Despite my slight addiction to political blogs and world-events newsfeeds, my dreams rarely seem overtly (geo)political in nature. Last night, however, I had a dream that was a bit like watching a major world event unfold on the internet – or really, two world events happening in parallel. Further, they displayed an interesting symbolism vis-a-vis my status as a U.S. expat at this stage in my life.
In the dream, two major political events were unfolding at the same time.
On the one hand, in Korea, a rather sudden and almost entirely peaceful reunification was taking place, somewhat in the style of the German reunification of the early 1990's. The air was full of optimism, as Seoul's TV networks and reality shows were allowed to wander freely in Pyeongyang, while many, many North Korean economic migrants were welcomed with essentially open arms into the South, and Park Geun-hye and Kim Jong-eun made joint appearances at conferences, discussing a "uniquely Korean" federal solution to reunification.
It was all the stuff of political fantasy, of course – I find such a scenario incredibly unlikely, though I wouldn't put the statistical chances at exactly zero.
The contrast, however, was that just as this was unfolding in Korea, in the U.S. a civil war was beginning, as Tea Partiers and other right-wing mal-contents, unhappy with yet another loss at the never-ending game of legislative obstructionism, decided that it was time to "Live Free of Die," as the revolutionary New Hampshire flag would remind us. They began a series of targetted killings and terrorist acts, including assassinating several Democratic Senators, while the state of South Carolina once again announced it was seceding, in response to some federal intervention in the matter of voting rights and healthcare. The U.S. Army was mobilized (again) to do something about the secession, as Texas and Tennessee followed suit.
Once again, this is the stuff of political fantasy, and not necessarily likely.
What I found interesting psychologically was how this plays out as a kind of dream-representation of my expat status, or of the reasons behind it. I left the U.S., in part, in 2007, because of a sort of feeling that the U.S. polity had reached such a senescence as to make it "not worth trying" to make a life there "work" anymore. Obama's election in 2008 seemed to offer a sort of chance at redemption, but his subsequent political ineptitude (not to mention outright failure to keep promises) has only confirmed my initial judgment: these are the last days of the Roman Republic, and we should remember that the glories of Caesar were largely only Caesar's, and that the victors write history, in civil wars too.
Make of it what you will.
Happy Sunday.