Grassroots Politics in Seoul: Free School Lunches Movement

Free school lunches movement becoming a key issue of June 2 regional elections : National : Home

Lee Chang-rim, a 33-year-old candidate for Seoul’s Dobong District Council who has decided to run in the June regional elections, is a ‘citizens’ candidate.’ Lee does not belong to any political party. His support base consists of grassroots groups like Korean Womenlink, Hansalim, the National Association of Parents for True Education, the Saenggeul Jageun Library and the Dobong Citizens‘ Association. Lee said, “In Dobong, grassroots groups have maintained a tradition of staying active in their own areas and then running a ‘citizens’ candidate’ in every local election.”

This is Lee’s second attempt at a regional election. In 2006, he ran for district council, emphasizing the issue of free school lunches. The response from the community was enthusiastic. Middle and high school students without the right to vote took pictures of menu boards with their cell phones and sent text massages saying, “Chang-rim, please change this.” Student parents patted his shoulders and said, “It is a really great thing that you are doing.” But in the end, he was unable to overcome the Grand National Party’s forceful wind. Lee said, “In the regional elections over the years, we have constantly seen the wind of centralized politics sweeping through, contrary to the intention behind introducing the local government system, which was to spread grassroots democracy.”

The year I arrived in Korea, the free school lunches movement was in full swing. I haven't heard much about it again until this story from today's 한겨래 (Hankyoreh). I don't know what it's like at most schools, but the student meals were awful stuff at my high school. The food cooked for faculty and staff was not much better. This year, because of the popularity of the issue and parents and students complaining, the school has hired one of its own faculty members to be the nutritionist and plan meals. So families and employees have had their say, and the nutritionist has a rather significant obligation to do well.

We have healthier (smaller) portion sizes, less 반찬 (banchan: side dishes which are an important part to Korean food culture and a good meal must have them) and higher quality food. This should result in less waste and less expense while creating better health. A win all around. Believe it or not, some teachers are complaining because of the healthier portions. That's old school Korean thinking: more food is better. I don't get it, but it's part of the food culture and tied to feelings about food and wealth. But you can't really argue with better, healthier food. For now, the new system is working. I hope they adopt it permanently.

Anyway, it appears as if the Grand National Party is losing its popularity here. It's hard to tell because Koreans don't talk politics like Americans do. So, I don't ask. And the mainstream English newspapers' coverage of political news is lacking. Well, The Hankyoreh is very political, but it's a left wing paper. It's hard to judge what moderate Koreans think about these things. But conservatives are not popular here except with the oldest generations who remain rather staunchly conservative on principle. (Meaning they hate everything equally.) Korea's conservative movement, like the one in the US, suffers from a lack of new ideas and lack of desire to treat younger generations and their explicit progressive spirit with any visible public respect.

Hopefully, Lee Chang Rim can get elected. A young, progressive candidate fighting for students' rights (by proxy, parents' rights) is pretty cool grassroots politics here.

dagConfessions: Power & The Right To Peacefully Assemble

A US citizen visiting Korea for more than a year might have a hard time understanding Korean Democracy without doing a little homework. My wording might seem a little odd, but I think I could have been here for three months and not have come away with the desire to write this post (other than to share the story.)

The longer I live in Korea, the more I learn about the way the government and police operate. What disturbs me isn't the fact that I know about oppression and now I can see it happening outside my window. I'm not precious. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I haven't ever experienced a difference in how citizens think about Law. I guess I'm experiencing a kind of alienation for the first time that I could easily permit to become anger and frustration directed at Koreans and about Korean culture. But I want to resist that temptation because I think it's power I'm experiencing. Power, that as a white guy from the US, I have never confronted. I've read about it, sure. But this is different.

Koreans and Americans do not have the same experience and understanding of Law. A little knowledge of history explains the experiential aspect of the difference between our cultures. It's our, Korean and American, understanding of Law I want to quickly focus on before sharing a story from The Hankyoreh to illustrate my feelings. Feel free to comment if you disagree or want me to flesh this out. I'm more than willing to.

