Korea, South

On 24th April, Taiwanese peace activist Emily Wang was held by Korean immigration and later was deported for opposing the construction of the naval base on Jeju Island. Since 2010, Emily has been working with people from the village of Gangjeong on Jeju Island just off the South Korean coast. The people of Gangjeong are at risk of being evicted in order to make way for a naval base, which was planned without proper consultation with the people in the community.

By Kungsoo Park

It's very difficult to stand up against the chaebol, the large conglomerate companies. In the past decades, such conglomerates have been gaining ever greater power. Through its pro-market reforms, the government has provided much support for their growth. The law even protects big conglomerates from getting prosecuted for abuse of power or corruption. While I understood these realities intellectually, I only began to personally experience the significance of the current situation during the peace action against Samsung C&T.

WRI interviewed Jungmin Choi of World Without War in South Korea about the latest escalation between North and South Korea. Jungmin said that they were expecting a new escalation in the conflict following the change of leadership both in South and in North Korea, as they would both be trying to demonstrate their strength within their countries. Jungmin told us that life carries on as usual in South Korea, and that World Without War continue their work supporting conscientious objection to military service.

Interview with Jungmin Choi of World Without War in South Korea

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Jungmin Choi

We, the members of World without War, held a Movement Building Workshop in March of last year in collaboration with Andreas Speck from War Resisters’ International. The workshop used the Movement Action Plan (MAP) model to examine our campaigning, particularly in relation to government's abandonment of the previous administration's plan to address the issue of alternative service. Our campaign has been at a standstill since the inauguration of the current government.

The invisible prison after prison

Reading a newspaper recently, I came across the words of some young girls who left home: 'If I want to survive I should not trust people'. These are the exact words I repeatedly heard while I was in prison.

I didn't write after I got released. I wanted to, but it felt too hard. Although I sensed something simmering inside me, I was not able to figure out what it was. I felt helpless; I couldn't be bothered to do anything. I didn't want to meet people. Those were the times when I was obsessed with the thought of staying alone. I felt like I had forgotten how to have equal relationships. I was overwhelmed by the fear of how I would be accepted by others. I didn't do anything that might have caused loss to me either. I've asked myself if I am using the fact that I was in prison as an excuse to cover up who I really am. What if prison is not different from society at all, and I was just bewildered to be thrown out to the wild reality I had not recognised before?

Dear friends,

My name is Hülya Üçpınar, I am a human rights lawyer in Turkey. I write on returning from an exchange on nonviolence training co-hosted by War Resisters' International. The event reminded me of the distinctive contribution that WRI makes to movements for peace and antimilitarism.

Fundamentally, WRI is a network -- a collective of like-minded groups, each struggling against militarism and warmongering in our own contexts. With the support of two staff in the WRI office in London, we lend each other vital solidarity and encouragement.

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Gangjeong Style

Sitting at the gate of the illegal construction site by day

A classy girl who can enjoy the freedom of a cup of coffee

A girl whose heart gets fired up when the police arrive

A girl with that kind of unexpected side

I’m a defender

A defender whose sense of justice is as strong as yours

A defender who blocks that illegal construction before the coffee cools

A defender whose heart explodes when the police arrive

That kind of defender

Javier Gárate

During the first two weeks of October (2012), I visited South Korea, invited by the group World Without War to give a training for trainers in nonviolent action and to visit Gangjeong village, on Jeju Island, where people are resisting the construction of a naval base.

It is well known that South Korea is a militarised country, with the protracted conflict with North Korea being a permanent reminder of this militarisation.

For a decade WRI has been cooperating with South Korean antimilitarists. This began in 2001 when South Korean activists asked WRI for support in their work on conscientious objection. At that time there were hundreds of Jehovah's Witness COs in prison for their refusal to military service. In early 2002 political COs started to organise themselves, and WRI played an important role in supporting their work. Initially their CO work came more from a Human Rights perspective but rapidly it took a more antimilitarist approach, with nonviolence being an important identity for them. As nonviolence and antimilitarism took a more prominent role in their work, they started expanding their work beyond CO support. That is how World Without War (2003) came to existence as a group resisting war by nonviolent means.

Jungmin Choi

This morning I read an article entitled "Queer young South Koreans getting on the march" published in the Hankyoreh, a daily newspaper in South Korea. The article was about a Korean high school lesbian couple who has been together for almost 100 days (an important milestone in a South Korean relationship). The reporter wrote about how they loved each other but faced difficulties and discrimination as a sexual minority. As usual, some people on the internet responded to the article with hateful and unreasonable comments. I am very much used to such hatred but I was still hurt.

South Korea is a conservative country with strong patriarchal and heteronormative traditions, where queers and conscientious objectors have difficulty fitting in. Especially because the South Korea military maintains a conscription system, the military strongly influences the way in which Korean men's gender identity is shaped. “Masculinity” is something that I don't have, but in the conservative South Korean society people find it odd and make queers like me feel ashamed and embarrassed - which often leads us to blame ourselves for not being able to satisfy society's criteria of normality.