also declared that South Korean nationals – who have been banned from visiting the JSA (except in rare cases of family reunions with elderly relatives) ever since a truce put hostilities between the two warring nations on hold in 1953 – will also be allowed to join in with the “fun”.
What fresh madness is this? Let us quickly remind ourselves of all that has happened in recent history.
It was but August 2017 when Donald Trump promised to rain “fire and fury like the world has never seen” on North Korea. In this entirely moderate and restrained statement, the US president was responding to reports that said rogue state had stepped up its weapons programme to the point of creating a miniaturised warhead to fit inside its missiles. A North Korean spokesman then replied with a not-so-veiled threat which suggested that his bosses were planning a nuclear strike on the US Pacific Territory of Guam that would teach the USA a “severe lesson”. And it was but September 22 2017 when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un unleashed a verbal howitzer in Trump’s direction, saying: “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard [a 14th century English term for a slow-thinker] with fire”. Ouch.
Still, if a week is a long time in politics, then a year is virtually an Ice Age – and much has happened since. In April of this year, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea stood face to face with Kim Jong-un at the Demarcation Line, in a meeting which constituted the first official summit between the two nations in more than a decade. And in June, Trump and Kim met in Singapore for discussions which seemed to herald a new and friendlier relationship between Washington DC and Pyongyang.
Has the cracked pane of glass separating South Korea and its powerful ally from the communist state on its doorstep mended so much in a year that the location which has come to represent their animosity is now a viable location for Instagram self-indulgence? Good lord, it appears so.
It is worth stressing here that foreign tourists have long been able to peek into one of the planet’s most notorious places – although they have had to do so via (very) carefully regulated official tours.
In May last year, Telegraph Travel writer Julian Ryall detailed a visit to the DMZ, sketching out a netherworld which “reveals a double line of tall, chain-link fences topped with razor-wire” – with, behind, “a network of bunkers and strong-points, all manned by South Korean troops monitoring what their counterparts in the North might be up to.