Many Americans, I'm ashamed to admit, don't really know that the reason we think and act like we do, as Americans do, has a lot to do with Laws. In the US, we have a Constitution and system of Laws that protects rights and punishes crimes. Americans like to talk about Rights all the time. We like to insist our Rights are Natural, even that we are born with them. We even have much of Continental Philosophy (See, Kant et al.) to back-up our notions that democratic life within a capitalist market is part of Nature's unknowable plan to guide us to ever more control of ourselves and toward overall Liberty. Nevertheless, we forget that without our enforceable social contract, all our Rights would simply be wishful and hopeful thinking. Yes, I'm saying that Americans take it for granted. I think we all know this is true.

Koreans have Laws with a big "L", too; it is, after all, the Republic of Korea. But Korean citizens don't think about their Republic as a Republic of Laws in the same manner Americans do. Laws in Korea are tools used by the police and the government to enforce the government's will, which is more appropriately stated as enforce the majority Party's will.

Koreans simply cannot freely speak in public in opposition to their government's ruling Party without worrying about punishment. Nor do they have the ability to freely assemble to protest and/or to organize in dissent without worrying about punishment. And when they do assemble in groups in active dissent, punishment does occur. A tourist passing through Seoul on a summer weekend would have to be blind not to notice the massive police presence in the streets.

I'm trying to come to terms with the visible and sometimes abject oppression many Koreans and immigrants struggle with here. The only thing that keeps me from running back to the US in disgust is that I'm well aware that, though Americans like to pretend it's otherwise, we have abject oppression in the US that is quite comparable while less widespread. In Seoul, it's easy for me to see it. I'm not from here. At home, I have to look for it. But it's there.

What I'm trying to come to terms with is understanding the middle-ground Korea occupies right now between the totalitarianism of the recent past and a more free Democracy of the sometime in the future. And I want to understand why Koreans don't have the feeling that it's their right. That's for another post, though. (And I should say that all the liberal and leftist Koreans I have met would say that it is their right. I'm generalizing here, of course, and I hope not too much.)

Below is a link to a story from a recent edition of The Hankyoreh. Korea's versions of Conservative Republicans are members of the Grand National Party (GNP). The American GOP and the Korean GNP have a lot in common. At this moment in time, both parties' membership likes to claim that they know better than everybody else how to legislate. In addition, they are the parties of old, well-off men and their sons and their wives. GNP visions of Korean daily life remind me of the white power structure that guides the GOP through its decision-making back home.

Currently, The GNP is attempting to enact a law that would make it illegal for people to assemble in groups between 10pm and 6am. The dissenting members of government insist that this could be handled by instituting a permit process, that an outright ban would be too extreme.

The law isn't the problem here; the warrant the GNP uses to argue in support of it is the problem. The GNP's reason is that somebody might break a law or a late assembly might turn violent. It's a real problem, this logic. A US citizen would say without too much pushing: Hey, a person has to commit a crime before being charged with one. We don't use laws to prohibit people from choosing to break laws. People choose to participate in our social contract. If a person breaks a law, then we punish that person. And so on.

In Korea, the social contract is an idea and law is a tool used to enforce participation. For the most part, Koreans accept this enforcement. Rather than shaping legislation that encourages peaceful participation in free discourse, laws that suggest what a true disturbance is, a law is suggested that prohibits all assembly. Most foreign historians and essayists on Korea like to argue that the existence of this general acceptance of oppression is a hangover from the bad days when dictators ran daily life in Korea. Well, I think that's a shitty excuse for a real problem that needs real reform to ever change. In addition, I think it's terribly patronizing to listen to white intellectuals talk about Korea's hangovers. It's a shitty, demeaning, and anti-intellectual means to addressing a complex cultural construct.

GNP introduces bill to completely ban nighttime outdoor assemblies

Here are two paragraphs from the article. They highlight the problem I address above:

The GNP lawmakers at the committee meeting, including Cho, called for the bill to be passed during the February extraordinary assembly after the bill had been handed over to a subcommittee for legal deliberation. GNP Lawmaker Kim Tae-won said concerns over the destruction of evidence or escape were great regarding nighttime assemblies, and they could very likely turn into violent demonstrations. Thus, he added that until a peaceful demonstration culture takes root in South Korea, a time restriction would have to be placed on outdoor demonstrations.

