Sports and Technology Have the Power to Change the World

CHAPTER 6Digital Communication as a Catalyst for Peacebuilding: 2018 Winter Olympics: Unified Korean Team

In the icy cold of Pyeongchang's wind-swept mountains, a flame began to burn in the winter of 2018—a flame not just from the Olympic torch (a symbol that has united nations and cultures since the times of Ancient Greece) but a flame of hope, unity, and reconciliation between two nations long divided. The Korean Peninsula was a land divided by politics and ideology. In the tremors that followed the conclusion of World War II, the Korean Peninsula found itself partitioned along the 38th parallel. The division of Korea was not a result of the Korean people's wishes; this divide stemmed from the political maneuvering between the Soviet Union and the United States in 1945.

The North fell under Soviet influence, adopting a Communist ideology, while the South aligned with the United States, embracing a capitalist democratic system. The stark ideological divide soon erupted into the Korean War in 1950, a brutal conflict that ended three years later with an armistice agreement but no formal peace treaty. The demilitarized zone (DMZ) was established, a 2.5-mile-wide buffer that separated families, friends, and a people who once shared language, culture, and history.

The division between North Korea and South Korea has since become one of the most enduring and complex geopolitical conflicts of modern times. Attempts at reconciliation have been numerous but often fraught with misunderstandings, ...