LASA/EANLAS: Rethinking Trans-Pacific Ties: Asia and Latin America

"The same and Not the Same": Memories of Solidarity across the Pacific Ocean

• In Event: Solidarity, Intimacy, and Cacophony: History, Ideal, and Actuality of Asia-Latin America Relations (Part 1)

Abstract

Currently, Cuba and North Korea are two iconic countries that still live under the socialist regime symbolizing the survival of the leftist ideology despite the fall of Berlin Wall and the decline of Marxism. It offers a mysterious and even uncanny feeling to the eyes of those who have witnessed the failure of utopian project(s) eroded by the overwhelming power of 21st century global capitalism. This presentation examines two documentary films produced in Argentina and South Korea in order to explore transpacific experiences that revisit the sites of international solidarity and its ruins across the Pacific Ocean. The Argentine film La chica del sur (2012) seeks the trace of a Korean female activist who joined 1988’s World Festival of Youth and Students held in North Korea and from there became an international symbol of radical politics. Jerónimo (2019) is a Korean documentary that tells the story of a Korean-Cuban who fought for the revolution and served in the post-revolutionary Cuba. These films travel to another peripheral continent in order to rethink the current crisis of the left without depending on the Western theories and experiences. By remembering historical connections between Latin America and Asia and retrieving intellectual dialogues, they attempt to see if it is possible to create new type of solidarity that emerges from the global South.

Author

• Jungwon Park, Kyung Hee University