Democratic Party Lawmakers Kang Gi-jung and Kim Yoo-jung, however, protested the bill, saying that since it excessively restricts the people’s Constitutionally-guaranteed basic rights, it would be better to place limits on noise or venues rather than time. They called on the GNP to drop discussion of amending the Assembly Law and instead hold hearings to gather public opinion. A bill proposed by Democratic Party Lawmaker Chun Jung-bae and Democratic Labor Party Lawmaker Lee Jung-hee, currently stuck in committee, would in principle permit nighttime outdoor assemblies under the condition that participants maintain law and order.

일제 강점기: Forced Mobilization

일제 강점기 is the hangukmal phrase Koreans often use to refer to Japanese occupation from August 1910 until 1945. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Japan's forced annexation of Korea. Here is a little Wiki background and the map to the left represents Korea in the Japanese Empire in 1939. (Click on the map to enlarge it.)

My favorite Korean history book, at the moment, is Bruce Cumings' Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History. I recommend it: easy to find, engrossing and provocative. Anyway, it's difficult to find good modern histories for Korea. The Wikipedia page, understandably, needs a little editing. Overall, it's a fair overview of dates and events.

Japan has never wanted to be transparent about occupying Korea and continues to do whatever it can to hinder honest research into Japanese exploitation of Korea and Koreans. This is something I knew a little about before coming to Korea. Very little. Well, to be honest, I knew that Japan had occupied Korea until 1945. And this explains, I think, the detail most educated Americans know about Korea. Dates and names. Nothing more.

It's a shame because Korea and the United States are much more dependent on one another in many more ways than Americans would like to admit. Koreans don't like to admit it either as they have struggled throughout their history for self-determination.

I can't say that it's easy to learn. Much of the literature in English at Korean bookstores is outright crap seemingly authorized by government-friendly publishers and written by expat "journalists" and "historians" who must enjoy a little celebrity for kissing middle-class Korean ass. It's also more than a little patronizing to cast modern Korea as a classic, capitalist success story: placing Koreans in the role of a Horatio Alger hero who's rough, dirty, scrappy but works so hard that we all know he's going to win by the end of the story. I HATE THAT SHIT.

Sorry about the frank language, but some of the books are truly embarrassing and intellectual trifles. I don't want to get into historiography and dialectics here. I did want to share with you, on the other hand, three engaging articles from a Korean newspaper I enjoy reading, The Hankyoreh. The link is to the English language, online edition.

Yesterday, The Hankyoreh published the third in a three-part series of articles in observance of the 100th anniversary of Korea's annexation by Japan. The series is called "Traces of Forced Mobilization". The articles handle a particularly nasty part of Japanese occupation, the National Mobilization Law. After 1939 and until the end of occupation at the beginning of World War II, Japan mobilized (conscripted) over 5,000,000 Koreans as laborers in Japan and Korea, and elsewhere. Over 600,000 Koreans were taken to Japan. An accurate number will never be possible, but between 200,000 and 800,000 Koreans died as a result of forced mobilization. After the occupation, tens of thousands of Koreans were left as stateless refugees in what used to be the outlying ares of the Japanese Empire. (Again, an accurate number will be hard to learn.)

The Japanese attempted what many scholars now refer to as "cultural genocide"; the occupiers purposefully, brutally and crassly supressed Korean culture. It's aspects of occupation and war over the last 120 years that directly led to the revival of Korean Nationalism that so many foreigners complain about confronting while they live or visit Korea.

In the comments section, feel free to offer any stories you may have about family & friends; or, if you're learning about Korea, anything you'd like to discuss about the anniversary and topic.

Part One: Aso Group denies golf course sits atop burial grounds of conscripted Korean laborers
Part Two: Remains of unidentified Korean conscripted laborers remain at Takashima Island
Part Three: Korean former conscripted laborers live out last days on Russia’s Sakhalin Island

Added on 2/21, Part Four: “Peace” museum glorifies young conscripted Korean Kamikaze pilots